Click to see the photo at Belga

  Lord Frederick Windsor, the son of the Queen’s cousin Prince Michael of Kent, was married today to actress Sophie Winkleman. The wedding took place at the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court Palace, with a reception in the palace’s Great Hall. Princess Eugenie was the only senior royal attending the ceremony, but most of the extended Kent family were present, including the Duchess of Kent, who is rarely seen in public. The guests included many showbusiness personalities, reflecting the bride’s background as a television actress.

Miss Winkleman wore a silk and lace gown with a full skirt and ten-foot train and carried a trailing bouquet of white roses. She was attended by six young bridesmaids, also wearing white. Her gown was designed by Roza Couture, a favourite designer of Princess Michael’s.

After criticism of Peter Phillips for selling the rights to his wedding photos to a glossy magazine, it was reported that no such deal had been made for Lord Frederick’s wedding.

The couple plan to set up home in Los Angeles, where Sophie is currently working.

Lucia-mia British Royals Lord Frederick Windsor, Sophie Winkleman, Wedding

 It has been announced by the Swedish Court that Princess Madeleine is engaged to be married to her long-time boyfriend Jonas Bergström. After rumours of the engagement were published in some Swedish media outlets over the last few days, the news has become official with the announcement on the Swedish royal family website. It has been reported that the families of the couple had a celebratory dinner together on Sunday, ahead of the announcement. The wedding date has not yet been announced.

Princess Madeleine’s elder sister, Crown Princess Victoria, became engaged to her long-time boyfriend Daniel Westling earlier this year, and are set to marry on 19 June 2010. In contrast, their brother Prince Carl Philip has recently broken up with his long-term girlfriend Emma Pernald.

For more information about the engagement, see this thread.

Lucia-mia Swedish Royals Engagement, Jonas Bergström, Princess Madeleine

Click to see the photo at the BBC

 Today is the fourth anniversary of the terrorist attacks in London on 7 July 2005, and the day when the memorial to the victims was unveiled  in Hyde Park. Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall were present at the dedication ceremony, along with government officials and family members of the victims. The Prime Minister, the leaders of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, and the Mayor of London were among those present, along with Tessa Jowell, Minister for London.

The memorial was designed by the architecture firm Carmody Groarke. It consists of 52 11-foot-tall steel pillars, one for each of the victims killed by the terrorist bombs . The pillars stand in four groups, each group representing one of the attacks on a bus and three Underground trains. Each pillar is inscribed with the date and location of the attack; the names of the victims are inscribed on a plaque standing near the memorial.

In his speech, Prince Charles recalled the terrorist attack in 1979 which had taken the life of his great-uncle and honourary grandfather Lord Mountbatten.  He said, “I never fail to be amazed by the fortitude of the British people and it was this indomitable spirit, together with the commitment, compassion and doggedness of the emergency services, which got us through that day and the weeks to come.” In these sentiments, he echoed the words of his mother Queen Elizabeth II, who said on the day after the bombings, “I want to express my admiration for the people of our capital city who in the aftermath of yesterday’s bombings are calmly determined to resume their normal lives.”

 The Prince and the Duchess both laid wreaths at the foot of the plaque bearing the names of the victims, and the family members each placed a red rose and a white rose, symbolising love and peace, in urns next to the plaque.

For further discussion, see this thread. For more details about Prince Charles’s speech, please see this article at the Prince of Wales official website.

Lucia-mia British Royals Duchess of Cornwall, Memorial, Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, Terrorism

From the TRF avatar collection

 President Pratibha Patil of India has been invited to pay a state visit to Britain and will be visiting the Queen at Windsor from 27 to 29 October of this year. As is customary for visiting heads of state, President Patil will also meet with the Prime Minister and other senior government ministers. In all the years of the Queen’s reign, President Patil is only the fourth female head of state to pay a state visit, and is the first elected female head of state to do so (the other three being Queens Regnant – Queen Juliana, Queen Margrethe, and Queen Beatrix).

It has been reported that during her visit President Patil will invite the Queen to India next year to open the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.

Lucia-mia British Royals Elizabeth II, India, President Patil, State Visit

Click to see the image at the Daily Telegraph

 After several months of finger-pointing by the press and the governments involved, it was decided that the Queen would not attend the 65th-anniversary commemoration of D-Day in France, but that the Prince of Wales would represent her (see this blog). President Obama, President Sarkozy, Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada, and Prime Minister Gordon Brown also attended.

As reportedly planned by President Sarkozy, the commemoration was largely a Franco-American affair, with the contributions of the British and Canadian troops downplayed.

At the official commemoration at the Normandy American cemetary near Colleville-sur-Mer (Omaha Beach), speeches were made by Presidents Sarkozy and Obama and Prime Ministers Brown and Harper, but not by the Prince, whose only official action was to lay a wreath.

Earlier, the Prince had visited Arromanches, where many of the British troops landed on D-Day, and met with the veterans at the Commonwealth Cemetary. He also attended a memorial service arranged by the Royal British Legion at Bayeux Cathedral. Some of the veterans reportedly wanted to know why the Queen was not there, but they seemed pleased that a member of the royal family had travelled to France to join them in commemorating their fallen comrades.

Lucia-mia British Royals D-Day, Elizabeth II, France, President Obama, President Sarkozy, Prime Minister Brown, Prime Minister Harper, Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, World War II

 It has been reported that Daniel Westling, the fiance of Crown Princess Victoria, underwent a kidney transplant today to treat a congenital (but apparently not hereditary) kidney disease. The donor kidney came from Mr Westling’s father. Both Daniel and his father are reported to be doing well. The surgery apparently was scheduled some time in advance and is not an emergency procedure.

Crown Princess Victoria is currently in Greenland, along with Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and Crown Prince Haakon of Norway.

For more details, see this thread.

Lucia-mia Swedish Royals Daniel Westling, Princess Victoria, Surgery

Click for the Zimbio gallery

 Windsor Castle has been hosting the Royal Windsor Horse Show and the Windsor Castle Royal Tattoo this week. The Royal Windsor Horse Show has been held annually since 1943 and is a favourite of the Queen’s, who regularly puts in an appearance. This year was no exception, and the Queen braved the weather to attend several times. Prince Philip helped out with judging and with presentation of prizes.

On Saturday evening the Queen was presented for the fourth time in her reign with a horse by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The horse, named George, is a product of the RCMP Musical Ride programme. For more details, see this blog entry.

Click for the gallery at Getty Images

However, the most noteworthy event of the week from the point of view of royal watchers came earlier on Saturday, when the Earl and Countess of Wessex appeared at the show with their two children, Lady Louise and James (Viscount Severn). The two Wessex children are very rarely seen in public, their parents preferring to shield them from press attention. Not only did Edward and Sophie bring the children to the event, but also the family posed for photographers. This is the first time James has been seen in public since he was a baby, and the first time that photographers have managed to get good photos of Louise. The photos show that Lady Louise bears an uncanny resemblance to the Queen at the same age. After the recent unfavourable publicity surrounding the York princesses and the subsequent questioning of the need for royal protection officers for the offspring of the Queen’s younger children, it was pleasant to see the Wessex family in a familiarly royal environment.

Lucia-mia British Royals Countess of Wessex, Earl of Wessex, Elizabeth II, Horses, Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor, RCMP, Royal Windsor Horse Show, Viscount Severn, Windsor Castle Royal Tattoo

 Prince Charles gave a speech at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) last night to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the organisation. He has a long history of controversial ideas about architecture, particularly modern architecture, going back to his comment in the early 1980s that the winning design for a proposed addition to the National Gallery was akin to “a monstrous carbuncle on the face of an elegant and much-loved friend.” The design was dropped as a result of the Prince’s criticism, and he and the modern-architecture community have been at loggerheads ever since. They accuse him of being idealistic and out of touch, and he accuses them of being insensitive and self-centred.

His crusade against modernism flared up again recently when he objected to the proposed modernist design for a housing scheme to be erected on the site of the Chelsea Barracks and supported an alternative design by one of his favourite architects, Quinlan Terry. He used his royal connections to write privately to the royal family of Qatar, which owns the site, to express concerns about the proposal.

Set against this background, Tuesday’s speech was awaited with some interest. There had been calls by some RIBA members, particularly Will Alsop, to boycott the speech in protest against what they feel is unjustified meddling by the Prince in the Chelsea Barracks development. However, the turnout was unaffected and the Prince spoke to a full house. His tone was conciliatory, but his message about the inappropriateness of much modern architecture was unchanged. He likened the practice of modern architecture to the short-term approach and unsustainable practices that have characterised the financial sector in recent years and said, “Architecture defines the public realm, and it should help to define us as human beings, and to symbolize the way we look at the world.”

The reactions to his speech were mixed, with architects appearing to conclude that while the Prince went out of his way to assure the community that he was not interested in fighting them, his basic opinions have remained essentially unchanged since his 1984 “monstrous carbuncle” speech at RIBA’s 150th anniversary.

For more details about Prince Charles’s interest in architecture, see this thread. Read a transcript of his speech here.

Lucia-mia British Royals Architecture, Prince Charles, Prince of Wales

 Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall met with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican on Monday. The Prince and the Duchess had a 15-minute audience with the Pope, followed by a meeting with the secretary of state for the Prince and a tour of the Vatican buildings for Camilla. Unusually, the Duchess was present throughout the entire meeting with the Pope; wives of visiting dignitaries are generally admitted only at the end of the audience. It is reported that the conversation included environmental concerns and global warming, an issue where the Prince and the Vatican are in agreement.

As is usual during official visits, gifts were exchanged; the Prince presented the Pope with a set of ceramic plates decorated with watercolour paintings of flowers from the Highgrove gardens and a signed photograph of himself and his wife, while the Pope gave the Prince a 500-year-old drawing of St Peter’s Basilica. It had been rumoured that the Pope’s gift would be a copy of the letter requesting an annulment of the marriage between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon; however, wiser heads prevailed.

The Prince and Duchess are also visiting Italy and Germany before returning to England on Thursday. For more information about their trip, see this thread.

Lucia-mia British Royals Duchess of Cornwall, Official Visit, Pope Benedict XVI, Prince Charles, Prince of Wales

 31 March 2009. Princess Anne, accompanied by Vice Admiral Laurence, is visiting the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, a part of the world she last visited in 2007. She was invited by the South Georgia Heritage Trust, an organisation of which she is Patron.

In the Falkland Islands, the Princess has carried out a series of engagements similar to those she might perform in Britain, visiting a police station, a fire station, a lighthouse, and a couple of  schools, among others. The following day, she visited a riding school and  toured a power station.

On arrival in South Georgia, Princess Anne and Vice Admiral Laurence visited Bird Island to tour the British Antarctic Survey research station. She also visited Everson House research laboratory and the Government of South Georgia Sustainable Energy Project at Grytviken. As well as these scientific engagements, Princess Anne opened the Carr Maritime Gallery at South Georgia Museum.

The official website of the South Georgia Heritage trust is here.

Lucia-mia British Royals Falkland Islands, Official Visit, Patronage, Princess Anne, Princess Royal, South Georgia, Timothy Laurence