How did you get interested in royalty?

[Leah2016]

I've always been interested in royalty. I remember, when I was very young, I always wanted to be a princess. Years later, I started doing genealogy research, when I found that I am distantly related to many of the European monarchies. I was shocked when I found that out! I started doing a lot more research on monarchies after that.

[Meraude]

Living in a country that is a monarchy it was quite natural for me to become interested in the Swedish royal family, as there were articles and photos of the king and the rest of his family in magazines and newspapers, and also of royals from other countries. The more I read about king Gustaf VI Adolf, the more I admired him as a person (I was 15 when he died) and I also admired prince Bertil and later princess Lilian. I was also fascinated by the love story between Harald and Sonja of Norway, their engagement and wedding was the first royal wedding I remember watching.

An other reason for my interest in royalty is that I love history and reading about historical persons, both fiction and non-fiction books, and royals have often played a major part in history through the ages, from the ancient pharaohs until World War I, not just in wars and governing countries, but also when it comes to culture, such as building castles and collecting art, supporting artists and so on.

[nascarlucy]

I became interested in royalty after reading a book about French royalty. I was about 17 years old at the time. I think in my case the interest had a lot to do with the fact that royals live very different lives than others.

[HereditaryPrincess]

Prince William and Catherine Middleton's wedding back in 2011 got me interested in royalty. Also, When I was little, I remember having lots of Princess- style dressing up clothes and accessories. I used to spend rainy days playing at being a princess and practicing the royal wave!

I also agree with Meraude, about the fact that it's quite natural for people who live in a country with a monarchy to become more interested in it.

[Grandma828]

I got interested back when Princess Elizabeth was going to marry Philip. I was a starry eyed young girl with big dreams. And yes, I am that old.

[nascarlucy]

My interest in royalty prior to Princess Diana getting married was of the Stuart Line or royals of the past. I've read several books on King Charles II and his brother King James. Why I was fascinated with these two Monarchs I don't know. Still am to a certain degree. Watched a movie about Henry VIII and his wives.

Didn't really follow the British monarchy until Prince Charles was engaged to Princess Diana. My interest in royalty further deepened when Princess Diana married Prince Charles. The fact that she was in my age group (I'm a year younger than her) probably factored into my interest. I got a book about the royal wedding. The book had a family tree on Princess Diana which I found to be quite interesting.

[Dman]

When I was a little kid I thought royalty was something made up in the childrens books and cartoons. Once I became a young teen, my interest in royalty began.

My family think it's wierd that I'm interested in what's going on in the royal world. They don't think it's right to know a great deal about The Queen and the royal family. It really ignored them when I became too excited about William & Catherine's engagement and wedding, lol.

[Mariel]

Like Leah, I discovered tantalizing royal relationships in my distant Scottish past. I had not known ANYThING about these people until I googled my grandma's maiden name from Scotland and came to the Clan Pollock website. This site gave me some beginning information about relationships, but I had to go much further afield to really trace the connections. Unfortunately I have Porphyria, which some royals have had, and I therefore kept looking and going deeper through that milieu. The modern royals will almost never give one a clue about this, which I think is too bad, but it does add to their mystique. If you think they are clammed up about other things....they never talk about genetic weaknesses. They are supposed to be genetically super.

And then I found this fun site here at TRF. And it's habit forming. The pictures and stories are wonderful and a great relief after looking at the serious things out there.

[someonelikeyou]

I enjoy the history, the people, the clothes, jewels and pageantry... I find it all fascinating.

I remember my mom waking me up at 5am to watch the wedding of Charles and Diana. In April 2011 my daughter (then 11) and I spent the day in bed watching all the coverage of William and Catherine's wedding. So fun!

[nascarlucy]

When I was younger, I wanted to be a Princess. I wanted to be pampered and fussed over (still do). I liked other people doing things for me as opposed to me having to do certain things.

[christythedreamer]

My love for Infanta Leonor (lol) and the princess/fairytales books/movies/cartoons when I was a child lol

[tlklhm]

It started when Japan Prince Akishino announced his engagement to Kiko Kawashima in 1989. Maybe because it's a Asia royal wedding, my country's newspapers carried lots of reports almost everyday and it got me interested. From there, it slowly widen to other royal families.

[mrsbugman]

Diana,The Princess of Wales. First engagement pictures and all that jazz.

[nascarlucy]

Once I became interested in Princess Diana, also followed to a certain degree Prince Andrew and Fergie and to a much less degree Prince Edward. Because I'm in their age group, this is perhaps why I was interested in following them.

My interest widen where it included other groups of royalty. Some of it had to do with the royals coming from the countries where my ancestors came from, others I just found rather interesting. Sometimes a story about royals would be interesting to me. Sometimes I felt a connection to them that I couldn't explain. For me, it was a wide range of things relating to royalty.

[nascarlucy]

When I was in high school I also read a book about King Charles and his mistress Neill Gwynn. I couldn't put the book down. After that, I would often spend time in a college library reading about British monarchs and the monarchs brothers, if they had any.

For some reason I wanted to know who their spouses where, how many children they had, if they had a mistress, and if they did, how many children did they have with the mistress. Couldn't really find out too much information about this at the high school library (information about the mistress was omited). Went to a college library and found a wealth of information.

Very unusual interest for a 17 year old girl, I must say. My family couldn't understand why I was so interested in this topic. The fact that a woman who was just a regular person could catch the eye of a prince or King I found rather fascinating. Most of these women were not royal and some came from very poor backgrounds.

Throughout my senior year of high school, I spent a lot of time reading about this. It was after I found out that I was adopted that this interest started to wane (I wasn't actively looking for this).

[AfricanAUSSIE]

The Australian Referendum on the Republic got me started as I knew NADA about the Brit RF. Henry twitched my interest with his fun loving personality but his occasional vulgar behaviour has tarnished my view of him.

[Danishla]

Living in Europe . . . it's hard to miss; besides I love the stories, the beauty and somehow the mystery which surrounds the monarchies. There are so many points of connection with culture, history, religion, art . . .

[Pranter]

Love history, so naturally when reading about European history you run across the royal families. I don't even know when exactly..it just evolved.


LaRae

[Queen Camilla]

I don't recall ever not knowing about royalty. I was already into British royal history and old movies before I was 11 years old, so I was familar with Grace Kelly becoming a Princess & the British line of succession.

[Bangsamoro]

I got interested with royalties because they are entrusted to perform rituals and pageantry reflecting the culture and tradition of their respective country.