British Royal Family, Biographies and Histories - Page 5

BeatrixFan · #81 12-01-2011, 09:51 PM

Has anyone read The Memoirs of Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester (1981)? I've just bought it and was wondering if anyone had any pre-read views?

Mermaid1962 · #82 12-01-2011, 10:14 PM

I read it quite a while ago, perhaps in the early 90s. I did find it an interesting read. One thing I do remember is about her father telling her that if she married Prince Henry, she would be a servant to her country for her whole life.

**Warren** · #83 12-02-2011, 09:51 AM

It's certainly worth a read, Surprisingly, Lady Alice was quite the adventurer in her twenties, and a very good artist.

BeatrixFan · #84 12-02-2011, 11:28 AM

Thanks folks! Can't wait for it to arrive.

Kasumi · #85 01-23-2012, 01:10 PM

Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion by Anne Somerset (Harper Press).
The visionary queen who made our nation - Telegraph
Poor, poor Queen Anne, with her 17 pregnancies but no surviving children. She was fat, and far from brilliant, and could rarely find the right words in conversation. Her sharp-tongued friend and enemy, Sarah Churchill, criticised her “insipid heaviness”.
Anne Somerset, always such a sympathetic historian, tells Anne’s story movingly. Without overstating the case, she concludes that the Queen was both good and wise. She was selfless: even though, because of her childlessness, the throne would pass at her death to her “unloved and distant” Hanoverian cousins. She did whatever she could for the welfare of the countries whose thrones she had inherited.
There is so much rich material in thisbook but I shall concentrate on just one thing, because it is now so topical. Dull old Anne united England and Scotland. She created Great Britain. Three centuries later, a significant minority wants to break it up.