British Royals

Wedding days can make the British royal family’s world look like fairy-tale bliss. But a harsh reality confronts outsiders marrying into the House of Windsor.No, they no longer face losing their head if they fall out of favor, as some distant ancestors once did. Still, Meghan ...read more

If you were a royal in the late part of the 19th century, there’s a good chance you were related to Queen Victoria—and if Victoria was your grandmother, you were pretty much guaranteed a glamorous royal wedding to a prince or princess of her choosing.“Victoria’s descendants ...read more

For much of their courtship, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s romance spanned an ocean. Although they are from different countries and radically different backgrounds—one a British royal, the other an American actress—modern travel and technology made their trans-Atlantic romance ...read more

When Prince Harry announced his engagement to actress Meghan Markle, the world rejoiced—and immediately began to analyze what it will mean for a biracial woman to take a prominent place as a British royal. Markle, whose mother is African-American and whose father is white, was ...read more

When Prince Harry weds Meghan Markle, he won’t just be breaking the mold by marrying an American actress. Markle is also divorced—her two-year-long marriage to producer Trevor Engelson ended in 2013. That’s a big deal: Marrying a divorced person was taboo among the British ...read more

Who’s in Elizabeth II’s family tree? Various European kings and queens may come to mind, but the Prophet Muhammad may not. Unless you open up a British tabloid these days, that is—publications like The Daily Mail and The Daily Express have recently run breathless pieces claiming ...read more

During World War II, the British royal family’s most precious gems were buried underground at Windsor Castle to protect them from discovery by the Nazis, a new documentary reveals.With Britain under air attack from the mighty German Luftwaffe, King George VI ordered palace staff ...read more

Netflix’s hit TV series The Crown, which goes deep inside the private world of Queen Elizabeth II and Britain’s royal family, chronicles their lives within the sweep of global events during and after World War II—from the Suez Crisis to John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Below, our ...read more

She was one of the Royal Family’s most trusted confidantes. She helped bring up a future Queen. Her loyalty and loving care were rewarded with royal favor and even a rent-free home for life.But in 1950, Marion “Crawfie” Crawford, beloved Scottish governess of Princesses Elizabeth ...read more

At Elizabeth II’s coronation at Westminster Abbey in 1953, all eyes should have been on the new monarch. But someone elsestole the show that afternoon: Princess Margaret. At the televised event, the queen’s sister picked a piece of lint from the lapel of Peter Townsend, a war ...read more

With the joyful announcement that Prince Harry is engaged to his American girlfriend, Meghan Markle, the world saw a refreshingly modern side to the British royal family. After all, Markle is not only American and an actress. She’s also bi-racial and divorced—not exactly the ...read more

The United States woke up on November 27, 2017, to some exciting news: American actress and humanitarian Meghan Markle is engaged to Prince Harry of Wales. Yet not everyone is so pleased. When Kensington Palace announced their engagement, the conservative U.K. magazine The ...read more

For many women over the centuries, marriage to a royal consort has not been the fairytale we believe it to be. They battled drunk husbands, loveless marriages, led coups, killed off husbands, or sometimes quietly waited for good fortune to come their way. These women took fate ...read more

Abdication is the legal and formal act of giving up authority as the ruling monarch of a sovereign nation. Generally, kingdoms institute a process for managing the abdication of ruling monarch to foster a smooth transition. However, the controversy surrounding the 1936 abdication ...read more

Princess Diana—who married into British royalty, only to later be divorced from it—devoted herself to charitable causes and became a global icon before dying in a car accident in Paris in 1997. When she married Prince Charles in 1981, Lady Diana Spencer became the first ...read more

Succession, or the transition of power from one ruler to the next, hasn’t always been smooth in Great Britain or other monarchies, but it has served as a template for governments around the world. In the United States, the line of presidential succession was established by the ...read more

Westminster Abbey is one of the most famous religious buildings in the world, and it has served an important role in British political, social and cultural affairs for more than 1,000 years. In spite of its name, the facility is no longer an abbey, and while it still hosts ...read more

The Tower of London is one of the world’s oldest and most famous prisons, though its original purpose was not to house criminals. In fact, the Tower, which is actually a complex of several towers and structures, was built in the latter part of the 11th century as fortress to ...read more