Joan of Kent
Joan of Kent, known to history as The Fair Maid of Kent, was the mother of King Richard II of England, whom she bore to her third husband Edward the Black Prince and heir of King Edward III. Although the French chronicler Jean Froissart called her "the most beautiful woman in all the realm of England, the most loving", the appellation "Fair Maid of Kent" does not appear to be contemporary. Joan assumed the title of fourth Countess of Kent and fifth Baroness Wake of Liddell after the death of her brother, John, in 1352. Joan was the daughter of Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent, Margaret Wake, 3rd Baroness Wake of Liddell, her father Edmund was the son of King Edward I by his second wife, Margaret of France, daughter of Philip III of France. Edmund was always a loyal supporter of his elder half-brother, King Edward II of England, which placed him in conflict with the queen, Isabella of France, her lover Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March. Edmund was executed after Edward II was deposed, his wife and four children placed under house arrest in Arundel Castle.
It was a time of great strain for the widowed countess of her four children. They took charge of affairs, he looked after them well. Incidentally, his wife, Queen Philippa, was Joan's second cousin. In 1340, at the age of twelve, Joan secretly married 26-year-old Thomas Holland of Upholland, without first gaining the royal consent necessary for couples of their rank. Shortly after the wedding, Holland left for the continent as part of the English expedition into Flanders and France; the following winter, while Holland was overseas, Joan's family arranged for her to marry William Montacute and heir of the first Earl of Salisbury. The 13-year-old Joan said nothing and married Montacute, her own age. Joan said that she did not reveal her existing marriage with Thomas Holland because she was afraid it would lead to Holland's execution for treason, she may have become convinced that the earlier marriage was invalid. Montacute's father died in 1344 and he became the 2nd Earl of Salisbury; when Holland returned from the French campaigns around 1348, his marriage to Joan was revealed.
Holland confessed the secret marriage to the King, appealed to the Pope for the return of his wife. Salisbury kept Joan confined to his home until, in 1349, Pope Clement VI annulled Joan's marriage to the Earl and sent her back to Thomas Holland. Over the next eleven years, Thomas Holland and Joan had five children: Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter Lady Joan Holland, who married John IV, Duke of Brittany. Lady Maud Holland, who married firstly Hugh Courtenay and secondly Waleran III of Luxembourg, Count of Ligny. Edmund Holland, who died young, he was buried in the church of London. Descendants of Joan of Kent through her children Lady Joan and Thomas Holland include Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, queens consort Anne Neville, Elizabeth of York, Catherine Parr; when the last of Joan's siblings died in 1352, the lands and titles of her parents devolved upon her, she became the 4th Countess of Kent and 5th Baroness Wake of Liddell. Her husband Holland was created Earl of Kent in right of his wife.
Evidence of the desire held by Edward, the Black Prince for Joan may be found in the record of his presenting her with a silver cup, part of the booty from one of his early military campaigns. Edward's parents did not, favour a marriage between their son and their former ward. Queen Philippa had made a favourite of Joan at first, but both she and the King seem to have been concerned about Joan's reputation. Further, English law was such that Joan's living ex-husband, might have claimed any children of her subsequent marriages as his own. In addition and Joan were within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity. In any case, Joan's husband Holland did not die until Christmas 1360. After his death, the Black Prince pursued the matter with his father, who yielded; that still left the matter of consanguinity to be resolved. At the King's request, the Pope granted a dispensation allowing the two to be married. Matters moved fast, Joan was married to the Prince nine months after Holland's death; the official ceremony occurred on 10 October 1361 at Windsor Castle, with the King and Queen in attendance.
The Archbishop of Canterbury presided. In 1362, the Black Prince was invested as Prince of Aquitaine, a region of France that had belonged to the English Crown since the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Henry II, he and Joan moved to Bordeaux, the capital of the principality, where they spent the next nine years. Two sons were born during this period to the royal couple; the elder son, named Edward after his father and grandfather, died at the age of six. Around the time of the birth of their younger son, the Prince was lured into a war on behalf of King Peter of Castile; the ensuing battle was one of the Black Prince's greatest victories. In the meantime, the Princess was forced to raise another army, because the Prince's enemies were threatening Aquitaine in his absence. By 1371, the Black Prince was no longer able to perform his duties as Prince of Aquitaine due to illness, shortly after burying their elder son the couple
Charles, Prince of Wales
Charles, Prince of Wales is the heir apparent to the British throne as the eldest child of Queen Elizabeth II. He has been Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay since 1952, is the oldest and longest-serving heir apparent in British history, he is the longest-serving Prince of Wales, having held that title since 1958. Charles was born at Buckingham Palace as the first grandchild of King George Queen Elizabeth, he was educated at Cheam and Gordonstoun schools, which his father, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, had attended as a child, as well as the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, Australia. After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Cambridge, Charles served in the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy from 1971 to 1976. In 1981, he married Lady Diana Spencer and they had two sons: Prince William —later to become Duke of Cambridge—and Prince Harry —later to become Duke of Sussex. In 1996, the couple divorced following well-publicised extramarital affairs by both parties.
Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris the following year. In 2005, Charles married long-time partner Camilla Parker Bowles; as Prince of Wales, Charles undertakes official duties on behalf of the Queen and the Commonwealth realms. Charles founded The Prince's Trust in 1976, sponsors The Prince's Charities, is a patron, president and a member of over 400 other charities and organisations; as an environmentalist, he raises awareness of organic farming and climate change which has earned him awards and recognition from environmental groups. His support for alternative medicine, including homeopathy, has been criticised by some in the medical community and his views on the role of architecture in society and the conservation of historic buildings have received considerable attention from British architects and design critics. Since 1993, Charles has worked on the creation of Poundbury, an experimental new town based on his preferences, he is an author and co-author of a number of books. Charles was born at Buckingham Palace in London during the reign of his maternal grandfather George VI on 14 November 1948, at 9:14 pm, the first child of Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, first grandchild of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.
He was baptised in the palace's Music Room by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, on 15 December 1948. The death of his grandfather and the accession of his mother as Queen Elizabeth II in 1952 made Charles her heir apparent; as the monarch's eldest son, he automatically took the titles Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland. Charles attended his mother's coronation at Westminster Abbey on 2 June 1953; as was customary for upper-class children at the time, a governess, Catherine Peebles, was appointed and undertook his education between the ages of five and eight. Buckingham Palace announced in 1955 that Charles would attend school rather than have a private tutor, making him the first heir apparent to be educated in that manner. On 7 November 1956, Charles commenced classes in west London, he did not receive preferential treatment from the school's founder and headmaster, Stuart Townend, who advised the Queen to have Charles train in football because the boys were never deferential to anyone on the football field.
Charles attended two of his father's former schools, Cheam Preparatory School in Berkshire, from 1958, followed by Gordonstoun in the north-east of Scotland, beginning classes there in April 1962. Though he described Gordonstoun, noted for its rigorous curriculum, as "Colditz in kilts", Charles subsequently praised Gordonstoun, stating it had taught him "a great deal about myself and my own abilities and disabilities, it taught me to accept challenges and take the initiative." In a 1975 interview, he said he was "glad" he had attended Gordonstoun and that the "toughness of the place" was "much exaggerated". He spent two terms in 1966 at the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, during which time he visited Papua New Guinea on a school trip with his history tutor, Michael Collins Persse. In 1973, Charles described his time at Timbertop as the most enjoyable part of his whole education. Upon his return to Gordonstoun, Charles emulated his father in becoming Head Boy, he left in 1967, with six GCE O-levels and two A-levels in history and French, at grades B and C respectively.
On his early education, Charles remarked, "I didn't enjoy school as much as I might have, but, only because I'm happier at home than anywhere else."Charles broke royal tradition a second time when he proceeded straight to university after his A-levels, rather than joining the British Armed Forces. In October 1967, he was admitted to Trinity College, where he read anthropology and history. During his second year, Charles attended the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth, studying Welsh history and language for a term, he graduated from Cambridge with a 2:2 Bachelor of Arts on 23 June 1970, the first heir apparent to earn a university degree. On 2 August 1975, he was awarded a Master of Arts degree from Cambridge, in accordance with the university's practice. Charles was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester on 26 July 1958, though his investiture was not held until 1 July 1969, when he was crowned by his mother in a televised ceremony held at Caernarfon Castle, he took his seat in the House of Lords in 1970, he made his maiden speech at a debate in June 1974, becoming the first royal to speak in the Lords since his great-great-grandfather Edward VII speaking as Prince of Wales, in 1884.
Ch
Mary I of England
Mary I known as Mary Tudor, was the Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death. She is best known for her aggressive attempt to reverse the English Reformation, which had begun during the reign of her father, Henry VIII; the executions that marked her pursuit of the restoration of Roman Catholicism in England and Ireland led to her denunciation as "Bloody Mary" by her Protestant opponents. Mary was the only child of Henry VIII by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, to survive to adulthood, her younger half-brother Edward VI succeeded their father in 1547 at the age of nine. When Edward became mortally ill in 1553, he attempted to remove Mary from the line of succession because he supposed that she would reverse the Protestant reforms that had begun during his reign. On his death, leading politicians proclaimed Lady Jane Grey as queen. Mary speedily assembled a force in East Anglia and deposed Jane, beheaded. Mary was—excluding the disputed reigns of Jane and the Empress Matilda—the first queen regnant of England.
In 1554, Mary married Philip of Spain, becoming queen consort of Habsburg Spain on his accession in 1556. During her five-year reign, Mary had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake in the Marian persecutions. After Mary's death in 1558, her re-establishment of Roman Catholicism was reversed by her younger half-sister and successor Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn, at the beginning of the 45-year Elizabethan era. Mary was born on 18 February 1516 at the Palace of Placentia in England, she was the only child of his first wife Catherine of Aragon to survive infancy. Her mother had suffered many miscarriages. Before Mary's birth, four previous pregnancies had resulted in a stillborn daughter and three short-lived or stillborn sons, including Henry, Duke of Cornwall. Mary was baptised into the Catholic faith at the Church of the Observant Friars in Greenwich three days after her birth, her godparents included Lord Chancellor Thomas Wolsey. Henry VIII's cousin once removed, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, stood sponsor for Mary's confirmation, held after the baptism.
The following year, Mary became a godmother herself when she was named as one of the sponsors of her cousin Frances Brandon. In 1520, the Countess of Salisbury was appointed Mary's governess. Sir John Hussey Lord Hussey, was her chamberlain from 1530, his wife, Lady Anne, daughter of George Grey, 2nd Earl of Kent, was one of Mary's attendants. Mary was a precocious child. In July 1520, when scarcely four and a half years old, she entertained a visiting French delegation with a performance on the virginals. A great part of her early education came from her mother, who consulted the Spanish humanist Juan Luis Vives for advice and commissioned him to write De Institutione Feminae Christianae, a treatise on the education of girls. By the age of nine, Mary could write Latin, she studied French, music and Greek. Henry VIII doted on his daughter and boasted to the Venetian ambassador Sebastian Giustiniani, "This girl never cries"; as the miniature portrait of her shows, Mary had, like both her parents, a fair complexion, pale blue eyes and red or reddish-golden hair.
She was ruddy cheeked, a trait she inherited from her father. Despite his affection for Mary, Henry was disappointed that his marriage had produced no sons. By the time Mary was nine years old, it was apparent that Henry and Catherine would have no more children, leaving Henry without a legitimate male heir. In 1525, Henry sent Mary to the border of Wales to preside in name only, over the Council of Wales and the Marches, she was given her own court based at Ludlow Castle and many of the royal prerogatives reserved for the Prince of Wales. Vives and others called her the Princess of Wales, although she was never technically invested with the title, she appears to have spent three years in the Welsh Marches, making regular visits to her father's court, before returning permanently to the home counties around London in mid-1528. Throughout Mary's childhood, Henry negotiated potential future marriages for her; when she was only two years old, she was promised to Francis, the infant son of King Francis I of France, but the contract was repudiated after three years.
In 1522, at the age of six, she was instead contracted to marry her 22-year-old first cousin, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. However, the engagement was broken off within a few years by Charles with Henry's agreement. Cardinal Wolsey, Henry's chief adviser resumed marriage negotiations with the French, Henry suggested that Mary marry the Dauphin's father, King Francis I himself, eager for an alliance with England. A marriage treaty was signed which provided that Mary marry either Francis I or his second son Henry, Duke of Orleans, but Wolsey secured an alliance with France without the marriage. According to the Venetian Mario Savorgnano, by this time Mary was developing into a pretty, well-proportioned young lady with a fine complexion. Meanwhile, the marriage of Mary's parents was in jeopardy. Disappointed at the lack of a male heir, eager to remarry, Henry attempted to have his marriage to Catherine annulled, but Pope Clement VII refused his request. Henry claimed, citing biblical passages, that his marriage to Catherine was unclean because she was the widow of his brother Arthur.
Catherine claimed so was not a valid marriage. Her first marriage had been annulled by a previous pope, Julius II, on t
Death of Diana, Princess of Wales
On 31 August 1997, Princess of Wales died in hospital as a result of injuries sustained in a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris, France. Her companion, Dodi Fayed, the driver of the Mercedes S280, Henri Paul, were pronounced dead at the scene. A fourth passenger in the car, bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, was injured but survived. Although the media blamed the behaviour of the paparazzi who followed the car, a French judicial investigation in 1999 found that the crash was caused by Henri Paul, who lost control of the Mercedes at high speed while he was intoxicated and under the effects of prescription drugs; as a result, it was confirmed that no criminal charges would be issued against any of the pursuing photographers. Paul was the deputy head of security at the Hôtel Ritz at the time of the crash and had goaded the paparazzi waiting outside the hotel earlier, his inebriation may have been made worse by anti-depressants and traces of an anti-psychotic in his body. The investigation concluded.
After hearing evidence at the British inquest in 2008, a jury returned a verdict of "unlawful killing" by Paul and the paparazzi pursuing the car. Diana's death caused a substantial outpouring of worldwide grief, including numerous floral tributes, her funeral was watched by an estimated 2 billion people; the Royal Family were criticised in the press for their reaction to Diana's death. On Saturday, 30 August 1997, Diana left Sardinia on a private jet and arrived in Paris with Dodi Fayed, the son of Mohamed Al-Fayed, they had stopped there en route to London, having spent the preceding nine days together on board Mohamed Al-Fayed's yacht Jonikal on the French and Italian Riviera. They had intended to stay there for the night. Mohamed Al-Fayed is the owner of the Hôtel Ritz Paris, he owned an apartment in Rue Arsène Houssaye, a short distance from the hotel, just off the Avenue des Champs Elysées. Henri Paul, the deputy head of security at the Ritz Hotel, had been instructed to drive the hired black 1994 Mercedes-Benz S280 in order to elude the paparazzi.
Diana and Fayed departed from the hotel's rear entrance, Rue Cambon at around 00:20 on 31 August CEST, heading for the apartment in Rue Arsène Houssaye. They did this to avoid the nearly 30 photographers waiting in the front of the hotel, they were the rear passengers. It was believed that Dodi were not wearing seat belts. After leaving the Rue Cambon and crossing the Place de la Concorde, they drove along Cours la Reine and Cours Albert 1er – the embankment road along the right bank of the River Seine – into the Place de l'Alma underpass. At 12:23 a.m. Paul lost control of the vehicle at the entrance to the Pont de l'Alma tunnel; the car struck the righthand wall and swerved to the left of the two-lane carriageway before it collided head-on with the 13th pillar that supported the roof. The car was travelling at an estimated speed of 105 km/h, it spun and hit the stone wall of the tunnel backwards coming to a stop. The impact caused substantial damage to the front half of the vehicle, as there was no guard rail between the pillars to prevent this.
Witnesses arriving shortly after the accident reported smoke. Witnesses reported that photographers on motorcycles "swarmed the Mercedes sedan before it entered the tunnel." As the four occupants lay in the wrecked car, the photographers, driving slower and were accordingly some distance behind the Mercedes, reached the scene. The photographers were on motorcycles; some tried to open the doors and help the victims, while some of them took pictures. Airbags were deployed. Police arrived on scene around 10 minutes after the crash at 00:30 and an ambulance was on site five minutes after the police, according to witnesses. France Info radio reported that one photographer was beaten by witnesses who were horrified by the scene. Five of the photographers were taken into custody. Two others were detained and around 20 rolls of film were taken from the photographers. Police impounded their vehicles. Firemen arrived to help remove the victims. Still conscious, Rees-Jones had suffered a head contusion; the front occupants' airbags had functioned normally.
The occupants were not wearing seat belts. Diana, sitting in the right rear passenger seat, was still conscious. Critically injured, Diana was reported to murmur "Oh my God," and after the photographers and other helpers were pushed away by police, "Leave me alone." In June 2007, the Channel 4 documentary Diana: The Witnesses in the Tunnel claimed that the first person to touch Diana was Dr. Maillez, who chanced upon the scene, he reported that Diana was in shock. Diana was removed from the car at 1:00 am, she went into cardiac arrest and following external cardiopulmonary resuscitation, her heart started beating again. She was moved to the SAMU ambulance at 1:18 am, left the scene at 1:41 am and arrived at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital at 2:06 am. Fayed was shortly afterwards pronounced dead. Paul was declared dead on removal from the wreckage. Both were taken to the Paris mortuary, not to a hospital. Paul was found to have a blood alcohol level of 0.175 grams per 100 mL of blood – about 3.5 times the legal limit in France.
Despite attempts to save her, Diana's internal injuries were too extensive: her hear
Royal Highness
Royal Highness is a style used to address or refer to some members of royal families princes or princesses. Monarchs and their consorts are styled Majesty; when used as a direct form of address, spoken or written, it takes the form "Your Royal Highness". When used as a third-person reference, it is gender-specific and, in plural, Their Royal Highnesses. By the 17th century, all local rulers in Italy adopted the style Highness, once used by kings and emperors only. According to Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie, the style of Royal Highness was created on the insistence of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, Cardinal-Infante of Spain, a younger son of King Philip III of Spain; the Archduke was travelling through Italy on his way to the Low Countries and, upon meeting Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy, refused to address him as Highness unless the Duke addressed him as Royal Highness. Thus, the first use of the style Royal Highness was recorded in 1633. Gaston, Duke of Orléans, younger son of King Henry IV of France, encountered the style in Brussels and assumed it himself.
His children used the style, considering it their prerogative as grandchildren of France. By the 18th century, Royal Highness had become the prevalent style for members of a continental reigning dynasty whose head bore the hereditary title of king or queen; the titles of family members of non-hereditary rulers were less clear, varying until rendered moot in the 19th century. After dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, several of Germany's prince-electors and other now sovereign rulers assumed the title of grand duke and with it, for themselves, their eldest sons and consorts, the style of Royal Highness; the vast majority of African royalty that make use of titles such as prince and sheikh, eschew the attendant styles that one would ordinarily be accustomed to seeing or hearing in accompaniment. In the cases of the aforesaid titles, they only exist as courtesies and may or may not have been recognised by a reigning fons honorum. However, some traditional leaders and their family members use royal styles when acting in their official roles as representatives of sovereign or constituent states, distinguishing their status from others who may use or claim traditional titles.
For example, the Nigerian traditional rulers of the Yoruba are styled using the HRH The X of Y method though they are confusingly known as kings in English and not the princes that the HRH style suggests. The chiefly appellation Kabiyesi is used as the equivalent of the HRH and other such styles by this class of royalty when rendering their full titles in the Yoruba language. Furthermore, the wives of the king of the Zulu peoples, although all entitled to the title of queen, do not share their husband's style of Majesty but instead are each addressed as Royal Highness, with the possible exception of the great wife; the title of Archduke or Archduchess of Austria was known to be complemented with the style of Royal Highness to all non-reigning of the members of the House of Habsburg and the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. Though the Habsburgs held the Imperial crown of the Holy Roman Empire, it was nominally an elective office that could not be hereditarily transmitted, so the non-reigning family members took their style from them being members of the hereditary Royal family of Hungary and Bohemia, etc.
This changed when Francis I of Austria dissolved the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, as the Archduchy of Austria was elevated to an Empire in 1804, the members of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine abandoned the style of Royal Highness in favour of the style of Imperial and Royal Highness to reflect the creation of the Empire of Austria. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Former Empress Marie Louise of France was restored to her Imperial and Royal Style and granted the title of Duchess of Parma and Guastalla, as well as being restored to her premarital title of Archduchess and Imperial Princess of Austria, Royal Princess of Hungary and Bohemia; the title of "Prince/Princess of the Netherlands" with the accompanying style of H. R. H. is or may be granted by law to the following classes of persons: A former monarch upon abdication. The heir apparent to the throne; the husband of the monarch. The spouse of the heir apparent; the legitimate children of the monarch and the wife of any legitimate son of the monarch.
The legitimate children of the heir apparent. A separate title of "Prince/Princess of Orange-Nassau" may be granted by law to members of the Dutch royal house or, as a personal and non-hereditary title to former members of the royal house within three months of loss of membership. A Prince/Princess of Orange-Nassau, not a Prince/Princess of the Netherlands is addressed as "His/Her Highness" without the predicate "royal"; that is the case for example of the children of Princess Margriet, younger daughter of the late Queen Juliana. Members of the royal house or former members of the royal house within 3 months of loss of their membership may be inducted by royal decree into the Dutch nobility with a rank lower than prince/princess and the accompanying style of "His/Her Highborn Lord/Lady"; that is the case for example of the children of the younger brother of King Willem-Alexander, Prince Constantijn, who were given the titles of "Count/Countess of Orange-Nassau" and the
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