There are far more former monarchies than reigning monarchies in the world left. In the years to come only more monarchies will disappear and become a republic. Nowadays there is a lot of criticism on the work ethics, the finances, the private holidays and a lot of other subjects. You have to be seen to […]
© Hudsoncrafted / Pixabay
The way magazines and newspapers report about royal families online, especially in the United Kingdom, gets more and more irritating. Royalty seems to be a kind of theme everybody has an opinion about, yet it isn’t exactly easy to actually understand royal families and monarchies. One has the royal correspondents, royal journalists, royal photographers and […]
The Dekemastate in Jelsum, Province of Friesland, has a showcase full of books of the Dutch journalist, translator and writer Havank. He published over 30 crime-novels and stories and is one of the founding fathers of Dutch crime books. What are these books doing here? Havank’s real name was Hendrikus Frederikus van der Kallen (1904-1964), […]
Updated 10 June 2022 How often these days I see articles stating that when Prince Harry of Wales married Meghan Markle in May 2018, it would be the first royal interracial marriage ever. Obviously most articles mean, the first British royal interracial marriage – as lots of media tends to forget there are other royal […]
Photo from Pixabay
As I stay at home while following the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom on my television – I luckily have BBC One and Two – I wondered what I could do to make the day a bit more British and festive. The obvious answer would be: get yourself something British […]
Copyright: BBC
Remember the platinum pudding competition launched by the department store Fortnum & Mason and The Big Jubilee Lunch to celebrate the 70th Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom a few months ago? Amazingly there were more than 5,000 entries by people in the age of 8 to 108, and I can imagine […]
On 10 January the platinum pudding competition was launched by the department store Fortnum & Mason and The Big Jubilee Lunch. Open to all UK residents aged 8 and over (not connected with the competition, no qualified professionals), they were looking for a dessert dedicated to Queen Elizabeth II, who on 6 February will be […]
Photo & Copyright: Kensington Palace
Sorry to let my frustrations go … but honestly, I find royalty watching during the Covid-19 pandemic sometimes rather depressing. It is kind of a double feeling. On one hand one wants the royals to adapt their lives just like everybody else does. Their exemplary role probably even makes them stick to the rules more […]
© RVD – Frank Ruiter 2021
On 30 April 2013 the eldest daughter of the new King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, Catharina-Amalia, became the first Princess of Orange in her own right in modern times. The title is however much older. Origine Orange (Principauté d’Orange) was a principality in what is nowadays part of the Departement of Vaucluse, Provence, in the […]
© RVD – Frank Ruiter 2021
On Sunday 7 December 2003 at 5.01pm a Princess was born at the Bronovo Hospital in The Hague, The Netherlands. Originally the little Princess was only announced for January 2004, but being 52 cm tall and having a weight of 3,310 grams hardly anybody believed that she was born several weeks early. The name was […]
