![]() ![]() Queen Victoria’s predecessor, King William IV, had married Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen in a double ceremony in the presence of the dying Queen Charlotte at Kew, a ceremony which also constituted the second (English) wedding ceremony of her parents, the Duke and Duchess of Kent. Charles II’s two wedding ceremonies to Catharine of Braganza were performed at Portsmouth, his father Charles I had married Henrietta Maria of France first by proxy, then at St. Other medieval wedding venues included the more obvious choices of Westminster Abbey (Richard II and Anne of Bohemia in 1382) and Winchester Cathedral (Henry IV and Joan of Navarre in 1403, Mary I and Philip of Spain in 1554). George with its Chapel existed since Edward III Edward had married Philippa of Hainault at York Minster twenty years prior to this date. Quite why Windsor had not been chosen since the reign of Henry I is not clear, especially since the founding of the College of St. Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and later of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha – the Queen’s second son – married Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna, daughter of Tsar Alexander II and Tsarina Marie Alexandrovna, in St. It seems to be this grieving need in the Queen for privacy, which prompted the choice of St George’s Chapel, for the wedding of the Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra of Denmark. At Princess Alice’s wedding, the Queen was more or less “hidden from view” (Ibid, Pg 392) and shielded from even the gaze of a private ceremony, by the presence of her four sons, who stood around her. ![]() The wedding was by the Queen’s account – although she would hardly have wished it otherwise – “more like a funeral” and “wretched”, due to the fact that the Prince Consort had died just over six months previously. The second wedding which took place in Queen Victoria’s family was that of her second daughter, Princess Alice to Prince Ludwig “Louis” of Hesse the mournful ceremony took place in the Dining Room at Osborne House on 1 July 1862, under the watchful gaze of Prince Albert in the copy of the large painting ‘The Royal Family in 1846’ by Franz Xavier Winterhalter, which hung behind the makeshift altar and today is still above the sideboard, having been hung in this position since Queen Victoria’s birthday in 1849. Queen Victoria would, in fact, have preferred a more private wedding ceremony, expressing that she had a “horror” of being married before a large assembly and insisting that she would greatly have preferred a simple wedding in a private room at Buckingham Palace instead (Christopher Hibbert, Queen Victoria: A Personal History, Pg 120, 2000). James’s Palace, where Queen Victoria had herself married Prince Albert in 1840 it was for example, also the choice for the wedding of George III and Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Significantly, it was in the Chapel Royal at St. This wedding took place at the Chapel Royal, St. The eldest daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, The Princess Royal, was the only one of their children, whose wedding Prince Albert attended. George’s Chapel became popular during the reign of Queen Victoria, most particularly it seems, as a result of the Queen’s widowhood in 1861. George was not founded until the mid-fourteenth century, this meant that the marriage of Henry I to his eighteen-year-old bride, daughter of Godfrey I, Count of Louvain, almost certainly took place at Windsor Castle itself. George, in a later incarnation of his what he had promised four years earlier to be his so-called Order of the Round Table, itself an imitation of King Arthur’s celebrated circle of knights. George was founded in 1348 and is inextricably linked with the Most Noble Order of the Garter, one of the oldest orders of chivalry in medieval Europe, established by Edward III at the same time that he founded the College of St. George’s Chapel and one in the Private Chapel at Windsor Castle. The remaining six married at Windsor, five at St. Of the nine children of Queen Victoria’s children, one daughter married in London another on the Isle of Wight and one son in St. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |