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The Independent
4 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
Rare royal ring bought for £15 in charity shop could be worth huge sum
A rare mourning ring commissioned by George IV to commemorate his sister, Princess Amelia, is set to be auctioned after being purchased for just £15 at a charity shop in Leicester. The ring, dating back to the early 19th century, was brought to auctioneer Charles Hanson by a client who was unaware of its historical significance. Mr Hanson described the find as the most important he had encountered from a charity shop in a decade. The piece is now expected to fetch between £3,000 and £5,000 at auction. 'I was stunned and dazzled,' Mr Hanson said. 'This find proves treasures still lie hidden on our high streets. From a simple box emerged a piece of deeply personal royal history, commissioned by the royal family itself to honour a lost loved one. 'It's not just the monetary value, it's the emotion, history and humanity behind this ring that truly moves you.' Princess Amelia died in 1810 from tuberculosis. The ring was commissioned that same year and crafted by the royal goldsmiths Rundell, Bridge & Rundell. On her deathbed, Amelia is said to have pressed a ring containing a lock of her hair into her father George III's hand, whispering 'remember me'. Those final words were immortalised in the ring's design, with the phrase inscribed beneath the image of a crown. Her father later lost his sanity, an event which became the subject of countless literary and cultural depictions of the 'Mad King George'. The ring is one of only 52 made, which would have been distributed among family and close friends after Amelia's funeral at Windsor. 'The white enamel used in the ring denotes that Amelia was unmarried at the time of her death,' Mr Hanson said. 'White enamel symbolised purity and innocence in mourning jewellery, particularly for those who died young or unmarried. It contrasts with the more commonly used black enamel, which signified general mourning.'
The Independent
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
200-year-old ring made for royal family discovered in charity shop
A rare mourning ring commissioned by George IV to commemorate his sister, Princess Amelia, is set to be auctioned after being purchased for just £15 at a charity shop in Leicester. The ring, dating back to the early 19th century, was brought to auctioneer Charles Hanson by a client who was unaware of its historical significance. Mr Hanson described the find as the most important he had encountered from a charity shop in a decade. The piece is now expected to fetch between £3,000 and £5,000 at auction. 'I was stunned and dazzled,' Mr Hanson said. 'This find proves treasures still lie hidden on our high streets. From a simple box emerged a piece of deeply personal royal history, commissioned by the royal family itself to honour a lost loved one. 'It's not just the monetary value, it's the emotion, history and humanity behind this ring that truly moves you.' Princess Amelia died in 1810 from tuberculosis. The ring was commissioned that same year and crafted by the royal goldsmiths Rundell, Bridge & Rundell. On her deathbed, Amelia is said to have pressed a ring containing a lock of her hair into her father George III's hand, whispering 'remember me'. Those final words were immortalised in the ring's design, with the phrase inscribed beneath the image of a crown. Her father later lost his sanity, an event which became the subject of countless literary and cultural depictions of the 'Mad King George'. The ring is one of only 52 made, which would have been distributed among family and close friends after Amelia's funeral at Windsor. 'The white enamel used in the ring denotes that Amelia was unmarried at the time of her death,' Mr Hanson said. 'White enamel symbolised purity and innocence in mourning jewellery, particularly for those who died young or unmarried. It contrasts with the more commonly used black enamel, which signified general mourning.'
Boston Globe
26-05-2025
- General
- Boston Globe
Today in History: May 26, the World War II Dunkirk evacuation begins
Advertisement In 1775, 250 years ago, the Second Continental Congress resolved to begin preparations for military defense but also sent a petition of reconciliation, the 'Olive Branch Petition,' to King George III. That action took place one day after British generals William Howe, Henry Clinton, and John Burgoyne arrived in Boston with reinforcements for military commander and governor Thomas Gage. In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed a measure creating the Montana Territory. In 1869, Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge signed the Immigration Act of 1924, which barred immigration from Asia and restricted the total number of immigrants from other parts of the world to 165,000 annually. In 1927, the Ford Model T officially ended production as Henry Ford and his son Edsel drove the 15 millionth Model T off the Ford assembly line in Highland Park, Mich. Advertisement In 1938, the House Un-American Activities Committee was established by Congress. In 1940, Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of more than 338,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk, France, began during World War II. In 1954, an explosion occurred aboard the aircraft carrier USS Bennington off Rhode Island, killing 103 sailors. In 1967, the Beatles album 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' was released. In 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty in Moscow, following the SALT I negotiations between the US and the Soviet Union. (The US withdrew from the treaty under President George W. Bush in 2002.) In 1981, 14 people were killed when a Marine jet crashed onto the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz off Florida. In 2009, California's Supreme Court upheld the state's Proposition 8 same-sex marriage ban, but said the 18,000 same-sex weddings that had taken place before the prohibition passed were still valid. (Same-sex marriage became legal nationwide in June 2015.) 2009, President Barack Obama nominated federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court. In 2011, Ratko Mladić, the brutal Bosnian Serb general suspected of leading the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, was arrested after a 16-year manhunt. (Extradited to face trial in The Hague, Netherlands, Mladić was convicted in 2017 on genocide and war crimes charges and is serving a life sentence.)
Daily Mail
26-05-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
How Queen Victoria and Queen Mary both endured tragedy - and the other fascinating similarities between the two royals born nearly 48 years apart
Despite being born 48 years apart, Queen Victoria and Queen Mary of Teck have far more in common than first meets the eye - apart from both being the matriarchs of the Royal Family. Queen Victoria was born 206 years ago tomorrow in the same room of Kensington Palace as the then-Princess Mary of Teck almost exactly 48 years later on May 26 1967. Mary was the great-granddaughter of King George III, making her Victoria's first cousin once removed. The Queen came to visit the newborn Mary and described her as 'a very fine one, with pretty little features and a quantity of hair'. Through her marriage to Prince George in 1893 - whose father Edward was the heir to the throne - Mary would one day become Queen too. In many more ways Queen Victoria's and Queen Mary's lives were remarkably similar. Both were impacted by personal tragedy and massive societal changes taking place in Britain. At birth, both women's lives could have been very different due to their parents being quite low-ranking royals in the family. Victoria was the only child of Prince Edward, the fourth son of King George III. This meant at birth she was only fifth in line to the throne - a distance that is often enough to make the likelihood of becoming queen a slim one. However, a number of deaths in the family - which included the King and Victoria's own father who passed away when she was less than a year old - saw Victoria rise to third in line. Then the death of King George IV in 1830 saw William IV crowned and Victoria became heir presumptive at just 10 years old. Victoria's whirlwind journey to the throne culminated with her being crowned Queen in 1837 when she was 18. Similarly, Mary's parents were minor royals. Her father was Prince Francis the Duke of Teck - a member of the German House of Wurttemberg dynasty which ruled over what is modern-day Stuttgart in Germany. Her mother was Princess Mary, a fellow German from the Kingdom of Hanover. The family were not as wealthy as you might have expected and her father had no inheritance or wealth. In order to live a more frugal existence they relocated to Florence in the 1880s. Victoria's whirlwind journey to the throne culminated with her being crowned Queen in 1837 when she was just 18 years old By the end of the decade the family had returned to London and she became engaged to Prince Albert, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales. But tragedy struck when he died from pneumonia just six weeks later. With the help of Queen Victoria, Mary then became engaged to Albert's younger brother George who was now second in line to the throne. They married on July 6 1893. Just 17 years later Mary became Queen consort in 1910 when her husband succeeded his father as King. Following their marriages, Queen Victoria and Queen Mary had plenty of children - giving birth to nine and six respectively - but both were known to be somewhat distant towards their offspring. Victoria wrote that she found pregnancy difficult and was uncomfortable in the presence of children but, like many women at the time, a large family was her ambition. Their first child, Victoria, was born in 1840. The Princess Royal was followed by Albert Edward (1841), Alice (1843), Alfred (1844), Helena (1846), Louise (1848), Arthur (1850), Leopold (1853) and Beatrice (1857). The day-to-day care of her children was delegated to governesses including Baroness Louise Lehzen - who had been a major supporter of Victoria while she grew up under the draconian Kensington System administered by her controlling mother. Similarly, Mary was a hands-off mother to her six children. Edward was born in 1894. He was followed by Albert, later King George VI (1895), Mary (1897), Henry (1900), George (1902) and John (1905). Both Mary and Prince George failed to notice the abuse of Edward and Albert at the hands of their nanny who would often pinch the two boys. King Edward VIII, when he heard of his mother's death in 1953, wrote: 'Mother could have been so hard and cruel towards her eldest son for so many years and yet so demanding at the end without relenting a scrap. 'I'm afraid the fluids in her veins have always been as icy cold as they are now in death.' Nevertheless, it still remains clear that both Queens loved and cherished their children dearly. Victoria had marble sculptures made of each of her nine children - produced from casts taken of them while they were asleep. And Edward wrote fondly about Mary in his memoirs: 'Her soft voice, her cultivated mind, the cosy room overflowing with personal treasures were all inseparable ingredients of the happiness associated with this last hour of a child's day. A future King George V and Princess Mary in 1893. Both Mary and Prince George failed to notice the abuse of Edward and Albert at the hands of their nanny who would often pinch the two boys 'Such was my mother's pride in her children that everything that happened to each one was of the utmost importance to her. With the birth of each new child, Mama started an album in which she painstakingly recorded each progressive stage of our childhood.' Tragically, the two women also suffered their fair share of grief during their long reigns. Victoria's husband of 21 years, Prince Albert, died in 1861, aged only 42. The Queen was devastated. At a Privy Council meeting three weeks after his death she could not utter a word. She wrote to her uncle Leopold: 'The poor fatherless baby of eight months is now the utterly broken-hearted and crushed widow of forty-two! My life as a happy one is ended! The world is gone for me!' Victoria wore black for the rest of her life and her sharp withdrawal from public life lasted ten years. The monarch almost obsessively tried to keep the presence of Albert in the lives of her nine children. At one of her son's weddings, she insisted the siblings pose around a bust of Albert. Prince Leopold (pictured) who died from a cerebral hemorrhage aged 30. Writing about his death in her journal, Victoria said: 'Another awful blow has fallen upon me and all of us today' Meanwhile, the death of King George V in 1936 brought an end to his and Mary's 43 years of marriage - meaning they were married for longer than Albert was alive. Mary issued a message of gratitude to the nation for their condolences after the King's death, expressing her appreciation for their support. Her life differs from that of her cousin's at this point as with the death of Prince Albert Victoria was still sovereign while Mary ceased being Queen Consort and instead became the Queen Mother. In her new role she lived through a tumultuous period of the 1930s when her son, King Edward VIII, abdicated the throne in order to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Although she was supportive of her son, Mary could never understand why he would neglect his royal duties. When the timid Prince Albert became George VI she saw it as her duty to provide moral support to the new King alongside his wife Elizabeth. Yet another devastating similarity which permeates their lives is the death of their children. Three of Victoria's nine children died before her. Her second eldest daughter, Princess Alice died, when she was 35 from diphtheria on December 14 1878 - on the 17th anniversary of Prince Albert's death. Victoria described the coincidence of the date as 'incredible' and 'mysterious'. In a letter to her eldest daughter, Victoria, the queen wrote: 'My precious child, who stood by me and upheld me seventeen years ago on the same day taken, and by such an awful and fearful disease. 'She had darling Papa's nature, and much of his self-sacrificing character and fearless and entire devotion to duty!' Tragedy struck the Royal Family again in 1884 when Victoria's youngest son Leopold died aged 30. Leopold had hemophilia and was holidaying in Cannes, the south of France, when he slipped and fell, causing him to suffer a cerebral hemorrhage. Writing about his death in her journal, his mother said: 'Another awful blow has fallen upon me and all of us today. 'My beloved Leopold, that bright, clever son, who had so many times recovered from such fearful illness, and from various small accidents, has been taken from us! 'To lose another dear child, far from me, and one who was so gifted, and such a help to me, is too dreadful!' Queen Victoria. Following her husband's death she wore black for the rest of her life Victoria's son Alfred died from throat cancer in July 1900 just months before Victoria died in January 1901. Of Mary's six children, three died before her. In 1919 Mary's youngest child, Prince John, died aged 13. The Prince had severe epilepsy and what is now speculated to have been autistic. He was known as the 'Lost Prince' because he was kept away from the public eye. He was sent to live in a house on the Sandringham estate as his condition deteriorated, and he died in 1919 at the age of 13 after suffering a severe seizure. Upon his death, Mary described his death as a 'great relief' to a close friend. 'For [John] it is a great relief, as his malady was becoming worse as he grew older, and he has thus been spared much suffering. 'I cannot say how grateful we feel to God for having taken him in such a peaceful way, he just slept quietly into his heavenly home, no pain no struggle, just peace for the poor little troubled spirit,' Mary said. Queen Mary with Queen Elizabeth II (left) and the Queen Mother (right) at the funeral of King George VI. The loss of a third child had a profound impact on Queen Mary During World War Two, the Royal Family, like thousands across the UK, suffered the loss of family members. This included the death of Mary's son Prince George. He was one of 15 passengers killed in the Dunbeath air crash in August 1942. The plane crashed into the Scottish Highlands while on a routine flight from RAF Invergordon to RAF Reykjavik. Mary also outlived her son King George VI, who died in February 1952 from cancer - just over a year before Mary passed away in March 1953. The loss of a third child had a profound impact on Queen Mary. She reportedly told Princess Marie Louise, grandaughter of Queen Victoria: 'I have lost three sons through death, but I have never been privileged to be there to say a last farewell to them.' Finally, during their long lives both Queen Victoria and Queen Mary lived to see massive societal changes in the United Kingdom. When Victoria was born in 1819 the light bulb had not been invented and the horse-drawn carriage was the main mode of transportation. By the end of her reign the white heat of the industrial revolution had brought marvelous inventions to Britain, including steam trains that journey times from days to mere hours. On top of this Victoria had overseen the sun rise on the British Empire, which became the world's most powerful superpower of the 1800s. She also ushered in the era of constitutional monarchy, which saw the Queen swap hard power for influence over British politics. It remains the system of government in Britain to this day. Queen Victoria's funeral in 1901. Queen Victoria is now one of the most famous monarchs to have ever ruled - second only to Queen Elizabeth II - with her cultural impact continuing to this day Meanwhile, Queen Mary's life was permeated by periods of deadly wars, which led to the rapid development of new forms of warfare. She was Queen Consort during World War One and the Queen mother during World War Two. In the latter she reportedly would visit troops and directed the gatherings of scrap materials. Mary was born at a time when cavalry charges were still common in war and lived to see the invention of the hydrogen bomb - the most devastating weapon mankind has ever created. She was also Queen when the Empire reached its peak in 1920, covering approximately one quarter of the world, and by the time of her death decolonisation had begun. In death, both women have left a lasting legacy in Britain. Queen Victoria is now one of the most famous monarchs to have ever ruled - second only to Queen Elizabeth II - with her cultural impact continuing to this day. Queen Mary is remembered as a 'grand Queen' who was 'above politics' as well as an avid collector of antiques. Many of her most treasured items - including her Dolls House - are on display in Windsor Castle.
Times
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
The lost Lawrence masterpiece bought ‘by accident' for £3,000
A 'lost masterpiece' portrait of the Duke of York created by one of Britain's greatest artists has been rediscovered after a 20-year investigation by its owners — who bought it 'by accident' for less than £3,000. Thomas Lawrence's portrait of Frederick Augustus, Duke of York and Albany and second son of George III was unveiled at the Royal Academy in 1822 but subsequently disappeared from view. It has now emerged that following the death of the duke in 1827 the portrait passed down through royal households before ending up with the Prince of Hanover, the 3rd Duke of Cumberland, at the end of the 19th century. In 1915 the portrait's true identity became harder to fathom when the Order of the Garter worn by the
