Balmoral Castle is a large estate house in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and a residence of the British royal family. It is near the village of Crathie, 9 miles (14 km) west of Ballater and 50 miles (80 km) west of Aberdeen.
Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, Duchess of Västergötland is the heir apparent to the Swedish throne, as the eldest child of King Carl XVI Gustaf. If she ascends to the throne as expected, she would be Sweden’s fourth queen regnant and the first since 1720. Her inheritance is secured by Sweden's 1980 Act of Succession, the first law in Western Europe to adopt royal absolute primogeniture.
Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days—which was longer than those of any of her predecessors—constituted the Victorian era. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. In 1876, the British parliament voted to grant her the additional title of Empress of India.
Mary of Teck was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, from 6 May 1910 until 20 January 1936 as the wife of King-Emperor George V.
Alexandra of Denmark was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, from 22 January 1901 to 6 May 1910 as the wife of Edward VII.
Osborne House is a former royal residence in East Cowes, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom. The house was built between 1845 and 1851 for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as a summer home and rural retreat. Albert designed the house in the style of an Italian Renaissance palazzo. The builder was Thomas Cubitt, the London architect and builder whose company built the main facade of Buckingham Palace for the royal couple in 1847. An earlier smaller house on the Osborne site was demolished to make way for the new and far larger house, though the original entrance portico survives as the main gateway to the walled garden.
Sophia of Nassau, also Sofia, was Queen of Sweden and Norway as the wife of King Oscar II. She was Queen of Sweden for 35 years, longer than anyone before her, and the longest-serving queen until 2011, when she was surpassed by Queen Silvia. She is also the most recent woman to have been officially Dowager Queen of Sweden.
Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale was the eldest child of the Prince and Princess of Wales. From the time of his birth, he was second in the line of succession to the British throne, but did not become king or Prince of Wales because he died before both his father and paternal grandmother Queen Victoria.
Victoria of Baden was Queen of Sweden from 8 December 1907 until her death in 1930 as the wife of King Gustaf V. She was politically active in a conservative fashion during the development of democracy and known to be pro-German during the First World War.
Princess Beatrice, later Princess Henry of Battenberg, was the fifth daughter and youngest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Beatrice was also the last of Queen Victoria's children to die, nearly 66 years after the first, her elder sister Alice.
Victoria Eugenie Julia Ena of Battenberg was Queen of Spain as the wife of King Alfonso XIII from their marriage on 31 May 1906 until 14 April 1931, when the Spanish Second Republic was proclaimed. A Hessian princess by birth, she was a member of the Battenberg family, a morganatic branch of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt. She was the youngest granddaughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Unlike other members of the Battenberg family, who were accorded the lower rank of Serene Highness, Victoria Eugenie was born with the rank of Highness due to a Royal Warrant issued in 1886 by Queen Victoria.
Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia was the fifth child and only surviving daughter of Alexander II of Russia and Marie of Hesse and by Rhine; she was Duchess of Edinburgh and later Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as the wife of Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. She was the younger sister of Alexander III of Russia and the paternal aunt of Russia's last emperor, Nicholas II.
Marie Henriette of Austria was Queen of the Belgians as the wife of King Leopold II. The marriage was arranged against the will of both Marie Henriette and Leopold and became unhappy due to their dissimilarity, and after 1872 the couple lived separate lives, though they continued to appear together in public. Queen Marie Henriette was described as an energetic and intelligent horsewoman, foremost devoted to her animals. In 1895, she openly retired from public life and lived her last seven years in the city of Spa, where she became known as "The Queen of Spa".
Louise Alexandra Marie Irene Mountbatten was Queen of Sweden from 29 October 1950 until her death in 1965 as the wife of King Gustaf VI Adolf. Born a princess of the German House of Battenberg, Louise was closely related to the ruling families of Britain as a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and of Russia as a niece of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia, wife of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. She was also an older sister to Lord Louis Mountbatten. During the First World War, Louise served as a nurse in the Red Cross. She married the widowed Gustaf Adolf in 1923 and assumed the role of Sweden's first lady but did not become queen until his accession in 1950. Queen Louise was noted for her eccentricity and progressive views.
Since 1867, the British royal family has visited Australia over fifty times, with only six visits before 1954. Elizabeth II was the first reigning monarch of Australia to have set foot on Australian soil; she first did so on 3 February 1954, when she was 27 years old. During her sixteen journeys, the Queen visited every Australian state and the two major territories. In all, the reigning Australian monarch has visited Australia seventeen times, sixteen times under Elizabeth II, and once under Charles III.
Infanta Beatriz of Spain, Princess of Civitella-Cesi was a daughter of King Alfonso XIII of Spain and Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, wife of Alessandro Torlonia, 5th Prince di Civitella-Cesi. She was a paternal aunt of King Juan Carlos I.
The Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated on 20 and 21 June 1887 to mark the 50th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession on 20 June 1837. It was celebrated with a Thanksgiving Service at Westminster Abbey, and a banquet to which 50 European kings and princes were invited.
Mohammed Abdul Karim, also known as "the Munshi", was an Indian attendant of Queen Victoria. He served her during the final fourteen years of her reign, gaining her maternal affection over that time.
Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland made a state visit to the Kingdom of Spain from 17 to 21 October 1988. It was the first official visit by a British monarch to Spain, and came two years after King Juan Carlos I made the first official visit by a Spanish monarch in 80 years to the United Kingdom. It was the Queen's only official visit to Spain; relations between the two kingdoms had been fraught by Britain's presence in Gibraltar.
Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, her husband Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd made a state visit to Russia from 17 to 20 October 1994, hosted by the President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin. It is the first and so far only visit by a reigning British monarch on Russian soil.
