Ebook: Grandmama of Europe: The Crowned Descendants of Queen Victoria

Grandmama of Europe - The Crowned Descendants of Queen Victoria

By: Theo Aronson

ePub


ISBN 10: 1910198048
ISBN 13: 9781910198049
ASIN: B00PUEPCGS
British National Bibliography System Number: 008766535
OCLC Number: 11007927
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 84673451
Publisher: Thistle Publishing  (2014)



The direct descendants of Queen Victoria occupy, or have occupied, ten European thrones.

There's a famous painting by Tuxen (reproduced on the jacket of this fat volume) of Victoria's family gathered around her at the time of her Golden Jubilee in 1887; the crowd fills the royal drawing room. During those celebrations, the women of the family filled ten carriages while the men, including a number of ruling and future monarchs, made up an impromptu cavalry troop. Aronson is an old and skilled hand at producing popular biographies of European dynasties and he uses Victoria's position as matriarch of a vast royal clan to construct an overview in the late 19th and early 20th century of Europe's ruling families on ten thrones, from London and Madrid to Athens and St. Petersburg. This is also a personal and domestic study, focusing on court life, rather than a political history, and it is limited to only the first generation, not their heirs to the present day -- which also means that, except for the future Edward VIII, the author is concerned mostly with Victoria's daughters and granddaughters who married into other royal houses. The author's style is easy and his insights and judgments are astute, making this a good introduction to the modern monarchies of Europe.