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Queenship in Britain 1660-1837 looks at the lives of successive Queens, Princesses of Wales and royal daughters, and considers how they used their powers of patronage and operated within the confines of royal family politics. With contributions from an international group of scholars this book brings together new approaches in gender history and court studies to present a re-evaluation of this previously neglected area in the study of the British monarchy. An explanation of these new approaches is contained in a substantial introduction. While the essays perform detailed discussions on a variety of more specific subjects, from how the foreign and Catholic wives of the restored Stuarts coped with a libertine court and a Protestant nation, to the travails of Princesses of Wales, the marriage options of royal daughters, and the question of whether Queen Adelaide (wife of William IV) was a harmless philanthropist re-establishing royal respectability or a real political influence behind the throne.
"This publication accompanies the exhibition Enlightened princesses: Caroline, Augusta, Charlotte, and the shaping of the modern world, co-organized by the Yale Center for British Art and Historic Royal Palaces, on view at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, from 2 February to 30 April 2017, and at Kensington Palace, London, from 22 June to 12 November 2017"--Colophon.
As the wife of King George II, Caroline of Ansbach became queen of England in 1727. Known for her intelligence and strong character, Queen Caroline wielded considerable political power until her death in 1737. She was enthusiastic and energetic in her cultural patronage, engaging in projects that touched on the arts, architecture, gardens, literature, science, and natural philosophy. This meticulously researched volume will survey Caroline's significant contributions to the arts and culture and the ways in which she used her patronage to strengthen the royal family's connections between the recently installed House of Hanover and English society. She established an extensive library at St. James's Palace, and her renowned salons attracted many of the great thinkers of the day; Voltaire wrote of her, "I must say that despite all her titles and crowns, this princess was born to encourage the arts and the well-being of mankind." Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
Kensington Palace is renowned for its architecture, splendid interiors, internationally important collections, and, of course, its royal residents. This lavish book thoroughly explores Kensington's physical beauty and its history, presenting new material drawn from archives, newspapers, personal letters, images, and careful analysis of the building itself. Originally a fashionable Jacobean villa, Kensington was dramatically rebuilt in 1689 by Christopher Wren for the newly crowned monarchs, William III and Mary II. The palace became the favored London home of five sovereigns, surviving fires, partial collapse, bombings, and periods of neglect. Queen Victoria recognized its national significance and set about restyling the massive structure with some of England's greatest architects and artists. With over 450 illustrations, including specially commissioned reconstructions and historic plans, this volume explores the personal tastes and fashions of the British monarchy over the course of 300 years and provides insight into the 20th- and 21st-century royal family's domestic life.
Imaginations of female rule and the imaginative strategies of women rulers What is the gender of political power ? What happens to the history of sovereignty when we reconsider it from a gender perspective ? Political sovereignty has been a major theme in European thought from the very beginning of intellectual reflection on community. Philosophy and political theory, historiography, theology, and literature and the arts have, often in dialogue with one another, sought to represent or recalibrate notions of rule. Yet whatever covenant was imagined, sovereign rule has consistently been figured as a male prerogative While in-depth studies of historical women rulers have proliferated in the pas...
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"This is the book on porcelain we have been waiting for. . . . A remarkable achievement."—Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes A sweeping cultural and economic history of porcelain, from the eighteenth century to the present Porcelain was invented in medieval China—but its secret recipe was first reproduced in Europe by an alchemist in the employ of the Saxon king Augustus the Strong. Saxony’s revered Meissen factory could not keep porcelain’s ingredients secret for long, however, and scores of Holy Roman princes quickly founded their own mercantile manufactories, soon to be rivaled by private entrepreneurs, eager to make not art but profits. As porcelain’s uses multi...
"Princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact" -- so said the nineteenth-century writer Walter Bagehot. In 2007, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, celebrate their sixtieth wedding anniversary. This love story of the world's most famous couple presents a thematic look at the most outstandingly successful marriage of recent times. This illustrated study explores the pressures and stresses of living life in the glare of public scrutiny. It is an early case of a married couple leading independent lives of extraordinary public service and indicating a path for others to follow. The historical experience of queens and their consorts and Elizabeth and Philip's Canadian and Commonwealth roles add scope to this biography.
Silas Deane was the victim of one of the most vicious character assassination conspiracies ever carried out in the Revolutionary War era. Even after almost two and a half centuries, he remains in the eyes of many modern historians, "worse than Arnold," his boyhood friend. This is very wrong. Because Deane was such a capable individual in his endeavors very early in the war, he became the political target of envious others with quite different abilities and philosophies. Even so, his political strength kept growing and in 1776 Congress appointed him America's first secret agent to secure military supplies from France for Washington's army. This biography is written on the man himself and on the malicious and largely successful lies and intrigues by his rivals. The work does not downplay the contributions of his contemporaries, especially those of his close friend throughout, Benjamin Franklin, but shows exactly where specific credit should be placed. A lot of credit for the new nation's success belongs to him.