Messages

61

The Windsors / Re: King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson (Duke and Duchess of Windsor)

« on: January 24, 2009, 02:04:36 PM »

I believe Mary was a cold mother to Edward VIII.

Lilly, I think we will believe Lady Airlie over you dear.

As for your other opinions, I think they our joke; i.e. Charles being sent on a mission to see what he could scavenge (!!) the QM attempting to ease a conscience (When it's a fact that by Edward abdicating it sent GVI to an early grave), Wallis receiving crap treatment (Despite staying at BP)

And as far Wallis's name never being mentioned at her own funeral, that's hilarious.

Please read a good book on the subject.

Actually, it wasn't Charles that was sent to scavenge stuff, it was Louis Mountbatten, but the sentiment was certainly the same. Also, George VI was killed because he smoked like a chimney. He smoked long before he became king and I doubt he would've quit had his brother stayed on. Whether the stress of being king helped it a matter of opinion, but if he hadn't been king there still would've been a war and most likely bombings going on and he might've still been under stress.

The Queen Mother certainly didn't get along with Wallis. It certainly wasn't all dislike on her part; the feeling was mutual. I think the Queen Mother acted nicer to Wallis in the end not because of a guilty conscious but because after her husband died she had more sympathy for Wallis because she was also a widow and I think when she saw how much a mess Wallis was at the funeral (she had to be sedated) she might've realized that perhaps Wallis was a more complex woman who had loved Edward rather than just being the harsh social climbing gold digger type the royal family had always seen her as.

And I know I've read in at least one book that Wallis's name wasn't mentioned at her funeral. Let me look that up.

Oh yes, from Elizabeth by Sarah Bradford, p. 417, first American edition, midway through the second paragraph:

even more curiously her (Wallis) name was not mentioned even once during the ceremony.

I don't know how good of a source you see Sarah Bradford as, but I've always considered her a decent historian and I know this isn't the only book I've seen that in.

62

The Windsors / Re: Queen Alexandra (1844-1925), Part II

« on: January 22, 2009, 11:32:22 AM »

Here's one of QA wearing the necklace at the wedding of her granddaughter Alexandra Fife in 1913:

Are you sure that was taken in 1913? She looks really young. In 1913 Alexandra would've been sixty-eight. I suppose some of it could be editing, but they can't make sixty-eight-year-old women look that young with all the technology they have today, so I don't see how they could've done it back then.

63

Having Fun! / Re: Website Quiz-which GDss are you like?

« on: January 22, 2009, 10:08:39 AM »

Tatiana! I was hoping for her as I've always felt I was most like her.

64

Imperial Claimants Post Here / Not an IMPERIAL claimant... but nuts all the same.

« on: January 17, 2009, 03:53:06 PM »

I dunno if you've ever heard of this crazy woman named Elizabeth Kelman who claims to be the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. She doesn't have any proof for this claim, but apparently God told her in a dream so she set up a website.


http://www.we3.org/

She's obviously off her rocker and the best part is that she doesn't believe in DNA. She used to be a major Anna Anderson supporter, IIRC and she's well known for going onto forums and website guestbooks. A friend of a friend used to own a Princess Diana site and this woman spammed his guestbook so much he deleted the whole feature. She also used to have a guestbook but it crashed after people she'd spammed tried to get revenge on her. 

65

The Windsors / Re: King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson (Duke and Duchess of Windsor)

« on: January 16, 2009, 06:25:43 PM »

I think Wallis would have made an ok queen. Anyway she did not want to be Queen at all. Like Camilla Parker Bowles today, she just wanted to be with the King.

HAHAHAHA.

You make them seem like quiet, unassuming, little homebodies.    Which is quite the opposite of their scheming and manipulative natures.

Beautifully put Leuchtenberg.
For the Duke to refer to his own mother as an "ice-veined bitch" shows what a ghastly man he was.

Well, to be fair, Queen Mary wasn't a very good mother to him and they didn't have a good relationship. She always took her husband's side over her son's and she refused to even meet Wallis Simpson. Part of it was the way she was brought up and she just wasn't very maternal, but you can see why he might've had bad feelings about her.

66

Anastasia Nicholaievna / Re: Nicholas and Alix's reaction to her birth

« on: January 16, 2009, 06:17:30 PM »

I still think they were glad to have a healthy little girl. Of course they had been hoping for a boy but I certainly think they were glad to have Anastasia. There may have been a bit of disappointment, but I think they loved her from the beginning and she was a welcomed addition to the family.

It certainly wasn't like situations in the past where parents became angry and didn't want to touch the baby girl like Henry VIII when Elizabeth I was born.

67

Having Fun! / Re: How did you become bitten by the Romanov bug

« on: January 16, 2009, 11:55:23 AM »

I loved the Anastasia movie, though now knowing how inaccurate it is I don't love it as much. But that was when I was really young. I got really into the real Romanovs because I was a Tudor fan, and then a Windsor fan as I got into the monarchy beyond the Tudors, and then I kinda got into the Romanovs because they were related to the Windsors.

68

Having Fun! / Re: Hope You Like...Romanov Fanfiction...YAY!!!

« on: January 16, 2009, 11:52:23 AM »

Oh, that's actually really good. You should put it on fanfiction.net or something. I have some stories on http://storywar.com/and I would recommend it to post and historical fanfics you have. There's a lot of historical stuff on there, but sadly no Romanovs yet. Fictionpress from the fanfiction.net people is also good, but you have to upload everything in files which is a bit annoying.

And please continue it and write more. It doesn't matter if your English isn't as good as some or if there are some mistakes. It's fanfiction everyone is an amateur. Yours is really interesting and you should keep it up!

69

The Windsors / Re: King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson (Duke and Duchess of Windsor)

« on: January 16, 2009, 10:56:42 AM »

I think Wallis would have made an ok queen. Anyway she did not want to be Queen at all. Like Camilla Parker Bowles today, she just wanted to be with the King.

HAHAHAHA.

You make them seem like quiet, unassuming, little homebodies.    Which is quite the opposite of their scheming and manipulative natures.

Actually, Wallis's letters and the accounts of her friends at the time indicate she really didn't want to be Queen. She didn't want the responsibility. She would have rather been a morganatic wife, which wasn't legal in England, or just an official mistress, which the morals of the time wouldn't stand for and Edward didn't want anyway. Not to say she would've turned down the crown had it been offered to her, but I think she would've rather been with the king not as a queen that been with the king as queen.

70

The Final Chapter / Re: Awareness of possible execution/Do you think they knew?

« on: January 15, 2009, 06:54:13 PM »

I think Nicholas knew he would probably executed and at least thought it was possible the rest of the family might be killed as well. Alexandra had probably at least thought about the worst case scenario, but still thought it was likely they would be rescued. The children I'm sure, especially Olga, knew it was possible something might happen to their parents or possibly the whole family. But I doubt any of them really thought it was coming. Kids, even up through their late teens, unless they've been exposed to a lot of violence, tend to have this subconscious belief that they're "protected" and that no one would have any reason to harm them. It's a real phenomena that's been observed in crime victims. Consciously they know it's possible the worst will happen, but subconsciously they convince themselves they're going to be alright.

From what I've read when they were woken the morning of their deaths there was little to indicate any of them knew they'd be killed right then and there. I think the element of surprise was one of the things the killers banked on to make the whole thing go "smoothly".

71

The Final Chapter / Re: Murder or execution?

« on: January 15, 2009, 06:39:35 PM »

I'm unsure whether it would be consider murder under the legal system or revolutionary government, but it certainly wasn't an execution. How can you be executed if you haven't been convicted of, or even charged with, a crime?

72

The Windsors / Re: King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson (Duke and Duchess of Windsor)

« on: January 15, 2009, 06:36:09 PM »

I don't think one should judge him too harshly. He had wanted to wed the woman he loved. What iswrong with that. The people actually supported him ,but the politions said no. It was a coup.

It could be said that his responsibility was to put duty before personal happiness.  Not an easy thing.  The people supported Edward in that they wanted him to remain their King but did they really want him with Mrs. Simpson as future Queen?  And did they really know at the time that his devotion to duty was not what it should have been?  Very doubtful.

You see I really think, aside from the whole nature of the British monarchy, it's basically a case of him giving up a job he only kind of wanted for his girlfriend. That's really what being king is, a job. A glamorous if rather difficult job you get because you happened to have been born into the right family at the right time.


People do things like that all the time. My mother is a modeling agent who once placed one of her girls in Paris. She signed a contract for five years and a lot of money from a French agency and my mom was expecting to get a nice mother agency fee off of it. A week after she left she found out her boyfriend couldn't get out of his job and come with her. So she took the next flight home and basically abandoned this really great opportunity that would've made her rich and famous so she could be with him. The got married shortly after and my mother found it really ironic that he ended up leaving her two years later for a younger and prettier model he met on a trip to New York. Random OT story aside, this was a girl who had dreamed her whole life of being a model and gone to hundreds of auditions and basically starved herself to achieve it. I highly doubt Edward VIII ever wanted to be king that much.

In fact, I'd bet if they had some sort of American Idol style auditions to be king Edward probably would've shown up ten minutes before they started seeing people, seen how long the line was, shrugged, and then walked away. If Edward VIII didn't believe in the whole divine right/royal duty thing his mother felt so strongly about then he probably just saw it not only as a job but as a job he didn't even want enough to make sacrifices for.

Throughout history there have been hundreds of pretenders to various thrones and succession wars where more than one person desperately wants to be king, but interestingly enough if you look at all the men who have been designated heir to the throne from birth and are expected to take over without conflict, most of them don't seem to want it all that much, especially in recent years.

73

The Tudors / Re: The Carey Children

« on: January 15, 2009, 05:56:07 PM »

Henry Carey was the one that supposedly looked the most like Henry VIII, but logic says if it was one of them it was his sister as Henry was always looking for proof he could father a son and if he had one with Mary Boleyn he probably would've acknowledged him. So I'd also say neither of them were or at least the situation was such that neither Henry or Mary knew for sure if they were or weren't. Even if Mary was still sleeping with Henry after her marriage that really doesn't mean she wasn't also with her husband, especially if the thing with Henry was being kept hush hush, which it was with Mary. The only mistress he ever showed off was Anne Boleyn, and that was because he wasn't actually sleeping with her and hoped to make her his wife. Despite the impression a lot of historical fiction gives, Henry wasn't like the French kings who kept official mistresses.

74

Anastasia Nicholaievna / Re: Anastasia's Potty moth

« on: January 15, 2009, 05:44:27 PM »

I don't think she was really vulgar or anything. Back in the early twentieth century there were a lot of people that would consider any child who said damn or hell or even much less than that to have a potty mouth. There are a lot of old women today (I'm talking from an American perspective but I doubt it was much looser in Russia) who think it's really inappropriate for a child to say they have to use the toilet in public.

For the life of me I can't imagine any of Nicholas and Alexandra's children saying anything truly vulgar like the f-word or even the s-word.