Only ten? Well, okay, here goes (no special order):
-Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein: charming, funny, independent, and intelligent. I'd love to be able to get my hands on her memoirs, which are said to be a great source of information on her royal relations.
-Queen Marie of Roumania: conceited, vain and overly dramatic, but also warm, loving, intelligent, creative, generous, and patriotic. Just what a Queen SHOULD be!
-Queen Louise of Sweden: an eccentric, unpretentious woman with a great sense of humor. She just seems like someone who would be a BLAST to hang out with.
-Louis Mountbatten, Earl of Burma: Mountbatten! The above mentioned Queen Louise's baby brother, I find him absolutely fascinating. Charming, funny, gracious, sometimes grandiose and ambitious, and never dull.
-Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia: (sister of the last Tsar). Olga may not have been a beauty, but she had dignity and strength, which carried her through a disastrous first marriage. She was finally able to prevail and marry the man she truly loved. Totally down to earth, casual, a talented artist and unpretentious. She was also a kind and generous soul, who, even though knowing that Anna Anderson was not her niece, still felt compassion for her.
-Queen Victoria: a lot of people find her dull and conservative, but she was anything but. Despite a reputation as a stuffy, uptight prude, she was very forthright, blunt and intimidating. She was actually very passionate and intense, she preferred whiskey in her tea, she loved her husband and had a healthy sex life with him, and despite her maternal image, was not very fond of babies and motherly pursuits. Here you had this tiny little old woman, not even five feet, who totally intimidated Otto von Bismarck. And she was the ONLY ONE, it seems, who could make the infamous Kaiser Wilhelm II, her eldest grandchild, behave, or at least, feel some sense of shame. When she came to the throne, people were afraid that such a tiny, young woman wouldn't be up to the task of ruling-by the time of her death, everyone wondered if Britain could survive without her.
-Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll: Queen Victoria's fourth daughter, the only one to marry a peer, the future Duke of Argyll. Sadly, the marriage was unhappy, but Louise was a hoot. Very progressive-she actually went and studied at an art school, becoming a talented sculptress. She could be nasty at times, and disagreeable, but her sarcastic wit could be a real source of amusement. And the ONLY ONE to stand up to Queen Mary's mooching ways. "The clock is here and here it will stay."
-Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse and By Rhine: brother of the last Tsaritsa, and a fascinating individual. Warm, gracious, funny and creative, he was a devoted father and patron of the arts. Was he gay, or bisexual? We'll likely never know for sure, but his second marriage seems to have been a success. A favorite uncle with his nieces and nephews. He was a patron of the Art Nouveau movement (I LOVE Art Nouveau, btw).
-Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich of Russia: Brother of the last Tsar (and technically, the last Tsar himself) and of the afore-mentioned Grand Duchess Olga. Determined to marry for love, he found happiness with the beautiful Natasha who was, alas, already married, and had divorced her first husband. However, her second husband proved to be controlling and abusive, and she ultimately left him for the Grand Duke. Despite being deprived of his rank and titles and forced to go into exile until the first World War, his marriage was happy. He was a devoted husband and father to his own son and also his stepdaughter, Natasha's daughter Tata from her first marriage. Once, when a group of Russians came to visit the couple in exile, they came bearing a number of extravagant gifts for his son, George, hoping to win the favor of the Grand Duke. However, he also noticed that sadly, they only brought poor Tata a small box of candy. As soon as they left he went out and purchased a fountain pen that Tata had had her eye on for a long time. Later, he became something of a war hero, despite being given what was considered a "punishment regiment", the so-called "Wild Division." Under his command, they became a force to be reckoned with. He was also the first of the Russian royals to be murdered in the Revolution, and to this day his remains have never been found.
-Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia, the Duchess of Brunswick: the youngest child and only daughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II. She fell in love with the Princes Ernst August of Cumberland, whose family, Hanover, were the enemies of her own. For Victoria Louise, it was love at first sight and several relatives and friends played go-betweens until the parents of the young couple finally relented. Their wedding was the last great gathering of European royalty before the outbreak of WWI. VL and her husband had a successful marriage-although sadly, she later became estranged from several of her children, including daughter Frederike, Queen of Greece. Today's Queen Sophie of Spain is Victoria Louise's granddaughter, through Frederike.
