King Charles III has finished a complete redesign of the East Terrace Garden of Windsor Castle. His parents weren’t keen gardeners, meaning the existing gardens were good but not truly inspired. Since Charles came to the throne, he’s undertaken renovations of the grounds of Sandringham, Balmoral and now Windsor.
The new look comes with a new name: The Venus Garden. That’s because gardeners traced the orbit of Venus over eight years to create the pattern for the garden, which features new beds of flowers and hedges. There’s also the return of historic sculptures from the Royal Collection, including four bronzes made for King Charles I in the 1630s and installed in the garden during the reign of King George IV.
And in keeping with King Charles III’s program of opening previously closed areas of royal residences to the public – such as the East Wing of Buckingham Palace – this usually off-limits of Windsor Castle will be part of the summer tour of the castle, starting on July 16.
Cast your mind back to July 29, 1994. Charles and Diana are separated. That evening, in a major TV interview, he will acknowledge that he committed adultery after their marriage had broken down.
That same evening, Diana goes to a fundraiser in Kensington Gardens, near the palace. She dons a daring off-the-shoulder evening dress designed by Christina Stambolian that is known simply as the “revenge dress.”
At that event, she got out of an equally sleek and sexy Jaguar, a new addition to the royal fleet. That 1994 car was sold in 1997, shortly before her death.
Now, the Jaguar is up for auction on The Market auction site. It has only 72,000 km on it and is in good shape. Normally a Jag in that state would be worth around $10,000 but who knows with this provenance. Notably, the same auction firm previously sold the Queen’s 2001 personal Daimler for around $200,000.
As for the “revenge dress,” it was sold at Diana’s charity auction just before her death. Now, it’s likely worth at least $1 million. Here is an explanation of the impact of that dress from the Sunday Times.
FYI: Last week, there was no sign of the Prince and Princess of Wales as the kids were on a school break.
On Saturday, the BBC’s royal correspondent revealed that, in 2020, the palace was given an archive of 30,000 emails that had been taken from a personal business contact of the former Prince Andrew in a legal dispute and that those emails would have shown that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was sharing confidential government information while a trade envoy.
That’s because one of the persons involved in that legal dispute also came up in the Epstein files, which showed how entwined Andrew was in their financial affairs. The emails were handed over to the Lord Chamberlain, who is head of the royal household.
What happened to them after that point is not known, however given the timing – months after Andrew’s explosive interview about Epstein, and nine years after he stood down as trade envoy – one would have hoped that someone was ordered to go through them.
We just don’t know. At least not yet.
The princess has quietly left her mentorship role in the “35 under 35” initiative of her uncle’s charity, the King’s Foundation. She was in the role for a year. Reports vary as to whether it was always a short-term position or whether she left due to the Epstein scandal fallout. Regardless, it’s another instance of distancing between the princess and the rest of her family.
It’s hard to figure out which royal crisis takes top billing:
Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s health has deteriorated to the point that her husband is cutting short his June trip to Japan while her daughter is coming home from university in Australia. Mette-Marit has pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive disease that damages lung tissue and which usually requires a lung transplant after other treatments cease to be effective. She now gets supplemental oxygen at events.
Queen Sonja, 88, was hospitalized for several days and is being treated for heart failure and atrial fibrillation
On June 15, a court will hand down its verdict in the trial of Mette Marit’s son by a previous marriage. He is charged with sexual assault and other crimes.
If that weren’t enough, the health of King Harald isn’t that good. Indeed, a lot of duties and responsibilities are ending up with Crown Prince Haakon. Likely his children, Ingrid and Sverre Magnus, will have to interrupt their education to help out with royal duties for there’s literally no one else available. It’s a peril inherent in reducing the number of working royals to a small core group.
King Philippe and Queen Mathilde were proud parents as their eldest child, Crown Princess Elisabeth of Belgium, graduated from Harvard with a Master’s in Public Policy. She also did some media interviews, in which she talked about a rather fascinating change about to occur – in the next decades, there will be queens on the thrones of Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and Sweden
Elisabeth revealed that she’s very close to the other young heiresses to European thrones – in fact, Elisabeth, Amalia of the Netherlands, and Ingrid of Norway are in a group WhatApp chat. As Elisabeth explains, “In my generation, there are several women. You see a similar shift in other monarchies. We are all in the same situation. It’s a hurdle we will face together.”
Queen Máxima of the Netherlands completed the first phase of her training to become an army reservist. After taking part in a demanding 24-hour field exercise, she received her beret in a ceremony watched by her husband, King Willem-Alexander and daughters, including Crown Princess Amalia, who completed her own basic training earlier this year.
Máxima started the reservist program in February, becoming the latest in an unprecedented flood of European royal women taking up military duties as Europe rearms and prepares for conflict with Russia.
There are multiple reports out of London that Frogmore Cottage, their sprawling Georgian home on the Windsor estate, is going to be turned back into multi-unit accommodation. The renovated five-bedroom house has been sitting empty since their lease wasn’t renewed in 2023.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source writeroyalty.substack.com ’
