{"id":2355193,"date":"2026-04-02T06:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T06:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2355193"},"modified":"2026-04-02T06:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T06:33:08","slug":"a-royal-writing-a-book-welcome-to-1926","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/a-royal-writing-a-book-welcome-to-1926\/","title":{"rendered":"A royal writing a book? Welcome to 1926"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

One hundred years ago this month, the Royal Family was big news.
\nIn a country still recovering from World War One and negotiating
\nthe new social set up that had ushered in, they had become what
\nthey always were at their best. A focal point. And what was drawing
\neveryone\u2019s focus was the arrival of a baby.<\/p>\n

Despite the lack of formal announcement, everyone knew that the
\nwife of the second son of King George V was expecting a baby. What
\nthey didn\u2019t know was that they were counting down to the arrival of
\none of the most famous Monarchs in history. On April 21 1926, a
\nprincess called Elizabeth was born in London. It was the royal news
\nof the year. But around that were many other royal stories and
\nwe\u2019re counting them down as the
\ncentenary of Queen Elizabeth II<\/a> approaches.<\/p>\n

A new royal author<\/h2>\n

Royals writing books, eh? Whoever would have thought it. On
\nApril 2 1926, the papers were talking about a possible new
\npublication from a princess. There were few details and, it has to
\nbe said, a rather condescending look ahead from the Bournemouth
\nGraphic<\/em>. It informed its readers that Princess Marie Louise
\nwould be publishing a book on West Africa in the coming weeks,
\nnoting that \u201dalthough one of the most versatile members of the
\nRoyal Family, she is new to the role of authoress\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

The paper needn\u2019t have worried. Princess Marie Louise, a
\ngranddaughter of Queen Victoria, was generally successful at
\nwhatever she tried and she had tried plenty by April 1926. Born in
\nCumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park in 1872, her mother was
\nVictoria\u2019s third daughter, Princess Helena. Marie Louise had been
\nmarried, had that union annulled and had taken up nursing,
\nphilanthropy and numerous patronages not to mention painting,
\nenamelling and music by the time the Bournemouth Gazette started on
\nher. The book turned out to be about her time in Ghana where she
\nhad helped establish a hospital.<\/p>\n

A princess setting an example<\/h2>\n

However, Princess Marie Louise was also something of an example
\nof a way of royal life still to come. She had taken on a wide range
\nof duties representing King George V and Queen Mary, many of them
\ncharitable. Her life was a string of public engagements, a kind of
\ntemplate for the Royal Family that would be steered by the baby
\neveryone was waiting to meet in April 1926.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
Royal Central<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

On April 2 1926, The Scotsman<\/em> reported that Princess
\nMarie Louise had been the representative of the Royal Family at the
\ntraditional Maundy Thursday service, held at Westminster Abbey. The
\nfamiliar traditions we know took place with 61 men and 61 women
\nreceiving Maundy money, one for each year of the Monarch\u2019s age.
\nHowever, there were more explicit nods to the origins of the
\nceremony which originally followed the story of Jesus washing the
\nfeet of his disciples. Although washing was long since gone, some
\nof those receiving money at this ceremony carried a towel into the
\nAbbey, in remembrance of that.<\/p>\n

Royal love story captures
\nimaginations<\/h2>\n

The women of royal families are, generally, much more
\ninteresting than the men and that proved true in April 1926, While
\npoor old Princess Marie Louise was doing the heavy lifting in
\nLondon, another royal woman was captivating attention on the
\ncontinent. On April 2 1926, everyone was talking about Marie
\nJose.<\/p>\n

Marie Jose, only daughter of King Albert I and Queen Elisabeth
\nof the Belgians, was reported to be on her way to San Rossore in
\nItaly where that country\u2019s royal family was also heading. The
\nShepton Mallet Journal<\/em>, carrying syndicated material,
\nnoted that \u201daccording to a telegram from Brussels, the
\nengagement of the Prince of Piedmont, heir to the Italian throne,
\nto Princess Marie Jose, daughter of the King of the Belgians, will
\nshortly be announced.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Princess Marie Jose ended up marrying the Prince of Piedmont,
\nUmberto, in 1930 and they would become King and Queen of Italy in
\n1946. Their reign lasted just one month before the monarchy fell
\nand they went into exile. Their time together was unhappy and
\ndramatic and played out against a rapidly changing world where no
\none, not even royalty, could count on things staying the same. In
\nthose spring days of 1926, Marie Jose was a picture perfect
\nprincess and a reminder to all those who might also hold the title
\nthat bring royal was far from an easy role.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source royalcentral.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One hundred years ago this month, the Royal Family was big news. In a country still recovering from World War One and negotiating the new social set up that had ushered in, they had become what they always were at their best. A focal point. And what was drawing everyone\u2019s focus was the arrival of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2355194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2355193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/A-royal-writing-a-book-Welcome-to-1926.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2355193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2355193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2355193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2355195,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2355193\/revisions\/2355195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2355194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2355193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2355193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2355193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}