teatimeatwinterpalace: Grand Duchess Elizabeth and Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovitch in Darmstadt in about 1889. This photograph speaks volumes of a couple who stood side by side for over twenty years, no matter what the world said about them. “People will intrigue and lie as long as the world exists”, Elizabeth told her grandmother in 1896, ” and we are not the first not the last, who have been calumniated.” The Camera and the Tsars.
patrickhumphreys: Of my countless photographs, I chose this favourite of Prince Rainier and Princess Grace because it personified their essential characters: the Princess’s great, dignified beauty and the Prince’s soft, proud style which we grew to know so well after countless years of affectionate friendship and visits made to us and them in England, Spain and Monaco. —Fleur Cowles, 1996 Photo by Fleur Cowles.
thefirstwaltz: Two kings. Prince Mihai (future King of Romania) and his grandfather, King Ferdinand of Romania. Circa 1921-1922. 
misshonoriaglossop: The younger children of Crown Prince Rupprecht and Crown Princess Antonia of Bavaria: Heinrich, Irmingard, Editha, Hilda, Gabriele and Sophie. Editha passed away today at the age of 88. From the six siblings are now Gabriele and Sophie left.
teatimeatwinterpalace: Infanta Maria José of Portugal, Duchess in Bavaria with the two youngest children Margarete and Ferdinand of the previous marriage of her husband Karl Ludwig with Princess Maria Annunciata of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.
teatimeatwinterpalace: Mary, Princess Royal and Countess of Harewood.
auntada: “I was born March 23, 1850 in Kentucky, somewhere near Louisville. I am goin’ on 88 years right now. (1937). I was brought to Missouri when I was six months old, along with my mama, who was a slave owned by a man named Shaw, who had allotted her to a man named Jimmie Graves, who came to Missouri to live with his daughter Emily Graves Crowdes. I always lived with Emily Crowdes.” The matter of allotment was confusing to the interviewer and Aunt Sally endeavored to explain. “Yes’m. Allotted? Yes’m. I’m goin’ to explain that, ” she replied. “You see there was slave traders in those days, jes’ like you got horse and mule an’ auto traders now. They bought and sold slaves and hired ‘em out. Yes’m, rented ‘em out. Allotted means somethin’ like hired out. But the slave never got no wages. That all went to the master. The man they was allotted to paid the master.” “I was never sold. My mama was sold only once, but she was hired out many times. Yes’m when a slave was allotted, somebody made a down payment and gave a mortgage for the rest. A chattel mortgage… .” “Allotments made a lot of grief for the slaves,” Aunt Sally asserted. “We left my papa in Kentucky, ‘cause he was allotted to another man. My papa never knew where my mama went, an’ my mama never knew where papa went.” Aunt Sally paused a moment, then went on bitterly. “They never wanted mama to know, ‘cause they knowed she would never marry so long she knew where he was. Our master wanted her to marry again and raise more children to be slaves. They never wanted mama to know where papa was, an’ she never did,” sighed Aunt Sally. Sarah Frances Shaw Graves, Age 87 Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938 Library of Congress, Digital ID mesnp 100126
aescom:  Queen Sirikit at the royal court
Ananda Mahidol (20 September 1925 – 9 June 1946) was the eighth monarch of Siam (now Thailand) under the House of Chakri. At the time he was recognized as king by the National Assembly, in March 1935, he was a nine-year-old boy living in Switzerland. As the new King was still a child and studying in Switzerland, the parliament appointed two regents. He returned to Thailand in December 1945. Six months later, in June 1946, he was found shot dead in his bed. Although at first thought to have been an accident, medical examiners ruled it a murder and three royal pages were later executed following very irregular trials. His mysterious death has been the subject of much controversy.