A delightful photo of little Grand Duchesses Olga Nikolaevna and Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia with their auntie, Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna, circa 1898-1899. <3

“you will always remember me, will you not?”

King George V with his wife, eldest son, and only daughter.

Sunderland's Royal Jewel Vault (21/∞) ♛

↬ Queen Irene's Illyrian Emerald Parure Tiara

Sometimes, Queen Irene fancies herself a jewel maker. Despite the vast majority of the royal tiaras being inherited from queens long past, three tiaras were commissioned by Irene herself. The oldest being a jaw-dropping emerald tiara, the centrepiece of a magnificent parure. In 1971, Queen Irene was presented with an emerald necklace and a pair of matching earrings, a gift from the Illyrian Royal Family on the occasion of her accession as queen consort. King Edward II of Illyria was a charming ruler, and his family's jewel box was stuffed full of spectacular emerald jewels, reflecting his country's wealth and abundance. The large oval-shaped emeralds caught the Queen's eye, and she decided to expand the demi-parure over the next few years. In 1977, Irene commissioned Garrard to create a tiara to match the parure. The tiara and parure continued to be re-designed and evolved, with more Illyrian emeralds being added to the collection. By 1991, the finished tiara stood at a hefty 9 centimetres tall and was accompanied by a necklace, a pair of earrings, two matching bracelets, and a brooch. Irene since the parure's completion, Irene has worn it somewhat consistently, stating that the tiara makes her feel "as pretty as a peacock" although it often makes her the tallest lady in the room—even taller than her husband. Despite her age, Irene still manages to pull off this tiara with mastery despite having smaller and more comfortable opinions at her disposal. The Illyrian emerald tiara is truly fit for a queen.

Thank you @the-lancasters for gifting Irene such lovely emeralds 💚

HM Queen Irene, wearing the Illyrian Emerald Parure, frowns as she attends a banquet on April 15, 1996

HM Queen Irene wears the Illyrian Emerald Parure, during a State Banquet on April 18, 2014

This dude has taught me that you can truly do anything if you are a white guy with absolutely broken charisma stats

shuake rite of passage is like. spending most of the entire game going 😐🤨🤔😳 at their banter/flirting/dates. being intrigued when the normally silent protagonist exclaims a heated "this isn't 'trivial'!" about his one and only rival's life, completely independent of player input. accepting the undeniable fact that 'our light' is basically a love song from protag's point of view to said rival. finding out about proof of justice ova. watching proof of justice ova. watching proof of justice ova again. going insane at the fact that the normally silent protag who never cries, cried over their rival in public. the fact that he was thinking about him before bed. realizing the one active, 'selfish' choice and wish protag had always involved his fated rival in some way, again completely independent from player's views on said rival.

and then becoming lucid for one second and finding out you just dug yourself into a shuake rabbit hole and theres no getting out

just thinking about alex’s apple watch giving him a notification for having an abnormal heart rate every time he sees henry

fantasy/royal au with maki who is your sworn knight. feeling awful. feeling miserable.

So, you know how when an author is writing og!Cale and they want to give him a power, sometimes they give him fantasy spirit stuff? Well, I want elementals to have the usual 'spirit king per attribute' that you usually find in fantasy mangas, but make the water spirit king an axolotl and let og!Cale befriend them.

And when I say Axolotl Water Spirit King I mean 'non-parlant little flying axolotl' that can turn into a 'giantic, water-looking-like, could swallow a pirate ship, still non-parlant axolotl' a la Ponyo.

Just, Imagine og!Cale who was just minding his business and finds a little dorky amphibian that got trapped in a net. And the little dorky one smiles at him. He has no choice but to help it.

The little one likes him. They become friends :D!!

So, turns out his animal friend can fly. Cool.

His new friend decided to follow him— Wait, where is he going?

...Oh.

So, his little friend is not so little anymore.

Ey, don't— spit it out! Spit the bad woman out!

And he doesn't like his relatives.

Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine by Swoboda. Courtesy of the Royal Collection Trust.

"The newly widowed Elizabeth (Woodville) was exceptionally vulnerable. Several of the trustees responsible for her jointure refused to hand over the manors that were meant to sustain her in her widowhood. Moreover, her brother-in-law, Edward Grey, had seized estates that her son Thomas should have inherited from his paternal grandfather, while her mother-in-law’s new young husband, Sir John Bourchier, had prevailed on Lady Ferrers to settle her principal properties on them jointly for life, ensuring that Thomas would have to wait far longer for this inheritance too. Rivers and Scales were pardoned in July 1461 and swiftly moved into the Yorkist establishment, which perhaps explains the success of the chancery suits Elizabeth launched to regain her jointure. Her son’s inheritance proved harder to recover. By 1463, Rivers was often in (Edward IV's) company and on his council, but Elizabeth needed someone with much stronger influence over the King. She turned to a distant kinsman, William, Lord Hastings, the King’s chamberlain. Hastings drove a very hard bargain for his aid but it was probably amid these negotiations that the King’s desire for Elizabeth was kindled."

-J.L. Laynesmith, "Elizabeth Woodville: the Knight's Widow", "Later Plantagenet and Wars of the Roses Consorts: Power, Influence, and Dynasty"

Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia with her relative King George I of Greece, 27th September, year of 1900.

Queen Maria of Yugoslavia, nee Romania.

Mignon is wearing what I believe are Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna's emeralds. They were given to Maria Pavlovna the Younger for a wedding present, who sold them to Alexander of Serbia/Yugoslavia after the revolution, who gave them to Mignon as a wedding gift.

Kate 'reluctantly missed final goodbye with the Queen so Meghan wouldn't come ... - LBC

Neither Kate nor Charles comes out of this well.

Utterly graceless and full of spite. 🎯🎯

Oddly enough, seeing the fresh batch of BS from the rota doesn't bother me at all. If anything, those headlines make Kate and the Palace look bad, not Meghan.

I really like to think there is some debate among scholars on whether Tol Fuin is part of the Reunited Kingdom on a technicality, since its Kings are straight-line descendants of the last Lords of Dorthonion.

...

The opinion of His Highness King Elessar on the subject: It would, you know, make about as much sense for me to say we're still the Lords of Andunie.

The opinion of Her Highness the King's youngest daughter: That would actually be immeasurably cool and dad is a spoilsport.

The opinion of any given random inhabitant of Middle-Earth: I mean Gondor-and-Arnor is welcome to it; no one lives there for a reason, but if they want a barren wasteland with a feel altogether too similar to Mordor on sentimental grounds, who am I to stop them?