Crowned in a Far Country

by Princess Michael of Kent and Princess Michael of Kent

Book Overview

Though of eminent birth and status in their own right, the women of Crowned in a Far Country all left the countries of their birth to marry heirs to great thrones. They all shared an inbred sense of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0297790102
• ISBN13: 9780297790105
• Release Date: October 1986
• Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

An interesting book from an "insider"

Crowned in a Far Country contains seven chapters about eight royal brides, covering their life from childhood and family background through marriage to later years. It provides a number of interesting details about them. It reads well. The author is Princess Michael of Kent, who is herself a member of the British Royal Family and who probably has a different point of view on royal marriages than other authors of similar books. I can recommend it to anyone interested in the subject.

Pleasing vignettes

I think that some of the reviewers have been a bit harsh on HRH and that she's presented a likeable, gossipy view of the temperaments and times of the ladies about whom she's written. I don't believe that she ever intended to give an in depth, political overview of the royal consorts...far from it! Even though one reviewer called it a "lightweight" book, I believe that it was the personal side of these women that the author wished to show, not their effect on the country's politics. Personally, I loved hearing about the fashions, customs and foibles of these princesses from past times and also loved to hear about their relationships with their husbands, children and families. So, it's all irrelevant to the workings of the various countries but, so what..it's an entertaining collage of personal facts about well known women and I for one, thoroughly enjoyed it!

Not scholarly but a good starting place

The first duty of a princess has always been to marry for the good of the dynasty and/or the country; that's the role she was born to fill and most female royals accepted the marriages arranged for them with at least a sense of duty and sometimes with an eager eye to adventure. But some of these women were strong-willed and talented in their own right and came to exert considerable influence over their adopted nations. The author, an Austrian-Bohemian whose family lost everything in the two world wars, lived in Australia and Africa, studied art in Italy, and established her own design company in London. In 1978, she married Prince Michael of Kent, Queen Elizabeth's first cousin, and set up housekeeping in Kensington Palace (and still ran her company). In this volume, she outlines the lives of eight women married off as political chess pieces, and especially their experiences in their new homelands. These include major figures like Marie Antoinette of Austria, who married Louis XVI of France and went to the guillotine, and Catherine of Anhalt, who became empress of Russia; lesser lights like Leopoldina of Austria, who became empress of Brazil, and Maria Carolina, also of Austria, who married the king of Naples; much-loved figureheads like the Danish princess who became Queen Alexandra of Great Britain; and the tragic figures of Empress Victoria of Prussia, daughter of Queen Victoria of Great Britain, whose husband, Frederick III, died only three months after acceding to the throne of Germany, and Empress Marie of Russia, who lived to see her son, Nicholas II, executed with his family. Because of her inside track with both Austrian and British titled families, the author generally does a good job of conveying the attitudes of her subjects. But because this is in no way a scholarly book, her many quotes lack citations and the short bibliography is heavy on popular works. Still, it's a good place to start.

Wonderful

This book is very good.In the sources part of the book it doesnt say where she got alot of her recources.She knows these things because shes related to almost all of them.If not by blood then by marriage.All but two of the royal houses of europe still running or not were intwined by marriage.So that is how she got most of her resources.