Royal Hobbies

As the summer roars in, it seems appropriate to think about the royals in a more relaxed, off-duty mode. For this quiz, identify the royal associated the following hobbies. Submit your answers via comments or e-mail it to princessesreign@gmail.com.

1. This royal declared he was no damn alien, but he was a recognized philatelist.

2. Having earned the nickname "Farmer George" for his agrarian interests, this royal required his children maintain their own individual vegetable gardens.

3. This royal lady was not only a prolific letter writer, she also was a talented artist who created many sketches and paintings of her husband and nine children.

4. These royal sisters spent part of World War II creating musical theatre productions to entertain their parents.

5. This staunchly dignified royal lady had one very naughty hobby of collecting; that is, collecting other people's stuff. Because of her notorious habit of acquiring things from other people's houses, this lady's mother-in-law sometimes hid her personal treasures during visits from her.

And, for those of you who could use an extra point to level up (or to guard against imperfect quiz answers in the future!), here is an incredibly easy bonus question.

BONUS: Known for his self-deprecating wit, this royal gent poked fun at much lampooned personal interests on his 40th birthday. "Only the other day, I was inquiring of an entire bed of old-fashioned roses, who were forced to listen to my demented ramblings on the meaning of the universe as I sat cross-legged in the lotus position on the gravel path in front of them. I was inquiring of them what they thought would happen on my birthday in a Birmingham tram shed.  At this point, a row of prized Welsh leeks (cocky little things) who were lurking in a nearby vegetable patch chipped in to say that they expected the shed to be filled with groups of semi-naked Kalahari bushmen gyrating wildly in the reenactment of a primeval fertility dance and also a troupe or two of Tibetan Buddhist monks who had proceeded to the shed by levitational means."

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Golden Oldies Answers

Throughout the ages, royals have tended to live about the same life expectancy as others of their day, but on occasions, a really long-lived royal has demonstrated an excellent combination of good genes, good living and good luck. For this quiz, our experts were asked to name these golden royal oldies.

1. This Greek-born royal will join the nonagenarian club in June 2011.

Born June 10, 1921 as the youngest child and only son of Prince and Princess Andrew of Greece, Prince Philippos fled into exile with his family when he was still an infant. He spent a good part of his childhood in Paris, then in school in Germany, then joined the British navy. Until he married the heir to the British throne. He led a very peripatetic life bouncing between relatives and navy posts. He gave up his Greek titles and became simply Philip Mountbatten before being created HRH The Duke of Edinburgh by his father-in-law and Prince of the United Kingdom by his wife.

2. Both born as daughters of Scottish peers, these two ladies married royal brothers

The most famous of these ladies, Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was the youngest daughter of the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. In 1923, she married the second son of King George V and became HRH The Duchess of York. In 1936, her husband ascended the throne and she became HM Queen Elizabeth, but she is most beloved as the Queen Mother, a title she held from the death of her husband in 1952 until her own death 50 years later at the age of 101.

The second Scottish lass was Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott, the middle child of the 7th Duke of Buccleuch. Having traveled around the world, she finally married at the age of 33 to the third son of George V and became HRH The Duchess of Gloucester. Both of her sons were born when she was in her forties; the eldest Prince William died in a flying accident in 1972. After the Duke's death in 1974, the Queen allowed her aunt to use the style HRH Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester although she had never been a princess in her own right. Princess Alice holds the record as the longest lived British royal: she died in 2004 just eight weeks before her 103 birthday.


3. This imperial heir became a pretender at age nine and a European parliamentarian at 67

Now simply known as Otto von Habsburg, Archduke Otto of Austria was the oldest son of the last Austrian emperor Karl. Born in 1912, Otto became the Crown Prince with his father's succession in 1916. Following his father's abdication in 1918 and early death in 1922, Otto assumed the role of pretender to the nonexistent throne, a claim he renounced in 1961 in order to launch a political career in Austria. He served as president of International Paneuropean Union for 31 years and was a member of the European Parliament for 20. He is 98 years old. (Update: Archduke Otto passed away on 4 July 2011 at his home in Germany.)

4. At age 30, this empress was a widow with eight children

If you know the story of #3 above, you probably know that this woman is Otto's mother, Zita of Bourbon-Parma, who was Empress of Austria for less than two years. Born in 1892, as one of 24 children of Robert Duke of Parma, she apparently inherited the family's fecundity giving her husband eight children in their 11-year marriage. In 1918, the imperial family was sent into exile after World War I. When her husband died of pneumonia in 1922, his reported last words to her were, "I love you so much," and she wore black in his memory until her own death in 1989 at the age of 96. Two of her sons are still living: Otto (above) and Felix who is 95. A third son, Carl Ludwig, died last year at age 90.

5. Born a Spanish aristocrat, she married a president and became an empress

Renowned for her beauty, Eugenie de Montijo caught the wandering eye of Napolean's nephew, Louis-Napolean who was elected president of the Second Republic of France. Before the end of his term, he staged a coup d'etat and seized dictatorial powers. One year later, he declared himself Emperor Napoleon III. One month later, he married Eugenie "for love", so he was technically no longer president. Ironically, just two generations removed from his family's lower class origins in Corsica, Napoleon believed he married beneath him despite Eugenie's centuries of noble descent. The Empire fell after less than two decades and family made their new home in England, where they were very close to Queen Victoria and her family. In fact, it is believed that Eugenie hoped to marry her only son to Victoria's youngest daughter, Beatrice, who later named her daughter Victoria Eugenie. The ex-Emperor died two years after arriving in England and their son died brutally while fighting the Zulus at age 21 a few years after that in 1879. Empress Eugenie remained in England but died in Spain during a visit to family in Spain in 1920. She was 94. Her name lives on today in a namesake, Princess Eugenie of York, whose mother, the former Sarah Ferguson has a strong interest in the Victorian royals.

Golden Oldies

Throughout the ages, royals have tended to live about the same life expectancy as others of their day, but on occasions, a really long-lived royal has demonstrated an excellent combination of good genes, good living and good luck. For this quiz, name these golden royal oldies. You may post your responses as a comment or e-mail them to princessesreign@gmail.com.

1. This Greek-born royal will join the nonagenarian club in June 2011

2. Both born as daughters of Scottish peers, these two ladies married royal brothers

3. This imperial heir became a pretender at age nine and a European parliamentarian at 67

4. At age 30, this empress was a widow with eight children

5. Born a Spanish aristocrat, she married a president and then became an empress

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Sisterly Love Answers

With The Duchess of Cambridge (a.k.a Princess Catherine) and her sister Philippa 'Pippa' Middleton making headlines lately, I thought a quiz about royal sisters would be a nice challenge. Our Royal Experts were asked to identify the following pairs.

1. The Queen of England and the Empress of Russia

In the 19th Century, two European monarchs became the heads of two intertangling dynasties that would separately and jointly place descendants on nearly every European throne. The lines of King Christian IX of Denmark and Queen Victoria of England first intertwined when his oldest daughter Alexandra married her heir, the future King Edward VII. Christian's second daughter Dagmar (later Marie) married the Russian Czar Alexander III and the two lines crossed again in the next generation when Marie's son Nicholas married Victoria's granddaughter Alix of Hesse. Raised in a cadet branch of the Danish royal house, Alexandra and Marie grew up relatively poor for royals and only rose to distinction when the complex line of succession landed on their dad. The two girls were always very close. Even after they each married, they continued to holiday together and even bought a home together in their native Denmark. There was a remarkable likeness between their sons, King George V and Czar Nicholas II.

2. Two discarded queens: One gone mad and One who 'lost' two English husbands
Having a powerful mother did not protect these two princesses from their powerful husbands. Although Queen Isabella of Castile had clearly proven that a woman could rule a kingdom, her daughters Juana and Catalina (Catherine) of Aragon were to suffer from prejudice against female rulers. Juana married and fell in love with the heir of the Holy Roman Empire. Her jealous behavior toward him quickly became overwrought. When Isabella died, Juana inherited Castile and a power struggle ensued between her husband and her father, King Ferdinand of Aragon, for control of Juana's throne. Whether she was insane or simply highly strung, Juana's behavior was odd enough after her husband's early death to enable her dad to lock her away for the rest of her life. Meanwhile, Catherine was sent to marry the English heir, Prince Arthur. When he died soon after the wedding, Catherine was a more-or-less a prisoner of her father-in-law who didn't want to relinquish her dowry. When Juana and her husband were temporarily shipwrecked in England, Catherine appealed to her older sister for help, but Juana was too focused on her handsome husband. So, Catherine languished for seven years until her father-in-law's death and the new king, her brother-in-law Henry VIII decided to marry her. Flash forward 20 son-less years later, Henry divorces Catherine to marry the second of his six wives. Both sisters died devoted to their husbands.

3. Queens of Revolution: One who lost her head and one who led a counter-revolution

Empress Maria Theresa of Austria also ruled as monarch. She had 11 daughters, all named Maria. The most famous of these are undoubtedly the two youngest Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples, and Maria Antonia, best remembered as Queen Marie Antoinette of France. The two archduchesses were very close as children until their mother separated them in adolescence for bad behavior. Soon afterward, Maria Carolina was sent to marry the King of Naples and Sicily as a replacement for an older sister who had died of small pox. Despite an inauspicious beginning, the couple produced 18 children and Maria Carolina essentially took over the government from her ineffectual husband, who much preferred hunting to governing.

Unfortunately perhaps, Marie Antoinette was unable/incapable of governing in place of her also ineffective husband and both of them were guillotined in the French Revolution. Following her sister's execution, Maria Carolina abandoned the ideals of enlightened absolutism and launched a counter-revolution in her kingdome. Eventually deposed by Napolean, Maria Carolina died in exile just one year before her husband's restoration.

4. The pair who introduced Rasputin to the Imperial Family

This proved to be the most challenging pair for our Royal Experts. Most respondents selected a non-royal pair: Empress Alexandra's confidant Anna Vyrobova and her sister, also named Alexandra. However, the royal sisters responsible for helping make the naughty monk acceptable in Russian imperial and aristocratic circles were Anastasia and Militsa of Montenegro, daughters of King Nicholas I of Montenegro who married Russian Grand Dukes. Anastasia married Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaeivich and Militsa married his brother Peter. Both of the princesses were deeply religious and drawn to the more occult aspects of the Russian Orthodox Church.

They championed several mystics including Rasputin. Although the Empress did not consider the princesses to be her friends, she became deeply attached to their protege Rasputin, which ultimately helped lead to the Russian Revolution. The sisters and their husbands all escaped the revolution, unlike many other members of the imperial family.

5. Scandalous sisters: One married a playboy but became an HRH and one ran away with the circus.
Technically these sisters are daughters of a princely house, and therefore were born serene highnesses rather than royal highnesses, however, they (and their children) are regarded as "royals" by the world's media. Princess Caroline and Princess Stephanie of Monaco have each embarked on a number of escapades that brought little honor to their heritage or to the memory of their beloved mother Princess Grace. Caroline started by rebelling against her parents as a teenager and marrying a renowned playboy against their better judgement. With that marriage annulled, she started an affair with an Italian and soon became pregnant. After a shotgun wedding and two more children, Caroline was devastated by her husband's tragic death in a high-speed boat race. This and motherhood seemed to have settled her down. However, she married one more time to another playboy although this one is a prince of a deposed royal house. Once again, however, she was already pregnant at the time of the wedding. Little sister Stephanie was undoubtedly the most physically and emotionally scarred by their mother's untimely death since she was still a teenager and was in the car at the time of the accident. She launched into several un-princessly and largely unsuccessul careers like swimsuit model and rock singer and indulged in numerous unseemly love affairs. In fact, her name has been in the news lately with the release of her former lover Rob Lowe's memoirs. After that she had a child by her bodyguard, married him, had another child and divorced him. Then, she had a third child by a still unnamed father. Then, she began a love affair with a married circus trainer and took her children to live with him in a caravan following the circus. Stephanie and Caroline's brother has also led a rather undignified personal life filled with many high-profile romances and two acknowledged illegimate children. Now 53, he is set to marry his 33-year-old girlfriend after a year-long engagement. It will be interesting to see if his Princess Grace lookalike bride will restore some decorum to the princely palace.