Insights and behind the scenes from our palaces
Using Heritage Science to Conserve Queen Caroline's State Bed
13 September 2024
Work on Queen Caroline’s much-loved State bed, which we care for on behalf of the Royal Collection Trust, continues at Hampton Court Palace and our attentions are now drawn to protecting the feet of this priceless historic object.
Queer Lives at the Tower: The LGBT+ Stories that were almost on the tours
07 February 2020
Queer Lives at the Tower, our new LGBT+ tours at the Tower of London are just a couple of weeks away, and the team are rehearsing to deliver a bold and new experience. However, there are some stories that didn’t quite make the cut. I’m going to tell you them here, to see what they tell us about how we work with LGBT+ history.
Why we need to stop looking for sex: letters and LGBT+ royal history
25 February 2019
'How do you know?' I've been asked this a lot recently when I've been talking about LGBT+ royal history. I'm glad to be asked it, because it gets to the heart of studying LGBT+ identities in the past. In this post, I'd like to talk about the evidence and assumptions, which tell us a lot about sexuality in the past, and today.
Love between women on the Stuart stage: Queen Mary, Queen Anne, and Arabella Hunt
15 February 2019
In 1675, Princesses Mary and Anne – the future Queen Mary II and Queen Anne – performed in one of the most glittering and glamorous performances ever to grace a London stage. Callisto: Or, The Chaste Nymph, a court masque, was commissioned by Mary and Anne's uncle Charles II and written by John Crowne. The production consumed daily life at Whitehall Palace for six months and, like many stories of the dramatic stage, has an awful lot of LGBT+ history to uncover.