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Historic Royal Palaces blog

Insights and behind the scenes from our palaces

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.

Grand Duchess Xenia Romanov: A royal Russian resident at Hampton Court Palace

06 April 2017

On 6 April 1917, in the midst of violence and unrest, Grand Duchess Xenia Romanov left St Petersburg on a train to the Crimea, never to return again. Xenia's journey into exile eventually brought her to Hampton Court Palace.