As my mother likes to say, “I stopped caring about the British royal family in 1776.”
However, this Substack piece mildly amused me. My favorite part:
Perhaps the most scandalous coronation took place at the newly completed St Paul’s Cathedral in February 1308. The young queen, Isabella, was the 12-year-old daughter of France’s King Philippe Le Bel, and had inherited her father’s good looks, with thick blonde hair and large blue, unblinking eyes. Her husband, Edward II, was a somewhat boneheaded man of 24 years whose idea of entertainment was watching court fools fall off tables.
It was a fairy tale coronation for the young girl, apart from a plaster wall collapsing, bringing down the high altar and killing a member of the audience, and the fact that her husband was gay and spent the afternoon fondling his lover Piers Gaveston, while ignoring her. Isabella’s two uncles, who had made the trip from France, were furious at the behaviour of their new English in-law, though perhaps not surprised.
Other than that, how was the coronation, Queen Isabella?
(Those with a historical bent may recall that Edward II ended up dying in prison: the unproven legend is that he was murdered by having a red-hot poker shoved up his neither regions.)