The Duke and Duchess of Windsor: We Are Not Amused

Photographer Annie Leibovitz doesn’t talk to her subjects when photographing them. “I certainly can’t talk to people and take pictures at the same time. For one thing, I look through a viewfinder when I work.” (1) But famed photographer Richard Avedon had a different style. Leibovitz observed that Avedon “seduced his subjects with conversation. He had […]

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Wallis, the Duchess of Windsor

In my previous post, “Coco Chanel, Nazi Lovers, and the Windsor Set,” I described the wave of attention the Duke and Duchess of Windsor received when they settled in Paris in the late thirties. A glamorous social set of fashion designers, Nazi sympathizers, American heiresses, British ex-pats, and assorted other idle rich people welcomed the Windsors and became […]

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Coco Chanel, Nazi Lovers, and the Windsor Set

In 1937, after King Edward VIII had given up the British throne to marry his American divorcee, Wallis Warfield Simpson, the two tiny, trim party animals were exiled to France, where they were doomed to live a life of idle nothingness. They were given the new but hollow titles of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Accustomed to […]

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Princess Margaret’s Trip to America, 1979, Part Five: La Casa de Sue

Readers, be sure to read my preceding posts on Princess Margaret’s October 1979 Trip to America. Part One. Part Two. Part Three. Part Four The 1970s era Hollywood super agent Sue Mengers was only interested in representing the top talent in the industry. Her“bulging celebrity contacts book” included Barbra Streisand, Jack Nicholson, Mike Nichols, Ali […]

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Princess Margaret’s Trip to America, 1979, Part Two: Lord Louis Mountbatten

First, please be sure you have read this post: “Princess Margaret’s Trip to America, 1979, Part One” It was August in 1979, a time when almost every Briton took a holiday to some faraway family home or destination. Queen Elizabeth II loved to go to Balmoral Castle in Scotland. This year, as in many years, […]

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How Much Do You Know About the Royal Family?

What’s Prince Philip’s favorite drink? Check out our quiz to see how much you know about the Royal Family: 1. In which battle did George VI fight? A. The First Battle of Ypres B. The Battle of Loos C. The Battle of Jutland D. The Battle of Tumbledown 2. What was the name of the […]

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1936 The Year of the Three Kings

The year 1936 brought many changes within the British monarchy. In January of that year, the first monarch of the House of Windsor, King George V, died and his son, Edward VIII ascended the throne. King Edward VIII though was not destined to rule long. He had a married American mistress – Wallis Warfield Simpson – who was […]

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Queen Elizabeth’s Grandmother Had the “Gimmies”

Queen Mary was Queen Elizabeth’s grandmother. She was married to George V. George V was the father of Queen Elizabeth’s father, King George VI, who preceded Queen Elizabeth on the throne. Queen Mary got it wrong. One is supposed to “love people and use things.” She did the very opposite. Mary loved things and used people. The Queen […]

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About Lisa

Hi, I’m Lisa Waller Rogers and I write the blog, Lisa’s History Room. “Oh, no! Another history blog?” you might say. Yes, another history blog – and yet not – because this one’s different in a very special way. You see I don’t think of history the way many historians do, as a dull-as-dirt list […]

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Princess Margaret: Drama Queen

From a very young age, Princess Margaret of Britain (1930-2001) loved to dress up in costumes, act, sing, and dance—and she had real talent. At the age of nine months, for example, she had astounded her grandmother with her gift for music, by humming the waltz from “The Merry Widow.” Her enchantment with the magical […]

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Prince Philip Dabbles in Oils

Since retiring from public service in August 2017, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, has spent most of his time at Wood Farm, a secluded cottage on the edge of the royal Sandringham Estate on the Norfolk coastline. The modest red-brick, five-bedroom property, just a few miles from the big house, allows Philip privacy and […]

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Prince Philip and Carriage Racing

In 1971, Prince Philip of England gave up polo. He was fifty years old. Not one to sit still, he cast about trying to come up with some other exciting activity that best befit his physical abilities. In a 2017 interview, Philip said, I was looking round to see what next, I didn’t know what […]

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What Freud Did to Prince Philip’s Mum

As I mentioned in my blog post, “Prince Philip’s Mum had a Habit,” Prince Philip of the United Kingdom, known as the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince Consort of Queen Elizabeth II, was born in 1921 on a kitchen table in Corfu, Greece, in a house that had no electricity or running water. But Philip […]

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Princess Diana: The Daydream of Love

Princess Diana (1961-1997) loved to read romantic fiction. She devoured novels by British author Barbara Cartland, of which there was an endless and steady supply. In her lifetime, Cartland (1901-2000) is credited with having written 723 books. In 1983 alone, she wrote 23 of them. She holds The Guinness Book of World Records for writing the most books in a […]

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Agatha Christie: Wave Runner

In the early morning hours of August 6, 1922, crime novelist Agatha Christie and her husband, Archie Christie, sailed into Honolulu, Hawaii, on the Makura and hailed a taxi. On their drive to the Moana Hotel, they passed between palm trees and hedges of hibiscus, red, pink, and white oleanders, and blue plumbago. At their hotel, the sea washed right up to the courtyard […]

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