David Giles/PA Archive/PA Images
In August 1997, the death of Diana, Princess of Wales was followed by a huge outpouring of grief. Here’s why.
A snapshot of a famous life.
PA
Documentary makers, museum curators, PR teams and the royal family all want their say on the 20th anniversary of her death.
The Queen’s top hats, this one designed by Angela Kelly and worn at the 2011 Royal Wedding, are her greatest invention.
REUTERS/Darren Staples
The hat is an example par excellence of aristocratic excess, the equivalent of a peacock’s tail in seducing the Queen’s subjects.
Speaking out on mental health.
Stefan Wermuth/PA Wire
Emotional restraint in public life has a lot going for it.
Then one simply drops it.
PA/ Steve Parsons
It turned out to be a fairly minor announcement, but the palace knows how to work the news cycle.
Netflix
Netflix’s most ambitious and expensive original drama is historical fiction at its most lavish.
Taking physick – or – the news of shooting the King of Sweden!, by James Gillray (died 1815), published 1792.
Wikimedia Commons
British society takes monarchy far more seriously than they did two centuries ago. Far too seriously.
Generation game.
Royal Mail
Royal PR in pictures started with the Stuarts 400 years ago.
EPA/Facundo Arrizabalaga
The British monarchy is in good shape. Here’s how to make sure it stays that way.
Gough Whitlam, pictured here in 2008, looks at the original letter that dismissed him from office in 1975.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Sir John Kerr probably made his own decision to dismiss the Whitlam government much earlier than he acknowledged publicly while alive – but he came to this conclusion in discussion with others.
Ivan Maisky: a consummate diplomat and astute observer of events.
Courtesy of the Scheffer-Voskressenski family
Some excerpts from the diary of Ivan Maisky, the WW2 Soviet ambassador in London.
63 not out.
Reuters
The Queen has now been on the throne for 63 years and 217 days. As the embodiment of Britain, it has been certainly been a role that’s out of the ordinary.
Best for business.
Luke MacGregor/Reuters
Having a Queen is a distinct business advantage, particularly due to reverence for the monarchy in new and emerging markets like China.
Their Royal Heilnesses.
PA Archive/PA Archive
Two decades ago, MI5’s archives were surrounded by secrecy like that of the royal archives. There’s a reason this has changed.
Remembering the past at the Magna Carta memorial at Runnymede.
Tim Ockenden /PA EDI
Only three of the original 63 clauses remain in force today, but the legacy of Magna Carta runs much deeper.
The Duke of Windsor inspecting SS soldiers in 1937.
Aktuelle-Bilder-Centrale, Georg Pahl (Bild 102)
Members of the British royal family were far closer to Nazi Germany during World War II than has previously been recognise, Russian and Spanish archives suggest.
Just like you and me.
Dominic Lipinski/PA
How the royal propaganda machine tries to make hereditary millionaires seem just like the rest of us.
Hear ye, hear ye.
Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA
The life of a princess has traditionally not been pleasant.
The retrospective nature of the changes to the rules of succession means it ultimately made no difference whether the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s first born was a boy or girl.
EPA/Tal Cohen
The Crown has become a little less discriminatory with changes to the rules of succession – and descendants of George II who failed to get permission to wed need no longer fear their marriage is void.
Britain’s Prince Harry and his fiancee Meghan Markle appear on the grounds of Kensington Palace in London, Nov. 27, 2017.
AP Photo/Matt Dunham
It might seem strange, especially given the nation’s decision to sever ties with George III in 1776.