Royalty Digest Quarterly no. 2, 2017

Historical tidbits of the royal houses of Sweden and Denmark dominate the latest issue of Royalty Digest Quarterly (no. 2, 2017). The front cover shows a painting of King Frederik VI of Denmark and Queen Marie Sophie with their daughters Wilhelmine (in the middle) and Caroline. The same image can also be found on page 25. In other words, Denmark has made it to the traditional Family Album this time, as always presented by periodical's historical consultant Charlotte Zeepvat. This album focuses on the history from the vikings to the House of Oldenburg, so I suppose that the House of Glücksburg will be covered in a later issue. The album contains, besides the introduction, a collection of all in all 85 images as well as three pages with genealogical surveys, covering the descendants of Frederik V.

The album is followed up by another article by Charlotte Zeepvat, A King for Denmark, where she makes a good effort in explaining the rather complicating history leading up to the election of Prince Christian of Glücksburg as heir to the Danish throne.

The first article in the present issue, howver, is titled Prince Gustaf Adolf - the lost generation and is written by Roger Lundgren. Prince Gustaf Adolf was of course the father of the present King Carl Gustaf of Sweden. Lundgren is know for among other things his biography on Prince Gustaf Adolf's wife Princess Sibylla, published in 2007.

The fourth Scandinavia-related article, Jomfru Fanny, is written by the editor Ted Rosvall himself.  Rosvall tells the story about the psychic Franziska Caroline Elise Enger (1805–1881), the daughter of an huntsman at the Mecklenburg estate of Vietow, Friedrich Enger, og the unmarried seamstress from the same estate, Christine Maria Margretha Heise. But was Friedrich the real father? Some wants to believe that she was the daughter of the then Prince Christian Frederik, later King Christian VII, and his then fiancée Princess Charlotte Frederikke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin ...

Normally the World Wide Web of Royalty column, bringing the latest genealogical news, comes at the end of the issue, but this time the editor has made an exception! More importantly, we are presented with news from  Austria and Hungary, Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst, Luxembourg,  Mountbatten, Russia, Sweden, Bourbon-Two Sicilies and Württemberg.

Following the genealogical news, Coryne Hall tells the story of Princess Maud of Fife in the series Little-known royals, before David Horbury presents the part 4 of letters from John Wimbles' collection of material from the Romanian National Archives and other sources.

Finally the readers are treated with a book review again. Hurray! Charlotte Zeepvat gives her thoughts on the book Royal Wills in Britain from 1509 to 2008 by Michael L. Nash (Palgrave Macmillian, 2017, ISBN 978-1-137-60144-5 (hardcover), 978-1-137-60145-2 (e-book). The book seems to be very interesting. But I wonder how well the book will sell, considering that it is priced at GBP 83,29 (e-book)/GBP 99,99 (hardcover).

Information on Royalty Digest Quarterly can be found at its editor's website Royalbooks.se. See earlier presentation of RDQ here. See also its Facebook page.