Princess Louise of Prussia (1860-1917), Duchess of Connaught
Artist: Robert Antoine Müller (British, active 1872-83)
Dated 1879
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Royal Collection Trust, London, United Kingdom
Princess Louise of Prussia
Louise of Prussia (Luise Marie Elisabeth; 3 December 1838 – 23 April 1923) was Grand Duchess of Baden from 1856 to 1907 as the wife of Grand Duke Frederick I. Princess Louise was the second child and only daughter of Wilhelm I, German Emperor, and Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. She was the younger sister of Frederick William ("Fritz"), the future German Emperor Frederick III, and aunt of Emperor Wilhelm II.
Bagshot Park in Surrey, England (1880).
Illustration from Francis Orpen Morris's book: County Seats of The Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland.
Sophie Wessex provides rare glimpse of her stunning kitchen at Bagshot Park - complete with stylish navy units lit with spotlights and a collection of vintage fine china tea sets
By Hayley Richardson For Mailonline14:20 24 Apr 2020, updated 16:20 24 Apr 2020
Sophie Wessex gave royal fans a rare glimpse of her and Prince Edward's kitchen at their glamorous Bagshot Park home this week.
The Countess, 55, joined a video call with the Thames Valley Air Ambulance, of which she is patron, to congratulate them on their work with the NHS during the coronavirus crisis.
Donning a camouflage print shirt, mother-of-two Sophie dialled in from the corner of her kitchen at their Windsor residence, where the walls are lined with stylish navy units.
Three vintage fine china tea sets, including a pot, sugar dish and cups and saucers, were visible behind her through the glass door cabinets, adorned with elegant silver knobs.
Open shelving units featured spot lighting, and showed off a selection of glassware and ornaments.
An office phone and a small notepad sat on the bottom shelf, which appeared to be made from marble.
The camera changes position during the video call, offering viewers an additional look at the room, which revealed more open shelving adorned with glass jars to store food and cooking ingredients.
The reflection of the glass cabinet also revealed a monochrome 'chess board' style tiled wall on the opposite side of the room, possibly above a cooker.
The video was shared to the Royal Family's Instagram page, where it's been viewed 219,650 times.
The caption read: 'The Countess of Wessex joined a video call with Thames Valley Air Ambulance this week, where she thanked crew members who have been redeployed to help their NHS colleagues working on the frontline.'
Did everyone forget that Ed & Sophie work more than Will & Kate?
And not a little bit more but a LOT more!
The King’s brother, Prince Edward, enjoys his Surrey mansion at a peppercorn rent, it can be revealed, after The Times forced the disclosure of documents held by the Crown Estate.
The Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth’s youngest child, has leased the 51-acre Bagshot Park near Bracknell with his wife, the Duchess of Edinburgh, from the Crown Estate for the last 25 years.
According to the terms of Edward’s lease extension, signed in 2007 with his company, Eclipse Nominees Limited, he paid £5 million up front for a lease of 150 years, but pays only a peppercorn rent.
There are no conditions on the further sale of Edward’s lease, beyond that the new tenant could afford the property’s maintenance, leaving open the possibility that Edward could profit from its sale.
[...]
As a working member of the royal family who is often seen representing the Windsors at official engagements both in the UK and overseas, Edward has several charitable patronages, including the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme, which promotes outdoor activities for young people.
Campaigners have questioned whether Edward, 15th in line to the throne, can justify his occupation of a property, which could otherwise be leased by the Crown Estate for taxpayer benefit.
Edward, who was granted the title Duke of Edinburgh by the King after the death of his father, Prince Philip, initially leased the property for 50 years for £5,000 a year in March 1998.
The sum later went up to £90,000 a year — described by the National Audit Office as “market value” — after Edward paid £1.36 million to help renovate the property, with the Crown Estate covering the rest of the £3 million refurbishment costs.
Unlike Royal Lodge, the Crown Estate received two alternative offers for Bagshot Park, one for the establishment of a conference centre and another to convert the property into a hotel, after the Ministry of Defence handed back its lease on the site in 1996.
This lease was extended under the 2007 deal. While some of the details about that deal were reported through briefings, the full lease itself was not published. The heavily redacted version on the Land Registry made it impossible to establish whether he continued to pay a market rent.
Despite releasing an unredacted copy of Andrew’s lease to reporters, the Crown Estate had initially declined to disclose a copy of Edward’s Bagshot Park lease, forcing The Times to request the full lease under freedom of information laws.
The grade II listed mansion was built between 1875 and 1879 on instructions from Queen Victoria as a home for her third son, Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn.
The Crown Estate’s profits feed back into the exchequer to the benefit of the taxpayer. Its financial outlay on matters of questionable public benefit has come under scrutiny after the revelations about Andrew’s favourable deal at Royal Lodge.
BUT what George Greenwood failed to mention is that the monarch still owns all the property of the Crown Estate. The property rights of the Crown Estate belong to the monarch while most of the profits are given to the government, except for the portion given to the monarch under the Sovereign Grant.
The disclosure comes on the back of wider questions about why royal finances have remained so secretive.
Royal wills and details of the private trusts used to fund their activities have been kept from the public, despite the key role the royal family play in British public life and the immense soft power they hold.
Unlike other public officials, correspondence with royal family members is also subject to special exemption from the Freedom of Information Act, making it harder to investigate how royals use their influence.
Any correspondence between the King and the Prince of Wales and public authorities is completely barred from disclosure, with no right of appeal, a rule only brought in by the government in recent years.
The royal author and former Liberal Democrat minister Norman Baker said: “It is obscene not just that Edward and Sophie have been given a 120-room mansion to live in, but even more so that they have to pay a mere peppercorn rent, less than a struggling couple would pay to rent a pokey flat in Romford.”
A spokesperson for campaign group Republic said: “There is absolutely no reason why Edward should be supplied with subsidised housing. These properties are state-owned. They should not be in the gift of the monarch for their family. Most people have no idea who Edward is or what he does. Why is he getting any state subsidy?”
The Crown Estate and Buckingham Palace declined to comment.
"Republic" keeps demonstrating that they're a bunch of nitwits. The state does not own the properties of the Crown Estate; the head of state owns those properties, which in this case would be KC3.
Never ceases to amaze me that the UK government has very little to non-existent checks and balances in a winner-take-all parliament/government. Then people wonder why they have problems...
