If you could "go back in time" and have dinner with any member of the Royal Family...?

Question

Who would you pick? Here are the rules:

You may pick any member from 1066 on through 2006.

Please indicate why you would select that individual.

Please don't pick Princess Diana. While I absolutely adored Princess Diana, I am hoping with this question to get answers about some of the lesser known members of the royal family.

Thank you! Don't forget to include what interested you most about whoever you selected.

Answer 1

i hope to meet queen elizabeth I and queen victoria, because they were both very successful queens and were very powerful

Answer 2

William I

His actions changed the course of English history, and play a significant part in European history. After his conquest, he ended the Anglo-Saxon Age in England, assimilating Norman culture, thereby creating the modern English culture. This thoroughly changed the role of England in the Middle Ages. He also revamped English law, built several major buildings (including the Tower of London), permanently altered the English language (through its suppression) and founded feudalism in England.

Answer 3

Sarah Fergenson......I have a thing for the red headed ladies!  Plus of all the members of the royal family she married into the royals and refused the staunch and pompusness of it all and went on to genuinely help others, like her former Sister In Law.

Answer 4

Elizabeth I, because she was ahead of her time and very interesting.

Answer 5

I have to agree with Catwoman. I would love to have dinner with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. They would be the most interesting.

Answer 6

there family name was Romanov.....the last czar of Russia!!!

oh, I like that one!!!

I would like to sit down and have Dinner with the Russian Czar...and also a little chat...remember, the whole family got executed!!

Answer 7

Thats a hard question, as there are so many I would like to dine with, especially monarchs of the Middle Ages.  However,  I guess I would finally settle on a later ruler:  Queen Victoria.  Most of the royal families in Europe can claim to have family ties with her and Prince Albert, even the ill-fated  historical Russian family of Nicholas and Alexandra.  Reason being, that Victoria married off her daughters to royalty all across Europe.  She gave birth to 9 children, and I would like to hear about her life with such a crew....bet she could tell all kinds of "royal shenanigans" they pulled!  She made Persian cats popular, which I too love.  She had such devotion to her husband, that she went into deep depression for years after he died....I have a lot of compassion for her.  One of my favorite (if not THE favorite) palaces I visited in England was Kensington (don't know why I felt an emotional pull to that, but I did...it made no sense to me.)  I    believe she spent her youth there, and would like to hear about that.   She was the monarch, I believe, that made Buckingham Palace the official palace of the monarch....she loved that as well as Windsor Palace.  All of those places I visited, so would love to hear stories about living in Buckingham and Windsor as well.  I find it fascinating in that she succeeded to the throne NOT as a child of a monarch, but it was thrust upon her shortly after she turned 18,  because the deceased monarch (her uncle, William IV) had no heir.  Now, how is that for luck!!!!  A REAL "Princess Diary," in a sense.  Her own father, who was brother to William IV, died when Victoria was only 8 months old.  So...  I would like to hear about the adjustment of jumping into the queen's position at such a young age of 18,  not even having been raised by a reigning monarch!  I love decor of the Victorian Era, so would imagine our dinner to be in that type of romantic setting.  If Prince Albert could be there, too, that would make it all the better...to be in the presence of such a deep love relationship....ahhhh....  Finally....Victoria died in her 80's, so having been crowned at age 18, you could say she practically spent her entire life as a Queen!!!  That's a L-O-N-G reign..

Answer 8

I would love to meet Queen Elizabeth 1st. She was a woman in a man's world, she walked a political tightrope from an early age; she defended England from threats of countries like Spain. She was a remarkable woman who truly was 'wedded to England.'

I also agree with Danelady - Eleanor of Aquatiane was a fascinating woman. I think these two ladies would have a lot in commmon.

Thanks for an interesting question.

Answer 9

Princess Grace of Monaco

Answer 10

I would probably choose...Prince William of Wales....

Why?

Here we go...

Prince William of Wales (William Arthur Philip Louis; born 21 June 1982) is the elder son of Charles, Prince of Wales and the late Diana, Princess of Wales. He is second in the line of succession to the British throne and thrones of each of the other Commonwealth Realms. As the son of the Prince of Wales and grandson of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince William is a member of the British Royal Family.

The prince is as of 2007 serving as a Cornet in the Blues and Royals regiment of the British Army's Household Cavalry, like his younger brother, Prince Harry. Within his regiment, he is known as Cornet William Wales.

Prince William was born on 21 June 1982 at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, West London, England. His father is Charles, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. His mother is the late Diana, Princess of Wales, youngest daughter of John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer and Frances Ruth Burke-Roche. As a grandchild of the British monarch and son of the Prince of Wales, he is styled His Royal Highness Prince William of Wales. As a child, he was affectionately called by his parents Wombat, Camel, or Wills.

He was baptised by then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Robert Runcie, on 4 August 1982. It was the 82nd birthday of his paternal great grandmother Elizabeth the Queen Mother. The baptism took place in the Music Room at Buckingham Palace. His godparents are: former King Constantine of Greece, Sir Laurens van der Post, Princess Alexandra, Mary West, the Duchess of Westminster, Lord Brabourne and Lady Susan Hussey.

Through his maternal grandfather, Prince William is descended from King Charles II of England and King James II of England. William, should he become King, will be the first monarch since Queen Anne to be descended from Charles I of England.

He has a younger brother, Prince Harry, born 15 September 1984.

HRH The Duke of Gloucester

HRH The Duchess of Gloucester

HRH The Duke of Kent

HRH The Duchess of Kent

HRH Prince Michael of Kent

HRH Princess Michael of Kent

HRH Princess Alexandra

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On 1 March 1991 (Saint David's Day), Prince William made his first official public appearance during a visit to Cardiff, the capital of Wales. After arriving by plane, the eight-year-old prince was taken by his parents to Llandaff Cathedral. After a tour of the cathedral, he signed its visitors' book, demonstrating that he was left-handed. Photographs of the Prince taken during his visit are on permanent display at the cathedral. On his departure, numerous school children and local residents from the surrounding area presented gifts to him, which he received with a smile and the whispered words "thank you".

On 3 June 1991, Prince William was admitted to the Royal Berkshire Hospital after being hit on the side of the forehead by another pupil wielding a golf club. The Prince did not lose consciousness, but suffered a depressed fracture of the skull and was operated on at the Great Ormond Street Hospital. A slight scar is still visible today.

The prince has been a keen fan of Aston Villa F.C. since childhood.

mwah'

:)

Answer 11

Can I pick two?  There are many I'd like to talk to, but at the moment Edward IV and his wife Elizabeth Woodville (or Wydville) seem interesting.

Edward was Henry VIII's grandfather, and they were both - as young men - tall, handsome and reddish-haired.  They both liked the ladies, too, and both became fat in later life.  But Edward fell in love with and secretly married the very beautiful Elizabeth; their two sons were the little Princes in the Tower.  (One of their daughters married Henry Tudor, bringing together the houses of York and Lancaster.  Their second son was Henry VIII.)

I'd like to get into the medieval mind and see how these two worked together.  What would they say about Edward's brother, Richard of Gloucester, who would become Richard III, and in whose reign the little Princes were sent to the Tower and then disappeared?  Edward was also supposed to have had his brother Clarence drowned in a butt of malmsey wine.  A brutal lot.    

Elizabeth Woodville, good looking even to our eyes:

http://tudorhistory.org/people/ewoodvill...

http://www.channel4.com/history/microsit... (short history)

Edward IV:

http://www.nndb.com/people/671/000093392...

http://members.tripod.com/Berwyn/edward4...

Answer 12

I would have picked Richard III as well, it's hard to know whether he was as evil as depicted, through the haze of Tudor propaganda.

So I'll have to make another choice, and that would be Eleanor of Acquitaine. The most astonishing woman of her age. The independent ruler of Acquitaine, which was far larger than France or England, she married Louis, the King of France. She and her band of ladies went on Crusade with Louis, to the great annoyance of all the historians of the period. They eventually divorced, and she married Henry Plantagenet, thus becoming Queen of England.

This amazing woman was the mother of Henry (known as the "Young King") Richard the Lionheart and John of infamous memory. Her personal and political feuds with her husband led to him imprisoning her for many years. At his death, the first thing Richard did, was to release his mother and she ruled England as Regent while he was on Crusade. She was still travelling the vast extent of the Angevin lands in her 80's. It's impossible to compress her amazing life into a few sentences, but the film "The Lion in Winter" retells the period very well.

Answer 13

Richard III. I'd like to find out whether he was really as bad as the Henry VII (who overthrew him) and the rest of the Tudors had him made out to be. There appears to be a reasonable amount of evidence to the contrary.