I will be offering an online course for seniors about Royal Parenting from Medieval Times to Modern Times for Etobicoke Learning Unlimited in January-March 2024.
Click here for more information and to register.
For more about the history of Royal Parenting, read my book, Raising Royalty: 1000 Years of Royal Parenting (Dundurn Press: 2017)
I will be delivering an evening lecture (7pm) at North York Central Library in Toronto on Friday October 13 about the history of royal weddings from Victoria and Albert to Harry and Meghan! All are welcome.
I will be teaching an eight week course on Tuesday afternoons in October-November 2023 at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies – Behind the Crown: The Monarchy from Victoria to Charles III. Click here for more information and to register.
The personal lives of royalty are a popular subject for fiction in novels, films and TV series but the real history is more interesting. Each generation of royalty must respond to the challenges of their times to keep the monarchy relevant and engaged with public opinion. Join Carolyn Harris, historian, commentator and author of Raising Royalty: 1000 Years of Royal Parenting for a lively discussion of the history, politics and cultural significance of the monarchy in the UK and Canada.
I will be delivering a lecture on Royalty and Popular Culture: Fact, Fiction and the Crown, examining portrayals of the monarchy in historical films, plays and novels as part of the University Lecture series at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. I will be speaking in Oakville on October 2, Markham on October 5 and Toronto on November 3.
In an extended interview with Katie Boyden at Metro UK, I discussed Queen Elizabeth II’s popularity and how past monarchs were viewed – favourably and unfavourably – by the public, both during their reigns and afterward. Kings and Queens discussed in the interview include Queen Victoria and Richard III.
I discussed the fascinating and eventful history of royal regalia, the Stone of Scone and the coronation chair with Alessia Passafiume at the Toronto Star.
My new article in Reader’s Digest Canada discusses royal residences in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland and recent changes to where members of the royal family live in the reign of King Charles III.
Click here to read “The Ultimate Guide to Royal Residences” in Reader’s Digest Canada
My new article in Reader’s Digest Canada discusses the more than thousand year history of coronations in Britain, looking back from the televised coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 to the precedent setting coronation of the Anglo-Saxon King Edgar the Peaceable in 973.
Click here to read “The Most Memorable Coronations in British History” in Reader’s Digest Canada
Hanoverian to Windsor Consorts: Power, Influence and Dynasty, edited by Aidan Norrie, J.L. Laynesmith, Danna R. Messer, Elena Woodacre and myself is now available in hardcover and e-book from Palgrave Macmillan. The book includes new research and perspectives on all the consorts to the Hanoverian, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Windsor monarchs in Britain and the Commonwealth, examining three hundred years of royal history. I wrote the introduction to the volume and introductions to the sections on Hanoverian and Windsor Consorts as well as the final chapter about Camilla, Catherine and the future of the role of the royal consort.
Hanoverian to Windsor Consorts: Power, Influence and Dynasty at Palgrave Macmillan
Hanoverian to Windsor Consorts: Power, Influence and Dynasty on Amazon
I discussed the history of royal memoirs including Queen Victoria’s published journals and the ghostwritten memoirs of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor with Olivia B. Waxman at TIME History.
Click here to read my article in Reader’s Digest Canada about the history of royal memoirs