The Spring 2024 Carolyn Harris Royal Historian newsletter includes links to my recent articles and interviews as well as registration information for my 2024-2025 courses at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies.
Click here to read the Spring 2024 Carolyn Harris Royal Historian newsletter
In January-February 2024, I will be teaching my popular online course about The Romanovs and the Russian Revolution at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies.
Click here for more information and to register.
The consequences of the Russian Revolution continue to influence Russia’s politics and society, and indeed the whole world’s. In 2017, Russia quietly marked the 100th anniversary of the turning points: the abdication of Czar Nicholas II and Lenin’s seizure of power for the Bolshevik party. Follow the quick succession of crises: the collapse of the Romanov dynasty, the end of Russia’s participation in the First World War, the emergence of the Provisional Government, and the fateful rise of Lenin and the Soviet Union.
My new article in the Canadian Encyclopedia is about Frances Anne Hopkins, an artist who sketched and painted Canadian landscapes. Her most famous paintings, including Shooting the Rapids and Canoes in a Fog, Lake Superior, depict long-distance canoe voyages undertaken by the Hudson’s Bay Company in the 1860s.
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 discussed the coronation of King Charles III and changing attitudes toward the monarchy in Canada on the radio with CBC Blue Sky, Saskatchewan.
Click here to listen to “How relevant is the monarchy to Canadians in 2023?” at CBC Blue Sky
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
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
In my latest article for the Canadian Encyclopedia, I discuss the life and legacy of Princess Margaret including her tours of Canada and the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto.
Click here to read my article about Princess Margaret in the Canadian Encyclopedia
I discussed the plans for Queen Elizabeth II’s State Funeral on The Social on CTV Today.
Tudor and Stuart Consorts: Power, Influence, and Dynasty edited by Aidan Norrie, Carolyn Harris, J.L. Laynesmith, Danna R. Messer and Elena Woodacre is now available from Palgrave Macmillan.
This book examines the lives and tenures of all the consorts of the Tudor and Stuart monarchs of England between 1485 and 1714, as well as the wives of the two Lords Protector during the Commonwealth. The figures in Tudor and Stuart Consorts are both incredibly familiar—especially the six wives of Henry VIII—and exceedingly unfamiliar, such as George of Denmark, the husband of Queen Anne. These innovative and authoritative biographies recognise the important role consorts played in a period before constitutional monarchy: in addition to correcting popular assumptions that are based on limited historical evidence, the chapters provide a fuller picture of the role of consort that goes beyond discussions of exceptionalism and subversion. This volume and its companions reveal the changing nature of English consortship from the Norman Conquest to today.
Click here to purchase Tudor and Stuart Consorts: Power, Influence, and Dynasty