2018’s Engagement Numbers & What They Tell Us

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2018 was a banner year for the British Royal Family between two weddings, a baby and the Commonwealth’s succession secure in the Prince of Wales. It was not, however, a year in which there was much angst over engagement numbers. By now we well know that the Queen’s four children will carry their weight, while the Queen is ramping down her duties, her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, is retired, and her grandaughters-in-law found themselves pregnant and/or not yet full-time royals.

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The Independent Beauty: Mary, Duchess of Gloucester

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Like all the daughters of George III and Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Princess Mary’s life was a little bit tragic and a little bit mundane. Born in April 1776, Mary was the first of her parents’ children to arrive in the middle of the American Revolution. Ten other children preceded her in the royal nursery, but few of them would be able to match Mary in confidence or spirit, both of which may very well have stemmed from the fact she was early on considered the most attractive of her siblings.

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Prince William & the Walpole Bastard

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In the middle of all the conversation about what an unlikely choice Meghan Markle is for the British Royal Family let’s take a moment to remember the time George III’s younger brother married the illegitimate daughter of a shop girl. Notably, the marriage was one of the liaisons that prompted the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, a fairly useless piece of legislation that didn’t do anyone much good.

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