23 March 1430 - Margaret of Anjou, born.

Wife of Henry VI, King of England. The daughter of Rene, Duke of Anjou, Margaret married King Henry VI in 1445, they had one son Edward born in 1453.

She is one of the great figures of the Wars of the Roses, taking to the field and leading armies while her husband the King was either a prisoner of the Yorkists or incapacitated with a mental breakdown. The couple were rarely together in the 1460s as she aimed to keep the King and his heir apart so that there was no possibility of both being killed or captured together.

She travelled widely between England, Scotland and France seeking support in the form of men, arms or money. But it all came to an end in the space of three weeks in May 1471. Firstly her son Edward was killed in battle aged 16 followed shortly after by his father, the deposed King Henry, murdered in the Tower of London on the orders of the ultimately triumphant Yorkist King Edward IV. 

Margaret was a King Edward's prisoner for four years until her cousin King Louis XI of France ransomed her. She died in her homeland of Anjou in 1482.

24 March 1603 - Elizabeth I, Queen of England 1558-1603, died.

Recently voted England's greatest Monarch. Her reign saw a peaceful religious settlement which avoided the Wars of Religion that affected much of Europe at the time. It also saw the beginnings of the British Empire with ventures to the Americas.

She fell ill at the end of February 1603 with throat ulcers which made swallowing difficult. Once it became clear that she was dying preparations were made for the peaceful succession of James VI, King of Scots, her undoubted heir, although he was never actually named as such by Elizabeth.

Immediately upon her death in the early hours of 24 March in a prearranged move a sapphire ring was taken from her finger and given to a messenger to carry north to Edinburgh as proof that Elizabeth was dead and James was now King of England. A little over two and a half days later the messenger Robert Carey delivered the ring and the news to James in Edinburgh. 

25 March 1751 - Fredrik, King of Sweden 1720-51, died.

He was the eldest surviving son of the Landgrave of the tiny German Principality of Hesse-Cassel. In 1715 he married Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden, the sister and heir of King Charles XII.

In 1718 King Charles was killed in battle and his sister became Queen. There was however a male rival for the Throne, her cousin Charles of Holstein-Gottorp. In order to secure her succession Ulrika had to surrender most of her powers to the Swedish Parliament.

After a reign of little more than a year she abdicated finding the role as Monarch in the final throes of a failed war with Russia too onerous. Her husband Fredrik was accepted as King under the new Constitution that greatly reduced his powers. He was content to reign rather than rule preferring his pleasures as opposed to his duties. His one attempt in 1723 to regain some authority failed and he never tried again.

His father died in 1730 and Fredrik succeeded as Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel. Having no children by his wife the Swedish Parliament had to find a suitable heir and in 1743 they settled upon Prince Gustaf Adolf of Holstein-Gottorp (the cousin who was a claimant in 1718 had died in 1739) to succeed upon Fredrik's death in 1751.

He's got the look of a man who preferred pleasure to duty.

The role imposed on Ulrika Eleanora in 1718 made the Swedish Monarchy similar to the British, but unlike the Hanoverian Kings the Swedish King Gustaf III wrestled power back in 1772, more on him later this week. 

26 March 1819 - Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, born.

200 years ago today. Cousin of Queen Victoria. His father was George III's seventh son, Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge. Prince George spent most of his life in the Army seeing active service in the Crimean War. He served as Commander-in-Chief of the Army for 39 years 1856-95. However he had a reputation of resisting change until it was forced upon him. 

He is also remembered for his marriage. In 1840 he began an affair with Louisa Fairbrother, an actress with two illegitimate children. She went on to have two more by George and they only married in 1847 when she was pregnant with her third child by him. However the marriage was unlawful as under the Royal Marriages Act 1772 he had to obtain the Monarch's permission to marry and this he did not do knowing it would be refused. She was never invited to formal occasions, but she and the Queen did meet many times on family gatherings.

Because of his unlawful marriage George's son by Louisa, also George, could not inherit his father's title of Duke of Cambridge upon the elder's death in 1904.

The title was revived in the Royal Family in 2011 when Prince William was created Duke of Cambridge.

27 March 1306 - Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick crowned as Robert I, King of Scots.

Thus bringing to an end the ten year interregnum in which Scotland was ruled by Edward I of England.

The story of how Scotland lost its King and its independence is too complex to go into here, but see 19 March for a brief background. During those ten years Robert proved to be a master of deception and dissembling, at various times he supported the fight for Scottish independence and at times he rallied to King Edward's banner. His position as a senior claimant to the vacant Throne of Scotland meant that both sides were eager for his support and he did enough to ensure that he was accepted by both at the same time.    

But the capture and execution of the great Scottish warrior Sir William Wallace in 1305 was the catalyst for Robert to declare for Scotland. Firstly however there was the problem of another rival, equal in power and stature, John Comyn. Robert arranged a meeting with him in February 1306 at Dumfries where Robert stabbed him inflicting a serious wound, two of his supporters then finished the job. With Comyn out of the way Robert felt able to break once and for all with the English. After liberating Dumfries Castle from the English Robert travelled to Scone in Perthshire the traditional site for the coronation of the Kings of Scotland. On 27 March the Royal regalia was brought out of its hiding place where it had been secreted from the English and Robert was crowned by Bishop Lamberton.

Now the fight for Scotland could resume with a new leader, one with all the authority of Kingship.

28 March 1884 - Leopold, Duke of Albany, died.

Fourth and youngest son of Queen Victoria. He was diagnosed with haemophilia and as a result did not lead the active life in the Army etc that his brothers did. He was the cleverest of her sons and inclined towards the Arts.

In 1881 he was created Duke of Albany and the following year married Helena of Waldeck-Pyrmont. She gave birth to a daughter in 1883 and was pregnant with her second child when Prince Leopold went to Cannes in 1884 to escape the English winter. On 26 March he slipped at the foot of the staircase in his hotel and badly bruised his knee. With his condition the internal bleeding proved fatal and he died two days later, just ten days short of his 31st birthday.

In 1880 he was one of the first members of the British Royal Family to visit the USA when he accompanied his sister Louise and brother-in-law the Marquess of Lorne, the Governor-General of Canada.

Although Leopold was the youngest to die of Victoria's children his daughter Alice, born in 1883, was to become the longest lived, she died in 1981 aged 97.     

Too many Blue Bloods in the family.

Hardly a suspicious death, a haemophiliac did well to get to 30 back then.

The death of Prince Leopold inspired William McGonagall, dubbed "the world's worst poet", to write a poem to commemorate his life.

The first verse gives you an idea of McGonagall's standard.

"The Death of Prince Leopold

Alas, noble Prince Leopold, he is dead

Who often has his lustre shed

Especially by singing for the benefit of Esher School

Which proves he was a wise Prince, and no conceited fool"

Couldn't do better myself.

29 March 1792 - Gustaf III, King of Sweden 1771-92, assassinated.

A year after inheriting the Throne King Gustaf engineered a coup which restored the Monarch's powers that had been lost to the Swedish Parliament in 1718.

He futher extended his authority in 1789 but in doing so alienated many of his former supporters among the nobility. In 1792 he fell victim to a conspiracy of aristocratic army officers. On 16 March He attended a masked ball at the Stockholm Opera House where he was approached by a similarly masked man, Jacob Anckarstrom, who, as he passed behind him shot the King in the left side of his back. The wound was not thought at first to be too serious and the King continued to govern from his sickbed, but it became infected and he died on 29 March. Anckarstrom was executed a month later.

30 March 2002 - Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother died.

Wife of King George VI and mother of the present Queen.

She was born Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1900 the daughter of the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorn. She married Prince Albert George, Duke of York in 1923 and had two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret.

Her husband became King in 1936 upon the abdication of his elder brother Edward VIII. He died in 1952 and his widow assumed the title of Queen Mother.

She died in 2002 aged 101 and is Britain's longest lived Royal.

31 March 1547 - Francis I, King of France 1515-47, died.

Rival in splendour and power to Henry VIII. He consolidated France's position by formally annexing Brittany which had hitherto been a nominally independent Duchy. But he failed, as so many late Mediaeval Kings of France before him, to expand into Italy, spending morte than a year a prisoner of the Spanish after his defeat and capture at the battle of Pavia in 1525.

In 1520 he was the principal guest of Henry VIII at the magnificent tournament and diplomatic gathering in English-held territory near Calais - the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

He died just two months after Henry in 1547.