In 1863, Queen Victoria decreed that her son Edward, Prince of Wales, should marry Princess Alexandra, daughter of the obscure and unsophisticated heir to the Danish throne.

The beauty, grace and charm of Prince Christian's daughter had prevailed over the Queen's intense dislike of the Danish royal house. Even the embarrassingly difficult Bertie was persuaded to agree to the match.

Thus began the fairy-tale saga of a family that handed on its good looks, unaffectedness and democratic manners to almost every royal house of modern Europe. For, in the year that Alexandra became Princess of Wales, her brother Willie was elected King of the Hellenes; her father at last succeeded to the Danish throne; her sister Dagmar was soon to become wife of the future Tsar Alexander III of Russia; and her youngest sister Thyra later married the de jure King of Hanover.

A Family of Kings is the story of the crowned children and grandchildren of Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark, focusing on the half-century before the First World War. It is an intimate, domestic study of a close-knit family, their individual personalities, and the courts to which they came.

Some lost their thrones. Others supported the Nazis. Several suffered from haemophilia. One had to get a job, and two were executed! Written entirely in the first person, this is a concise introduction to the extraordinary lives, scandals, loves, triumphs and tragedies of the extended royal family that has stretched across Europe, some of them becoming Kings and Queens. In Children of The Empire, Michael Farah imagines how forty-seven children and grandchildren of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert would have each summarised the story of their life, from their early childhood to the very end. Complete with individual portraits and family trees, this is an easy and enjoyable gateway to the family of Queen Victoria, accessible to all.