Lavinia Orefici
08 June 2024
There was all the excitement of a royal wedding at the wedding of Hugh Grosvenor And Olivia Hensoncelebrated yesterday in Chester, a town in the north west of England, which for twenty-four hours became the social heart of the kingdom.
A parade of high nobility, among whom the Prince of Wales stood out, was staged in St. Werburgh St. cordoned off for the occasion, with the jubilant subjects recalling the happiest celebrations in the country.
He is the seventh Duke of Westminster, the richest under 40 in the kingdom, afflicted by a fortune valued at over 10 billion pounds since his father, Gerald Grosvenor, the sixth Duke of Westminster, died of a sudden heart attack in 2016. The current duke is 33 years old, he is friends with Princes William and Harry and is at home at Buckingham Palace. His baptismal godfather was Charles III and he himself was the godfather of Prince George, the future king. The bride, 31 years old, is Olivia Henson, solid fortune, good friendships and good studies, at Marlborough College, which Catherine and Pippa Middleton also attended.
Among the four hundred guests, the notable absences of the King and the Princess of Wales, who were advised against attending by doctors for health reasons, and of Harry and Meghan who from California declined the invitation of their best friend. The risk of meeting one’s brother face to face and creating a diplomatic incident on a day of celebration is too high. But the Grosvenors are used to the whims of the Windsors. It was 2004 when, on the occasion of Hugh’s sister’s wedding, Lady Tamara, a controversy arose over the placement of Prince Charles and his then girlfriend Camilla Parker Bowles in the church. He would be seated in the front row with the rest of the royal family, with Camilla several seats back. The matter ended Solomonically with Carlo’s cancellation of the wedding, and that same day he went to visit the families of the soldiers deployed in Iraq. Yesterday everything went smoothly.
The newlyweds will live in Chester, in the magnificent Grosvenor residence, Eaton Hall, of ten thousand acres, just six kilometers away from the cathedral where the wedding was celebrated and where Hugh’s ancestors rest in the family tomb. “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” – something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue – is the saying that accompanies brides in the kingdom and in order not to miss the tradition Olivia Henson has arrived at ‘altar on a couple of blue shoes, wearing a dress by Emma Victoria Payne and above all wearing the Fabergé tiara of the Grosvenor family. With her marriage, the new duchess gains access to one of the most important jewel collections in the kingdom, which is part of an immense heritage that has grown over the centuries. The Grosvenor fortune dates back to 1677 when Sir Thomas married twelve-year-old Mary Davies, heiress to a series of lands that include what is now Belgravia and Mayfair, the neighborhoods of wealthy London.
For the floral decoration, the bride chose a view similar to that of the guests at William and Kate’s wedding in 2011, where trees and almost thirty thousand flowers had decorated Westminster Abbey.
We have known about it for some time the princess’s flat rate of Wales at the wedding, undergoing chemotherapy to treat cancer. But the more time passes the more Catherine’s absence from the public scene raises speculation about his real health conditions. Rumors are filtering through the American press that Prince William’s wife’s diary is empty until the end of the year, while the British media are using cautious optimism according to which the chemotherapy she has undergone is producing comforting results.
Indications also confirmed by the Prince of Wales, who from Normandy where he was on the occasion of the eightieth anniversary of D-Day, speaking with a veteran said that Catherine is better.
However, the appointment is set for next June 15th, Trooping The Colourthe official birthday of the king, when the royal family will look out from the balcony of Buckingham Palace and between absences and presences there will be the bulletin on the state of the crown.
