Need to Know About the Royal Family's Annual Ghillies Ball at Balmoral

About the Royal Family's Annual Ghillies Ball at Balmoral

Every summer, Queen Elizabeth travels to Balmoral Castle in Scotland for her summer holiday.

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her granddaughter Princess Eugenie shared in the documentary Our Queen At Ninety.

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While at Balmoral, the Queen carries on a tradition started by her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria: the Ghillies Ball. Here's everything you need to know about the annual dance.

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After Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, purchased Balmoral in 1852, they threw a dance in September to thank their staff and servants.

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Queen Elizabeth's biographer Sally Bedell Smith writes in Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch that at the ball,

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men wear black tie and kilts, and the women wear tiaras, long gowns, and tartan sashes with diamond brooches.

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Typically, the ball occurs toward the end of the royal family's summer break every year,

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so in late August or in early September. It is held in the grand ballroom of Balmoral Castle.

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