Royal Proposal Etiquette

It may not be generally known that Royal etiquette forbids any Royal personage of lesser degree, to propose marriage to a female Sovereign.

How Queen Victoria Proposed

It may not be generally known that Royal etiquette forbids any Royal personage of lesser degree, to propose marriage to a female Sovereign. Accordingly, it became necessary that Queen Victoria should ask Prince Albert whether he would share her lot. For a young woman this was naturally an awkward and rather delicate duty, but the most trying ordeal was when the Queen had to make the announcement of her wedding to the privy council. 

At one time there was a possibility that the marriage would not take place, owing to the desire of the Queen that she should not be married too early. In 1839, Prince Albert confessed that he came to England with the intention of telling his royal sweetheart that if she could not then make up her mind, she must understand that he could not wait for a decision as he had done at a former period, when the marriage was first talked about. 

It was at Windsor, at a ball, that the Queen broached the subject, by giving the Prince certain flowers from the bouquet she carried, and her boy lover, understanding the significance of the gift, and being tightly buttoned up, from waist to throat, in a green Rifle uniform, made a cut in his tunic just above the heart and put the flowers within it. The next day the Queen put the critical question, and the contract was sealed from that moment. —London Telegraph, 1897

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