A Question of Official Precedence

A quarrel which led to a duel originated in London and was caused by a dispute over the question as to which of the gentlemen’s wives should have precedence on social and official occasions. – Public domain image of Count Franz Deym, Austrian Ambassador and Duelist

  Dueling Over a Question of Etiquette 

VIENNA, Dec. 31.– Count Franz Deym, the Austrian Ambassador to Great Britain, and Count de Lutzow, Secretary of the Austrian Embassy in London, fought a duel near this city to day. Pistols were the weapons selected for the encounter. Several shots were exchanged without effect, neither of the men being hit. The quarrel which led to the duel originated in London and was caused by a dispute over the question as to which of the gentlemen’s wives should have precedence on social and official occasions.– The New York Times, January 1, 1891

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Etiquette of Foreign Ministers at D.C.

A failure to seat a member of the corps or his wife in the precise seat belonging to his or her rank at the table would probably destroy the pleasure of the occasion. Not one inch farther from the host or hostess than belonged to the country they represent, would be tolerated.– Public domain image of a map of South America from 1892

Foreign Ministers demand the most scrupulous observance of the stereotyped rules of etiquette, and watch with scrutiny every attention and inattention to them. A failure to seat a member of the corps or his wife in the precise seat belonging to his or her rank at the table would probably destroy the pleasure of the occasion. Not one inch farther from the host or hostess than belonged to the country they represent, would be tolerated. The placing of the diplomats in line to be presented on occasions of ceremony must be done in strict observance of rank and importance of each. 

Hence, persons dining or entertaining these dignitaries must first post themselves accurately on the status of every Kingdom, province and principality, if they expect to give their guests pleasure and to avoid a scene, such as has characterized occasions where “second-class South America” has occupied positions a few paces above “first-class Europe,” or where little European provinces have been given more conspicuous places than greater Kingdoms. — American Magazine, 1888

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Common Sense and Etiquette

A confused Senator unwittingly holds the Emperor of Brazil and other White House guests until 3:00 a.m. – Above, the 19th century Imperial family of Brazil, Dom Pedro II his wife and grandson.

Held Hostage by Etiquette

When Dom Pedro, then Emperor of Brazil, was entertained at the White House, he had been told by a confused Senator that it would be expected that he, the Emperor, should be the last of the guests to depart.

The President’s wife, however, informed her other guests that they would be expected to follow, not precede, the royal party in leaving the house. The result was that no one dared to go for fear of a breach of etiquette. But at 3 o'clock in the morning, a tired woman pretended illness, and the deadlock was broken.

Great is etiquette, but common sense is sometimes allowable. – Amador Ledger, 1901

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Etiquette and Royal Fads

Barely 125 years after the United States discarded the yoke of the British monarchy, and barely a hundred years after President Thomas Jefferson experimented with his crazy “Pell-Mell” etiquette, a “sham aristocracy” had developed in Washington D.C. and everyone wanted to be treated like royalty. – “Precedence is killing Washington as a place of residence. It is destroying its chief charm. If one thinks of going there to live it is because he expects to have the opportunity to meet in the easy circumstances of social intercourse people who are interesting or amusing or curious.”

Social Precedence Fads and

a Growth of Monarchical Customs at the Nation's Capital

Other parts of the country may be amused by the wrangling and heartburnings incident to the Coronation of King Edward, but Washington follows them with serious and sympathetic interest. Only a few Americans have any idea of the rigid system of etiquette which has grown up at the national capital. The other day, a high officer of the government said: “My daughter went to lunch with the daughter of Secretary yesterday. She did not come home until long after she was expected, and her mother asked her what was the matter. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Secretary’s daughter, was there, and none of us could go until she left, and we thought she never would go.’ And I find that precedent is carried out in the strictest possible way all through Washington society in all of its sets, down to the very children.” 

If there are any persons in official life in Washington who do not attach importance to precedence, do not resent being seated out of rank at table or in other ways given less than their exact official amount of deference, these persons keep extremely quiet. In Washington, one ceases to be surprised at hearing of persons of national reputations complaining fiercely because they have been subjected to some trivial slight in this matter of precedence. It irritates a cabinet officer to be put a shade out of his rank just as much as it irritates a congressman from nowhere or a government clerk. 

Precedence is killing Washington as a place of residence. It is destroying its chief charm. If one thinks of going there to live it is because he expects to have the opportunity to meet in the easy circumstances of social intercourse people who are interesting or amusing or curious. That social intercourse is becoming practically impossible. No one giving any sort of entertainment, however informal, dares to arrange his or her guests according to congeniality. The same people must always be put next to each other. The same man must take the same woman into dinner. The same youth must dance with the same girl. And as official life expands the blight of precedence spreads. 

It is difficult for an outsider to listen without laughing or showing irritation, as the Washingtonians discuss precedence and relate incidents of national and international catastrophes almost brought about by violations of it. But as some of the persons who most strenuously insist upon it, are otherwise high above the human average. It would be well, before utterly condemning the Washingtonians, to reflect whether the craze for precedence not a universal human weakness, latent —happily latent —in most of us because it has no chance to show itself. However, if Washington is to be saved as a residence city, some scheme must be devised whereunder precedence, and its complications and its depressing influences, shall be confined to formal international functions for the Diplomatists, who are primarily responsible for the present state of affairs.— New York Times, 1902

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English Etiquette and Precedence

Caricature of the Prince of Wales from 1878– "The structure of society is such that men and women of rank think it of importance that they should be formally honored wherever they may be, not only before those who are without rank, but those persons who hold a rank inferior to their own."

It is said that when General Grant was in London recently, and went to dinner at the Prince of Wales', he was obliged to go out to the table behind the titled Nobility. English etiquette, it is declared, requires that an untitled foreigner, however eminent, should give precedence, as it is called, to Englishmen of rank. Whether this is true or not, it is certain that etiquette is carried to a great extreme in England, as in other European countries. 

The structure of society is such that men and women of rank think it of importance that they should be formally honored wherever they may be, not only before those who are without rank, but those persons who hold a rank inferior to their own. This etiquette runs through nearly all phases and even all grades of English society; in the private mansion, in receptions at Court, in the army and navy, in official and Diplomatic circles, and also to some extent among the mercantile and middle classes. 

At a dinner-party, for instance, the hostess on repairing to the table always claims the arm of the guest highest in rank present. A member of the Royal family always comes first: then a Duke, a Marquis, an Earl and so on. The rest of the guests go out in the order of their rank, the one of the lowest rank going out last. This rigid rule is sometimes relaxed in favor of a guest in whose special honor the dinner may be given. In such cases, the hostess leads this guest out, even before persons of a higher rank than himself; and however it may have been at the Prince of Wales’, it is probable that General Grant was usually accorded this honor when he went as the guest of an English house. 

There is an official table which decides the precedence of each of the Royal family, the Nobility and the great officers of state; and this table determines how the company shall be placed on all public occasions, and in what order they shall walk or drive in processions or stage pageants. According to this “table of precedence,” the Sovereign comes first; then all her sons in order of birth; then all her daughters in the same order; then her grand-children in the same order; finally her uncles, aunts and cousins. After the Royal family, the Archbishop of Canterbury holds the highest rank of precedence; then the Lord High Chancellor; then the Archbishop of York; then Dukes, then Marquises and so on.  —Youth's Companion, 1878

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Precedent and Etiquette

The case is unprecedented of ladies of official rank visiting the Old World alone," but in lands where precedent and official etiquette are so important it is no laughing matter!

A Matter of Precedent 

Mrs. J. R. McKee and Mrs. Russell Harrison, daughter and daughter-in-law of the president, are now in England and enjoying themselves hugely by ail accounts. The American reader is inclined to smile at the cablegram to the effect that our diplomats abroad are greatly embarrassed, as "the case is unprecedented of ladies of official rank visiting the Old World alone," but in lands where precedent and official etiquette are so important it is no laughing matter. The ladies will visit Paris and Berlin also, and no matter what ceremony is observed there is, as Abraham Lincoln used to say, "No doubt but we shall be able to keep house." — Los Angeles Herald, 1891

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia 

Victorian Etiquette and Customs

 A 1900 illustration featuring Queen Victoria on the arm of Abdul Karim or Munshi, her Indian servant, being received by the Lord Lieutenant and Countess Cadogan at Dublin Castle in Ireland

Etiquette enjoins many formal customs on the great. It requires, for example, that no one shall sit in the presence of Queen Victoria while she is standing, or remain covered where she is. There is only one exception to the latter rule. There is an Irish Lord who, because of some deed of an ancestor calling forth royal gratitude, inherits the privilege to keep his hat on in the presence of royally. No one, also, must address the Queen until she speaks to him or her first. 

A Lady of rank who goes shopping in London will never allow herself to be seen carrying a parcel from the shop to her carriage. This is always done by the shop keeper, who crosses the pavement, head bare, and deposits the parcel. 

No Lady of rank carries her prayer-book to church. Her footman goes before her with it, and opens and closes the pew door. These are but examples of the minute things in which etiquette imposes its law. A breach of any the rules of etiquette, a forgetfulness of what to wear or how to act at the proper moment, is regarded by English society as a very grave offence. 

So despotic are the laws of etiquette in high European society that often the peace of nations has been imperiled by a neglect to treat a Prince, a Nobleman or an Ambassador with the required formality. There was serious trouble in the English Royal family when the Duchess of Elinburg, the daughter of the Czar, went to live among them, and insisted on “taking precedence” of the Princess of Wales. According to the English rule of etiquette, she was obliged to do so; but she insisted that the daughter of a Russian Emperor ought to walk before the daughter of a King of Denmark. 

An amusing story is told of a certain King of Spain who was one day discovered by somebody to be on fire. This somebody had no right to touch the King, so he hastened to the Chamberlain and the Chamberlain to the Marshal, and the Marshal to the Steward, and the Steward to the Groom of the Bedchamber, whose duty it was to take care of the Royal person. While these formalities of etiquette were being gone through with, however, the poor King burned up. — The Russian River Flag, 1878

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The Etiquette of Louis XIV

All brokers were enjoined to obey the rules of Louis XIV's etiquette for Versailles. Precedence was a matter of great importance.

At Versailles the importance of etiquette reached such a point, that it was carried to almost incredible extremes. The catch phrase of the time was "All the woman is in reverence," which meant that the manner in which a woman curtsied—in other words, the manner in which she followed the etiquette of the times—revealed her true qualities.

As one might expect from the creator of the 700-room Palace of Versailles, Louis XIV knew a thing or two about luxury. One of his prized possessions was an immense diamond, then called the French Blue, which purportedly produced the dazzling illusion of a sun at its center when positioned against a gold background. Stolen during the French Revolution, well after Louis XIV's death, it reemerged in Great Britain years later with a new cut and then bounced around from one owner to another. Now known as the Hope Diamond, this 45.52-carat stone, arguably the most famous jewel in the world, is housed at the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum in Washington, DC –From www.history.com

It is related to Louis XIII that, being on one occasion, obliged to visit Richelieu, who was ill at Tarascon, he lay down on the bed beside him. He was, after all, the sovereign; Richelieu has subject. Therefore it was impossible that Richelieu lie in bed, though ill, while Louis stood or sat beside him. Therefore, he took his place on the bed beside the sick man, and so preserved the royal dignity! Louis XIV visited Maréchal de Villars in the same manner when the Maréchal was lying wounded at Malplaquet."  —From Lillian Eichler

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Etiquette, Victoria and "European Conventionalities"

Coronation portrait of Queen Victoria ~ "Victoria must do precisely as her Premiere for the time being may ordain, without the power of dismissing him -- for Parliament, by refusing to vote money for carrying on the public institutions of the land, can compel the restoration of a Minister in whom it has confidence, there might as well, for most practical purposes, be only that gilded bauble, the mere crown, without a head in it, for supreme authority, as Victoria acting as a puppet. She is nobody in the State, though paid heavily for her share in the pageant. She is part of an imposing and costly ceremonial, and she is nothing more." NY Times, 1854

"It was said, wisely and wittily, by one who was both sage and satirist, that 'Majesty, deprived its externals, was only a jest.' Every now and then something occurs to evidence the truth of this. Monarchy, in most instances, is nothing but a mere form -- an expensive ceremonial. Even where the sovereign is absolute, as in Russia and Turkey, this is the case. Elsewhere, it is eminently so. Look at England, for example, and ask whether, if there was no Queen Victoria, no actual Monarch, the Government would not proceed quite as well as it does at present? The Crown which is carried before the British Queen on state occasions, is the emblem of sovereignity, and, though nothing but a golden circlet, ornamented more profusely than tastily with glittering gems, it actually governs the country as much as the lady who wore it (for the first and only time) at her coronation. It is an abstraction -- a something in whose name the executive business of the state is carried on -- a trifle in itself, but made of value by circumstances, like the seal attached to a deed to complete its validity. To give weight to this abstraction -- to endow it with form and presence -- a nominal representative of power is appointed or permitted. 

And thus Queen Victoria, the ruler of the British Empire, is allowed a large sum annually to keep up the 'dignity' of her situation; has the power of putting her veto upon any legislative act; has the power, also, of confirming the acts of her Ministry, and the appointments they may make, by her sign manual, but not only is virtually not free to choose her own Cabinet, but, of herself, cannot give an appointment, even to a petty clerkship of £50 a year, to say one whom it may please her to befriend! Is not this in itself, (not to multiply examples) an evidence that Majesty is only a jest, deprived of its externals?

As, in all political movements, Victoria must do precisely as her Premiere for the time being may ordain, without the power of dismissing him -- for Parliament, by refusing to vote money for carrying on the public institutions of the land, can compel the restoration of a Minister in whom it has confidence, there might as well, for most practical purposes, be only that gilded bauble, the mere crown, without a head in it, for supreme authority, as Victoria acting as a puppet. She is nobody in the State, though paid heavily for her share in the pageant. She is part of an imposing and costly ceremonial, and she is nothing more.

Being thus only part of pageant, reigning Royalty make up for want of power, by an excess of submissive ceremonials. Hence the display of Lords-in-Waiting, and Ladies of the Bedchamber, and Grooms of the State, and Mistresses of the Robes, and Maids of Honor, and Equerries and Gentlemen-at-Arms and Yeoman of the Guard, and Lord-Stewards, and Lord-Chamberlains, and Masters of the Buckhounds, and Earl's Marshall, and Masters of the Household, and Gentlemen-in-Waiting, and Aides-de-camp, and Pages of Honor, and a long, long array of other officers who surround the Sovereign, and swell his state, and make him dream that his authority is real, and that he is somebody. These are the externals which swell Majesty out -- even as coal gas swells out an air balloon; trappings which please the eye and prey on the pockets of Royalty's most loving and dutiful subjects, and, to render these yet more imposing, the nobility and the leading commoners fill these offices, receive payment for such flunkey services, wear the livery of the court, and walk backwards before the Queen 'their most gracious Mistress.' 

If there be one site more disgusting than another, among the many exhibitions in England which startled and pain and honest American, it is to see the hautiest nobility in the world playing the part of lickspittle in ordinary to the Sovereign -- to see such men as the Duke of Devonshire and Marquis of Westminster, whose annual incomes are at least a thousand pounds a day, walking backward before the Queen and her husband, bowing at every step, and carrying in their hands white wands to show that they are Lord Chamberlain or Lord Steward. The ceremony of the Koton, before the Emperor of China at Peking, is not so degrading, all circumstances considered, as this is humiliating flunkeyism.

John George Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, had niches cut out of the walls which formed the corridors of his castle, and if any domestic happened to encounter his Lordship in any such corridor, he had to retire into one of the niches, and remain until his haughty master passed by, in order that not even his wearing apparel would come in contact with the sacred person of the proud aristocrat.

As a set-off, the Dukes, and Marquises, and Earls, and Viscounts, and Barons, who thus act, (literally as menials to Royalty,) take it out in humble submission of their own servitors at home. The late Earl of Durham, (he who was Governor General of Canada in 1837-1838,) albeit a nominal and avowed friend of the people, actually had niches cut out of the walls which formed the corridors of his castle, and if any domestic happened to encounter his Lordship in any such corridor, he had to retire into one of the niches, and remain until his haughty master passed by, in order that not even his wearing apparel would come in contact with the sacred person of the proud aristocrat.

Ceremonial thus being an essential part of British Sovereignty, we were not surprised at reading, in a letter from Paris to a French journal here, that the sudden departure of the Kings of Belgium and Portugal, from the gorgeous hospitality of Napoleon at Bologne, was attributed 'to an anticipated court etiquette difficulty, as Prince Albert, not being a King, would have to let to his to Royal cousins take precedence over him, which would have offended John Bull's self-esteem.'

One of our own correspondents has truly stated, that Leopold of Belgium pleaded, in excuse for the brevity of his visit, that the sudden break-up of his Ministry rendered his immediate return to Brussels an act of necessity. It was believed, also, that the Portuguese King's hasty flight was occasioned by an intimation from Napoleon, that France would not consent to the elevation of a Coburg to the throne of united Spain and Portugal. But the intervention of Court etiquette is as likely as not to have had a large share in the occurrence.

Prince Albert, husband to Queen Victoria, was deemed merely "a Prince of a fourth or fifth-rate family" by Germany, and treated accordingly ('as a nobody') when he and HRH Victoria visited there.

We think so, because, independent of earlier precedents, something of the sort had previously occurred. Some years ago, the Queen of England and her husband paid a visit to Belgium and Germany. At Brussels, as niece and nephew of King Leopold, there was a waiving of the more rigid etiquette, and to Albert was conceded all the courtesy which was extended to the Majesty of England. But, when Victoria and Albert proceeded to Germany, a difference was observed. Albert, though husband to the Queen of England, has never been elevated to the rank of King-Consort, which would entitle him to equal honors with his wife. Therefore, in Germany, he was simply a Prince, and a Prince, too, of a fourth or fifth rate family -- some of the counties of this good State of New York being considerably larger than the entire principalities of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

The Germans, most scrupulous in giving to each degree of rank its proper respect, and no more, declined paying the same compliments to Prince Albert who was a fifth-rate, and to his Royal Consort, who, (as Queen,) was a first rate personage. Accordingly, while the Sovereigns treated Victoria as their equal and sister, they treated Albert as a nobody. The result was, that annoyed at this, the Queen of England hastily abridged her visit, and returned to stately Windsor very greatly disgusted with the strict unpoliteness of German etiquette.

It is this circumstance, the truth of which is notorious, which induces us to think that there may be some foundation for the statement respecting the ceremonial of etiquette at Bologne. Anything more absurd, even amid the stupid and foolish conventionalities of Europe, cannot well be conceived. If it were of importance that an exhibition of alliance and friendship between France and England should publicly be made, how foolish to dispute, beforehand, whether Prince Albert, or the boy-King of Portugal, should set on the right hand of the French Emperor -- whether Prince Albert and the Majesty of England through him, should walk side by side with King Pedro, or one step behind him! In the latter half of the 19th century, it might have been hoped that greater wisdom would have been displayed by the magnates of Europe. We perceive that the system maintains its folly. We declare that the system must and will be changed; for serfdom, such as this etiquette continues and represents, cannot much longer be permitted. The awakening of the nations cannot be far off, and with it will come the supremacy of common sense. – Originally published September 27th, 1854 in the New York Times

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia