Royal Row Breaches Etiquette

“According to report, previous to the ceremony and while the Queen and Prince of Wales were standing beneath the bow of one of the ships, they quarreled for several minutes. Both Queen and Prince, as the result ot their quarrel, had an apoplectic appearance when it terminated.”– The Royal Arthur - Public domain image

Queen Victoria and Wales Have a Quarrel at Portsmouth

Portsmouth, February 26th.– Great throngs of people gathered here to see the royal pageant accompanying the launching of the new warships Portsmouth and Gosport. The Queen launched the ironclads with the usual ceremonies.

According to report, previous to the ceremony and while the Queen and Prince of Wales were standing beneath the bow of one of the ships, they quarreled for several minutes. Both Queen and Prince, as the result ot their quarrel, had an apoplectic appearance when it terminated. The cause of the royal quarrel is believed to have originated in some trifling breach of etiquette. 

The two war vessels were christened “Royal Arthur” and “Royal Sovereign.” The only foreign war vessel present was the German warship Oldeborg, the flagship of Admiral Von der Coltz, who was specially commissioned by the Emperor of Germany to be present at the ceremonies as the representative of Germany's young ruler. 

The Royal Arthur is a screw cruiser of 7,700 tons, 12,ooo horse-power, and carries twelve guns. Her name was originally the Centaur, which was changed to Duke of Connaught, and finally, at the last moment, by the Queen's command to Royal Arthur. The Royal Sovereign is a screw battleship of 14,150 tons, 10,000 horse-power and carries fourteen guns. – Daly Alta, 1891

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

Etiquette and a Future Empress

Princess Victoria Adelaide Mary Louise, “Vicky” was the eldest child of Britain's Queen Victoria and Prince Albert — Through marriage she became Empress Consort in Germany and Queen of Prussia, late 19th century.
Public domain image, Wikipedia 

That the Veil That Hides the Future Is God’s Kindest Gift

Clara Morris Says... I think most of us will confess to a sort of half-laughing desire to peep into the future, to question the stars. By palmistry, crystal-gazing, dream interpretation, clairvoyance, cards, tea leaves, melted lead, we seek to drag aside the veil, impalpable as woven mist, yet impenetrable to human eyes. Even Victoria's Prince Consort wished his daughter could see the future, but Heaven spared her that!

It was two days before the marriage at St. James Palace, January 1858, of Victoria, Princess Royal of Great Britain, and Frederick, Crown Prince of Prussia. The restless, imperious 18-year-old bride-elect, with nerves worn to shreds by an endless day of rigid formalities, had begged just a moment in the air before dressing for dinner. 

So with dress skirt looped high over gay, Balmoral tasseled boots, netted hair and turban hat, she no sooner reached the quiet terrace than through the foggy twilight two figures sprang to meet her. The tall, soldierly one was “Unser Fritz,” her fiance. The slighter, shorter, fair-haired one was “Bertie”—Prince of Wales, her best loved brother and her chum. 

Brother and sister caught hands and whirled around and about, like a pair of joy-mad mates in the sunlight. Suddenly a cat—not a royal tabby, just an ordinary cat—raced across the terrace and into the fog-blurred shrubbery. "View halloo—gone away!” shouted “Bertie.” and joining in the fun “Fritz” became "the pack” and gave tongue gloriously, at which the scapegraces seized him by either hand and, etiquette forgotten. The future German Emperor and Empress and the King of Great Britain and Emperor of India, etc., went romping “across country” following the cat-fox. Something loomed dimly before them and—bang!—head-on the whole irreverent pack dashed full into —Papa, the Prince Consort and etiquette personified. 

Guilty heads hung low while that good man, so straitlaced he bent backward, regained his breath. And then those riotous young royalties got a lecture on deportment. “Vicky,” in particular, was urged to “a dignity as strict as was consistent with courtesy.” “Oh.” he cried. “I wish you could see the future, my child!" 

And could she have looked forward to see her son, her firstborn, attacking her native land—crowned, yes, but in full panoply of war; her brother’s heir, in his grave, his second son. crowned, but also armed against his cousin and foe; their armies at death grips and their own hearts black with hate and fear of each other! A sight to blast young love, young hope; to make life unlivable! Oh! Thrice blessed be the impenetrability of the veil that hides from us the future! — Los Angeles Herald, 1915

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

Etiquette and Royal Manners

Prince Albert, Prince of Wales, later who became King Edward VII of England 

If fine manners are naturally associated with rank, the supposition would be that the higher the rank the finer the manners. It would then follow that the guest of honor, who is also the stranger, would take precedence of all others. It is therefore bewildering to learn that when the Prince of Wales recently gave a dinner to General Grant the distinguished visitor brought up the rear of the procession to the dining-room.  We are but boors in etiquette; yet if the Prince of Wales had been the guest of honor of the President of the United States he would not have been permitted to close the march to dinner; and he would have proceeded, not as Prince, but as guest; for it would be equally true of untitled Mr. Bright or Mr. Gladstone as of a Prince. 

General Grant, who later became the 18th President of the United States

Courtesy is a poor thing if it cannot dispense, upon due occasion with the rigidity of the ceremonial forms. It is rumored that the American minister in England was long absorbed in the task of arranging General Grant's invitations, so that he should not be apparently insulted by being treated at entertainments given in his honor with less consideration than any other guest. This is hardly credible to an unsophisticated American, because he cannot comprehend either an English gentleman should offer or an American gentleman accept such a situation. The rules of really good society, whether titled or untitled, are everywhere the same in regard to certain essential points, and it is a pity if they are violated in the house of Prince.  To invite an untitled man into titled company, upon an occasion of pure ceremony, where titles determine precedence, is to invite him to go behind. If a Prince gives a dinner in honor of an untitled guest, he is bound to honor him chiefly, and invites the company merely to help him render the honor.

The Prince of Wales entertained General Grant at Marlborough House

If, therefore, it be true that the Prince of Wales gave a dinner specially to General Grant and permitted the greater part of the company to proceed him to the table, General Grant should quietly have left the house, and all the more if, as is constantly said, etiquette and forms are real things to European society. For if that be so, the significance of the situation was that an American without a title, however illustrious, however honored at home, and the especial guest of the occasion, is not to be recognized as the equal of titled people.  Probably, if the story be true, General Grant was not troubled; but if English gentlemen are required by etiquette to acquiesce in so flagrant a discourtesy they're greatly to be pitied.— Harpers Magazine, August, 1877 

 

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

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