The Royalist has been investigating it, talking to courtiers and friends of the royal family, and intriguing theories have been emerging that the edict may be a Queenly show of authority regarding Prince Charles’s regal modernization plans, which were showcased at the Jubilee by the new “slimmed-down” monarchy of just six on the Buckingham Palace balcony.
There is general agreement inside palace walls that the leaking of the revised, “Order of Precedence” document, which indicated that Kate Middleton, the future Queen, must curtsey to the “blood princesses” Eugenie and Beatrice if she encounters them without her husband by her side, was unfortunate. [Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice are the daughters of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.] The document has shone a light on the increasingly well-camouflaged feudal, snobbish and sexist core of the institution of Royalty.
Beyond that, there is a certain level of mystification. Why it was felt necessary to put all this information down in print? Was a point being made? Would a quiet word not have sufficed, particularly as friends of the young Royals also say that Kate is likely to not be particularly upset about the instructions to curtsey to Eugenie?
“This won’t bother her in the least,” says one. “She would probably rather have what is expected of her laid out in black and white.”
There has been speculation that William might have been more offended on behalf of his wife by the updated order of precedence, but the friend says that’s not the case.
“Whatever suits her suits him.”
Source: The Royalist, cited in The Daily Beast, June 28
This is an exquisite oddity.
I read it first as a curtsey row, as in a line-up, or what an oarsman does routinely, to rhyme with roe, a poor man’s caviar. With that rhyme, Kate’s non-botheration is exactly and finely just what you’d want to expect from a naturally refined royal – we do exactly what’s required, as a matter of easy insouciant course, like breathing. It’s essential, but it doesn’t count.
Reading it as a jaune journalist’s puffery, on the other hand, reaching to make it rhyme with ouch! or ow! – an altercation among aristos, a royal rumpus, a detonating deliquescence of dignitaries’ duties, a noisy nexus of necessary nicities, it floats into the realm of fandom and random rants, entertainment without ethos, happy hyperactive hype about hierarchical happenstance.
In this, it’s entirely independent of the serious and singing symbolic supporting significance of the Canadian Crown, our own dominion’s dignified state, the heartwise, headwise, worldly wise embodiment of everything we’ve collectively learned about how to be safe, surging, and selfless as people together in this nation.
My goodness, but we need less of Mr. Harper’s treason.
I am delighted you take the matter seriously, Tim. Why should princesses Eugénie and Beatrice, who are the Queen’s granddaughters, curtsey to Kate who isn’t, even though one day she will be queen. After all, Kate is not of the blood and never will be, even after she has become the mother of future queens and kings. This is a genetic fact, not a social one. It comes under the heading of science, not politics. And, as you say, Harper commits treason AGAINST SCIENCE every day.
Q.E.D.
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