Does Queen Elizabeth II hold Christmas court.

Factual Questions
1

This should be a simple question, but not the easiest one to find on Google or Wikipedia. So maybe this is general UK knowledge, or an important part of history. Does Queen Elizabeth II hold a Christmas court. Or any other court, for that matter.

I’m given to understand, that, in the past, the Monarch held “court” and people wanted to come, because – well lots of reasons; they’re idle, rich, well-educated and they want to smooze influence, gain favors, show off how smart they are to gain appointments, gain prestige, I dunno, do … stuff.

OK. As I understand it, King Henry VIII held “court”, and from TV shows and movies and such, these are grand affairs, in between ruling, he, as the definition of Renaissance man, did things and had other people do things that advanced culture, art, and made the Monarchy, I dunno, Regal.

I’d read on Wikipedia that his son, Prince Edward, being just what Henry wanted had his own, mini-court as a child, with members and musicians and other, what I guess are “courtly” things. At any rate, late in his reign, he did hold court, and invited his sisters, who he’d disinherited previously (and I know not really legally,) to spend Christmas at his Christmas court. I get the implication they hadn’t been invited before. So something of a big deal.

The film The Lion in Winter depict the Christmas court at Christmas Court at Caen in 1182, with the family together, and yeah, I know, there wasn’t one at Caen, but instead at Chinon in 1183. And they didn’t have Christmas trees in England at that time, whatever. The point is, Christmas court = serious business.

I’m guessing the Victoria held a Christmas court? I never hear about it. And the Victorians gave us much of out modern Christmas traditions so…

The news is talking right now about Meghan Markle, and Christmas with the Royals, so I’m wondering: is this private, or formal and public as a Christmas Court. And If Christmas Court is no longer a thing, when and why did it stop. And is it televised or not, because I never hear about the current Royals holding court – just not televised or just not happening?

2

No, there is no Christmas Court. The Queen’s goes to Sandringham for Christmas, a residence that she privately owns, and no, we don’t get to see what goes on there. I’m sure she probably does throw the odd private party, much like the rest of us.

I should imagine that ‘Kingly Court’ was held when the Monarch was the seat of all power, and Court was an opportunity to petition him in person. That hasn’t been the case for a very very long time.

3

So, after the Interregnum, Charles II said, “Y’know what. Let’s do away with me Holding Court, and not risk pissing people off again.” Is that the cutoff? Or sometime after? Or even before, as I recall, Charles I had tried to convince noblemen to quit hanging around London and go home and be Lords of the manor as in times of old. A plan of Charles I that didn’t work, as far as he and his neck were concerned.

4

The British monarch used to hold court for young women to be officially presented before “entering society” to seek husbands. It was even depicted on Downton Abbey, but officially dropped in 1958: Recalling the lost era of the debutantes

5

Hrm. So the last time QEII held “court” was a 1958 debutante ball. OK.

So I Wikipedia search for “court”. Our justice courts having derived from courts that would have been held by monarchs. Not a lot on that page, well except for Jude Judy et al. :rolleyes: Hrm … “royal court” is a better Wikipedia term, but British Royal Court seems to devolve into Royal Households.

I’m beginning to think that what I saw of British Royal Courts, as a combined: seat of government/time to receive ambassadors/monarch entertainment/place for the nobility to hang out/seat of learning/source of intrigue/chance for Henry VIII to slip off behind a column and bang some hot noblewoman – may not have actually existed as was depicted in just about every movie I’ve seen involving Monarchs of Britain, France, or Spain.

The British Royal Court was really just a meeting of the monar’s extended family. Which in ancient times may have included a number of councilors, knights, and warriors. But has gradually become smaller and more private.

6

I would guess a long process from the development of cabinet government dealing with Parliament (partly as a consequence of the Revolution of 1688, partly because of having a Hanoverian king with little or no English) through the damaging effects of rivalry between the Hanoverian kings and their prospective successors having rival courts, and on to Victoria’s domesticity and later withdrawal from public show after Albert’s death.

Most of the functions of “holding court” got delegated to formalised governmental and legal procedures, state and official dinners, receptions and balls, and more recently massive regular summer garden parties, or to customary social events of “the Season” (which for this Queen amounts to the races at Royal Ascot - anything else is private socialising).

7

The decline in holding court levées was discussed in this 2008 thread.

No, quite the opposite. It was actually Charles II who more than anyone created the classic pattern of court receptions in Britain. [url=]He introduced the levée and its night-time equivalent, the coucher, as semi-private receptions for his senior male courtiers when he got up and went to bed. But he also introduced what came to be known as ‘drawing rooms’, which were more public receptions for both men and women. Later, under the Hanoverians, British kings stopped holding the morning receptions, at which point the term ‘levée’ got transferred to those drawing room receptions attended only by men.

The traditional court ceremony in Britain on Christmas Day was that the monarch attended the service in the Chapel Royal. Although the monarch went to services in the Chapel Royal regularly throughout the rest of the year, Christmas was one of the four days when they did so attended on by the full court, who would wear full court dress etc., and when they would then receive communion in public. This died out in the eighteenth century.

However royal servants are still entitled to a nominal fee amounting to a few pennies if they attend the Chapel Royal at St. James’s on Christmas Day, as there is always the theoretical possibility that the Queen might turn up. I have a friend who is one of the heralds and he makes a point of attending to claim his money. He’s usually the only one. Of course, meanwhile the Queen actually attends the service in the parish church at Sandringham. The British media always makes a big deal of that, if only because it gives them something to report on in their new bulletins on Christmas Day. Doubtless the big angle this year will be whether Meghan turns up as well.

8

Puts a new spin on spending Christmas with the future in-laws :smiley:

9

Funny how Charles II, with his levée and coucher, was doing what Louis XIV did. I guess its a good way to keep the nobility occupied. And hey, they still get to smooze, so they’re happy.

I almost guessed it, it makes sense that holding court would diminish when Victoria withdrew after the death of Albert. Funny, how Edward and later kings didn’t restart. I’m guessing that eventually, first news film clips, then television, made holding court unnecessary.

Hrm. Looking at it that way, I guess the Monarch does hold court: She opens Parliament, to start the business of governing. She sends a televised Christmas message, essentially holding court, at Christmastime, for everyone with a TV.

10

Probably the closest thing to “holding court” in the old sense which the British court still does is hosting the royal garden parties - and that page, from the website of Buckingham Palace, explicitly compares them to the old balls where débutantes were introduced, a practice that, as has been pointed out in this thread, ended in 1958. These are still very much going on, with a large number of parties thrown every year for hundreds of guests attending each one.

Besides that, the only vestiges of the old practice of “holding court” are of a terminological nature. For instance, foreign ambassadors to the United Kingdom are, to this day, still appointed as ambassadors “to the Court of St James’s”.

11

What the queen does on Christmas is this:

12

Well, not quite on Christmas - for Christmas, yes. But over Christmas itself like everyone else she’s off with the family for a few days.

13

It is true that Victoria attended no levée or drawing room after the mid-1860s. But they were still being held. It was just that the Prince of Wales presided over them instead. That was partly because he made a point of entertaining as much as possible as a deliberate contrast to his mother. So when he became king, it was easy for him to revive the idea that the monarch would host them in person. They then became less regular during and after the First World War, but they continued on that less regular basis until 1939. An exception was made after the Second World War for the revival of the presentation of debutantes, but, as has been mentioned, that did not last long.

One lingering survival is arguably access to the Royal Enclosure at Ascot. Effectively it used to be open only to those who had been presented at court. Now that no one gets presented at court, those wanting to get into the Royal Enclosure have to go through a vetting system not unlike that which applied to court presentations.

14

The presentation of medals and knighthoods is also done with much ceremonial hoopla at Buck House, hosted by the Queen or, more often lately, the Prince of Wales.

15

The Duke of Cambridge has been doing a fair few of these recently too. Succession planning, no doubt.

16

I get the impression that investitures are much like school prizegivings or university degree ceremonies. I’m not even sure there’s a reception/refreshments afterwards.

17

“as a reward for public service” mentioned on that page includes ordinary government employees (“public servants”) in the colonies. One of my friends in Melbourne.Aus requested and received an invite to coincide with his visit to London.

And the sycophantic biography of Edward VII owned by my anglophile (late) grandmother says that a difference between “court” and a “garden party” is that the deserving middle class can score invites to a garden party. Traditionally royalty only associated with ambassadors and the aristocracy.

18

Yes, that’s the point. The débutante season and presentation to the monarch were a rite of passage into adult society only for the daughters of the very upper crust, before launching them on to the London marriage market. Dropping the royal connection to all of that and replacing it with garden parties, or increase in their number, was a deliberate signal of a change of course: you might get to go if you spent 20 years fundraising for a local good cause, or supervising a school crossing, or whatever.

19

It is important to remember that it was not just debutantes who got ‘presented’ at court. Adults of all ages and both sexes were also presented. Crucially, the initiative came from person who wanted to be presented - they submitted their name in advance and then had to be introduced to the presiding royal by someone who had already been presented.

Whether the middle classes could be presented varied over time. In the mid-nineteenth century there were strict rules as to who could and could not be presented. Tradesmen and their wives was one of the forbidden categories. But in subsequent decades some of those rules were relaxed and by the end of the century the right sort among the middle class (wealthy, well-connected etc) had no problems getting in. A fact about which plenty of the more snobbish members of the aristocracy complained. In the immortal words of Princess Margaret, the presentation of debutantes had to be abandoned because ‘Every tart in London was getting in’.

The paradox therefore is that the move to more ‘egalitarian’ garden parties involved a change over to a system in which people have to be invited. But the real difference has been the collapse of any real notion of ‘London Society’. There had been a time when being presented at court marked you as the right sort of person to be invited to certain more exclusive social events. Middle class social climbers therefore saw it as a stepping stone into high society. Royal receptions now have no such baggage. An invitation to a garden party at Buckingham Palace might impress your neighbours but it doesn’t exactly ‘launch’ anyone into the world of the London rich and famous.

20

The Queen also holds similar Garden Parties in the grounds of Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh during her annual summer visits to Scotland. Quite different guest lists though as they’re mainly for the ‘‘great and the good’ of Scotland’.
Years ago I think there were two on consecutive days but this page about what happens only mentions one annually.