Cite? Wikipedia says that George gave Philip the HRH and dukedom on his marriage to Elizabeth. I would say that any spouse of a reigning queen is going to get the title HRH Prince X automatically. Dukedoms will be optional, of course. And any spouse of a reigning king is going to be HRM Queen X automatically (or does she only get HRH Queen X? Whichever, I’m sure there’s a rule). That there’s dispute about Camilla’s eventual title only underscores how automatic a thing this is.
And Liz being Australia’s head of state is not a matter of opinion. The GG is just a ceremonial stand-in. It’s a clunky old system, I know; we have it here too.
Yes, there is: every wife of a king of the U.K., or G.B., or England or Scotland, has had the title “Queen”. She’s not just a queen consort: she is “Queen Elizabeth”, “Queen Mary”, “Queen Alexandra”, etc.
ETA: And in the future there is likely to be a Queen Camilla.
**psychonaut **was right about the “Prince” part, though - he didn’t become Prince Phillip until the Queen bestowed that title on him some years after they were married.
And Queens Consort/Dowager do get “Her Majesty” rather than just HRH, yes.
If a title is acquired automatically, then by definition it doesn’t require someone to bestow it. I think you are confusing “automatically acquired” with “customarily granted”.
And going back further the husband, Phillip II of Spain, of Queen Mary I of England was made King(-Consort) of England. Queen Mary II’s husband, William III of England (ne William of Orange), was made fully co-sovereign with his wife and continued to reign as king-regnant after she died. The first two husbands of Mary, Queen of Scots (Francis II of France and Henry, Lord Darnley) were made kings-consort of Scotland.
Wikipedia is correct. According to The London Gazette, he was given the style of HRH by letters patent dated Nov. 19, 1947, and was made Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth, and Lord Greenwich, by letters patent dated Nov. 20, 1947.
There is no such style/title in the UK of “His/Her Royal Majesty”. Kings and Queens are inherently “HM”.
And Camilla’s title is not in dispute. As a matter of law she will be “Queen”. Whether or not she chooses to style herself by some other title is another matter.
William III is a special case. Both in England and in Scotland the crown was offered jointly to him and his wife, but with the explicit limitation that only William would exercise power. Mary II only provided the occasional bit of holiday cover.
I suspect Chronos is right, that “First Lady” was probably conceived of as meaning “the highest-ranking lady in the land” when it was first coined in the mid-19th century–because of course a woman being elected President was an absurd notion! The most a mere female could hope to aspire to was for her husband to be elected President, while she stood off to the side and gazed up adoringly at him. Now that a female POTUS is a perfectly reasonable thing to conceive of, the whole “First Lady” thing is just a ridiculous anachronism–when a woman is elected POTUS, by the rules of ceremonial precedence, she will be both President of the United States and First Lady of the United States, not that anyone will likely see it that way. (It was arguably also an un-republican idea to decide there is some kind of monarchy-style “order of precedence” in this country in the first place, but that’s a separate issue.)
I would say that the generic British (or Australian or Canadian or Papua New Guinean) equivalent to “First Lady” would simply be “Prince Consort”, unless the monarch is a King, in which case it would be “Queen” (“Consort” being understood but omitted in that case–not that there’s much practical difference between a “Regnant” and a “Consort” these days).
So is Camilla Parker-Bowles currently styled Princess of Wales? Wikipedia refers to her as Duchess of Cornwall though acknowledges she is currently P of W as well, so I was wondering why she would be addressed by the lesser title instead. Does the fact she was divorced from her first husband have anything to do with this?
Thanks, Colibri. So it appears that to find any countries (other than the U.S.) where the spouse of the President or Prime Minister is considered to be a significant, newsworthy person, you wouldn’t look in Europe or any of the other English-speaking countries. You would look in Latin America.
Camilla’s problem is that Diana is identified as the Princess of Wales, so, although she would normally take that title, there’s a bit of deference to public opinion. It will be different when HM dies, and Kate becomes Princess of Wales, because she won’t be competing with Princess Di.
It’s a public relations issue. At the time of their wedding, Charles and Camilla made it known that Camilla wouldn’t call herself the Princess of Wales, even though she had the right to.
By the way, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles both have several titles that occasionally do get a workout. I’m doing this off the top of my head, so I might get these wrong, but I believe that there are formal situations in which the queen is addressed as the Duke (not Duchess) of Lancaster, the Duke of Normandy, or the Lord of Mann, and when Charles is in Scotland, he’s addressed as the Duke of Rothesay, not the Prince of Wales.
Except you might consider France, also. The wife of the president is often considered newsworthy, and has an informal role as “first lady”, a lot like the US:
The observation concerning spouses of heads of state, rather than heads of government might carry some weight, without being an absolute rule. In the case of constitutional monarchies, the head of state is also a hereditary monarch, which muddies the water a good bit, since THEIR spouses obviously have titles and are considered newsworthy. We need more data points for countries which are not constitutional monarchies, and also do not have the head of state and head of government office rolled together, as in the US and similar Federal systems like those found in much of Latin America.
Yes. Interestingly, Mireya Moscoso, the first woman to serve as president of Panama (1999-2004), appointed her sister Ruby to serve in the office of Primera Dama during her term.
However, he wasn’t made a prince of the United Kingdom until 1957. (He was widely called “Prince Philip” before that though, because that was what he was known as until he stopped using his Greek and Danish titles.)
The election of a leader is never the election of just one person. They all have friends, advisers, confidants of various sorts. Allowing a role for the leader’s partner seems pretty natural.
