After researching this to the n’th degree for quite some time, my head is spinning. I’m no longer even sure what constitutes a bow. Most of the Internet sites dealing with this are either unreputable or inconclusive — just repeating reports from other sites.
So, I’m coming here where British Dopers have been so helpful to me in the past about royal matters. Is it a bow if the chin does not touch the manibrium? Did the queen actually bow or head when Diana’s casket passed by? Or did she merely tilt her head? Is there a difference? And finally, if it’s true, then is it true that Diana is the only person for whom the Queen has ever bowed her head? (Not counting God or generalized people at memorials. The Diana bow, if it was a bow, is differentiated by the fact that it began as her body passed and ended as it left.)
ETA: Should have mentioned that some say the “bow” was a coincidence, nothing more than a tilt as she looked at her shoes or the ground. But that’s hard for me to believe.
Footage at the time showed she had bowed her head. Her chin came pretty close to touching her chest. It was clear enough to be unambiguous.
It was a tradition that British sovereigns never bow their heads to anyone. When the Queen did it, the shot was so newsworthy that it appeared all over the world; that wouldn’t have happened if it were commonplace.
No, she wasn’t born the Queen. For the first 26 years of her life she was Princess Elizabeth and as such would’ve bowed/curtsied to any number of people including; her grandparents, her uncle, her parents, and foreign heads of state.
That doesn’t really answer the question, which was whether the Queen (= Elizabeth actually reigning as queen) bowed for anyone else, not whether Elizabeth did.
Yes, I meant the Queen qua Queen, of course. But I’ll be interested to hear whether a head tilt is a bow when the chin does not touch the manubrium. I believe that is at the heart of all the controversy. If you look at the videos frame by frame, it is not clear whether there is space in there.
Yeah, just to rephrase everything in the hope of greater clarity, I’m talking about a personal interaction, such as the Queen with a Prime Minister, or the Queen with a foreign King, or the Queen with a Princess’s corpse passing in front of her.
ETA:
Woah, rocking chair, really? That information would be significant. If Anne took it to be a bow, then that would lend great credence to it being a bow.
i remember it clearly. anne did a quick head tilt, looked at her mum and did another. it cracked me up and i pointed it out to my mum. it did go very quick, but very klutzy looking.
This is part one of a 38 part series of clips from the BBC coverage of Diana’s funeral. Fuck, I want to be carried through the streets of my capital city on the back of a gun carriage while the bell of an ancient cathedral tolls*. I reckon you’ll see the Queen doing her thing on video 3 or 4.
plus my grateful people will throw flowers onto my cortege
