St. Edward’s chair is just for coronations and doesn’t have all of the riches and refinements one would expect in a throne.
There’s one in the House of Lords, but that’s only for the State Opening of Parliament. (or is it only brought there for that occasion?)
Does Buckingham palace still have a throne room? Do all of the Queen’s residences, official and private, have a throne room? Is there one fancy chair that is moved with H.M. or is there a throne in each palace?
Does H.M. typically recieve the PM or meet with her privy council on a throne?
Or has the throne become more of a concept than an object, much like the crown in that there are several of them, but none are in daily use or required for H.M.'s official duties.
Her Majesty the Queen does request and require: No potty jokes welcome in this thread!
There’s a throne in the throne room at Buckingham Palace, but as far as I know it doesn’t get used much, if at all. (Maybe not even since debutante presentations ended, if they even used it for those.)
At coronations, there’s actually a throne separate from St. Edward’s Chair. After the crowning, there’s an enthronement. (In this painting, you can see both. The Queen is sitting on the throne. It might be the one in the palace now, I’m not sure.)
The Queen doesn’t receive the Prime Minister or the Privy Council while enthroned. In fact, the Privy Council meets with her with everyone, including the Queen, standing! That has the benefit of making for a shorter meeting.
She has similiar thrones in the upper houses of every (other) Commonwealth Realm, but it’s usually occupied by local Governor-General when s/he opens parliament. I think she also has thrones in the Legislative Councils of the Australian states (not sure about the Canadian provinces, none of those have upper house anymore and some never had an upper house).
In most Canadian provinces, the speaker’s chair doubles as the throne (I think New Brunswick might be the only exception). However, the Queen isn’t a part of the provincial legislatures (as she is a part of the Australian state parliaments and the Canadian federal parliament), so I’m not sure they’re really her thrones.
No, no. the Lieutenant-Governors of the provinces stand in for the Queen in the same way that the Governor-General of Canada stands in for the Queen at the federal level. Here’s a picture of LG David Onley during his official installation in 2007. That certainly seems to be a throne behind him, but as you said, it could be the Speaker’s chair.
The position of the Sovereign in relation to the Canadian provincial has always been a bit odd. The Colonial Office kicked up a fuss at least once over the fact that some of the pre-federation provinces weren’t enacting statutes in the Sovereign’s name.
I’m curious to know whether the Irish Free State’s parliament ever had a throne in it!
This isn’t really the case. The Queen isn’t a component of any of the provincial legislatures, as she is in the federal parliament. It’s also not clear that she possesses any executive power at the provincial level. (Wacky Bennett and Ralph Klein both had their attempts to have the Queen perform functions at the provincial level turned down by the federal government on the grounds that it wouldn’t have been constitutional.)
Yes, that’s the speaker’s chair in the Legislative Assembly (although I guess it’s the throne when the LG sits on it, and the speaker’s chair when the speaker sits on it).
It’s important to keep in mind that Sandringham and Balmoral are the property of Elizabeth Windsor, wife of Philip Mountbatten, as opposed to the Queen, i.e., personal property of the individual who happens to be monarch, as opposed to crown property of one kind or another. They’re regarded as family vacation homes by the Royal Family. Hence: no formal activity except urgent business that won’t wait, no formal entertaining, etc. And no throne.
The traditional view was that a British monarch had only two thrones - their chair in the House of Lords and the chair used to receive the homage of the peers at their coronation (which, as Lord Feldon says, is not the St Edward’s Chair).
What however they also had were ‘chairs of state’, which were chairs placed on a dias beneath a canopy and in front of a backcloth. Royal palaces almost always had at least one of these and the major palaces had several, each in different rooms. Also, they could also be used elsewhere, including in other peoples’ houses. They were used for formal audiences. But not only kings and queens had chairs of state. Other VIPs, such as peers, also had them, although the size and height of the canopy, the length of the backcloth and the number of steps varied according to rank. The best-known surviving non-royal examples are those at Hardwick Hall.
What confuses things is that during his various rebuilding projects, George IV preferred to call such chairs ‘thrones’ and so Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and St James’s Palace acquired what became known as Throne Rooms. That at Buckingham Palace is now used to house the thrones from the various twentieth-century coronations, with that used by the Queen in 1953 (plus the chair used by Prince Philip on the same occasion) being placed centrestage.
Other Provinces use similar terminology in their legislation.
The Lieutenant Governor gives the Royal Assent to all bills in the name of Her Majesty, as shown by this extract from Saskatchewan Hansard:
[My underlining]
Similarly, the executive power is vested in Her Majesty, so proclamations issue in Her Majesty’s name, Queen’s Counsel are appointed in Her Majesty’s name, and so on.
Now, Her Majesty may not personally exercise any of those powers, but it’s not like the situation of the Australian GovGen - the Lt Govs of the Provinces act in Her Majesty’s name.
The status of the Crown as a component of the provincial governments was established in two Privy Council cases from the 19th century. The first was Liquidators of the Maritime Bank of Canada v. The Receiver General of New Brunswick, [1892] AC 437, which held that the Crown was a component part of the provinila legislature and therefore the Government of New Brunswick could exercise all prerogative powers of the Crown in relation to matters within provincial jurisdiction. The second was the Queen’s Counsel case (don’t have the cite handy) which held that the provincial governments had the power to appoint Queen’s Counsel, as part of the powers of the Crown within provincial jurisdiction.
And the Scottish usage follows that in England. Holyrood Palace has only had a Throne Room since the refurbishment for George V, having originally had a traditional suite of state apartments with chairs of state etc.
As for Edinburgh Castle, it is about ten years since I last had occasion to visit it and I have only vague recollections that its ‘royal apartments’ did have a chair of state. But as currently furnished, those rooms are no more than a modern curatorial reconstruction of what they may originally have looked like. All of which is highly speculative as there is considerable uncertainty as to the original layout of that part of the building. Frankly, they’re not much more authentic than the ‘medieval palace’ of the Tower of London or the Great Tower of Dover Castle, although, in fairness, not quite as tacky.
