Indeed, but more so than Louis XIV’s France, which was what mattered most.
Two Royal Family Members Make Rare Appearance at Palace Party on Queen Elizabeth’s 100th Birthday: https://people.com/2-royal-family-members-rare-appearance-palace-party-queen-elizabeth-100th-birthday-11955603
On April 21, Prince Edward (known by his title as the Duke of Kent) and Princess Alexandra joined King Charles, Queen Camilla, Prince William, Kate Middleton and more royals in hosting a reception at Buckingham Palace.
Can anyone explain why the media still refer to the Princess of Wales as Kate Middleton?
Perhaps because some still think of only Diana when hearing “Princess of Wales”?
And when did this message board turn into one of those clickbait sites, where you have to follow the link to find out which royal family members are being referred to?
Could you please provide brief summaries instead of guessing games?
Jeez. It’s getting to the point that it seems an extended summary of a link is expected, rather than, y’know, the actual headline, which has always seemed to suffice in the past.
Right, then: Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent and Princess Alexandra joined other royals to honor Queen Elizabeth’s 100th birthday at Buckingham Palace.
Your “extended” summary was one sentence and all that was needed rather than that fucking stupid headline playing the “guess who” game. That shit never sufficed in the past and pretty much everyone else is thoughtful enough to provide a brief smmary.
Moderating:
@hajario - please dial down the hostility in your response, this is uncomfortably close to attacking the poster, not the post, given we’re in P&E.
@Elendil_s_Heir - it is a best practice on the board to include at least a brief summary, especially when there’s no onebox so readers can evaluate whether it’s worth following the link. Doubly so in P&E.
This is just a guidance, not a warning.
(If it helps to get the thread back on track) - that particular fact is a sign of how the family, by force of circumstance, scaling down/scraping the barrel in getting ancillary members to help out with the meet-and-greet side of the business. The Kents were the late queen’s first cousins, and when they and her Gloucester cousin leave the scene, it remains to be seen how much of the meet-and-greet can be kept up with a smaller core.
And in her day, the tabloids still liked to call her by her former title of ‘Lady Di’ when she Diana, Princess of Wales. I think it’s a habit that has long standing.
Smaller extended families have certainly changed everything for commoners around the world. And now it comes for the Royals.
One wonders how much the long term success of the brand requires 2nd or 3rd rate royals to be making appearances at garden clubs, factory openings, and whatnot?
Or can they soldier on for another several generations with just King, Queen, and 2.1 Princ(ess)es as long as they’re careful to create and curate an heir and a spare each generation without too much kerfuffle.
I still say “Meghan Markle”, mostly because I can’t figure out if she actually has a new surname or not and using “Duchess of Sussex” may confuse people.
Her surname is kind of ‘Sussex’ now, though she wouldn’t use that in the normal construct of Meghan Sussex
My confusion is also in part because during his military career her husband went by “Wales”. It’s one of those weird royalty things.
Yes, because at the time he was simply the son of the Prince of Wales, but his dukedom gave him his own ‘name’.
Which BTW is one aspect of Brit and some other royalty that always struck me as silly. That your “name” is really a “style” of whatever is at any given time your highest rated title or your father’s/husband’s if you don’t have your own.
(I can’t help but feel it’s a poor tribute to old Philip to see actually using the name “Mountbatten-Windsor” as signaling a demotion or that you’re too far off the succession line to matter.)
And that’s been the fate of all women since time immemorial. It’s only in recent decades that we’ve been able to shun the ‘title’ given to us by our marriages and stick with our own names if we want to. Even our own names come from our fathers, the royals are just an extreme version of that.
Said another way, for UK royals, you are your job. You are the current personification of an immortal entity called the Duke of Elderberryshire or whatever. It’s sort of like a corporation. It lives forever; its shareholders and managers come and go.
In a funny turn, it also means royals are a bit like SovCits, claiming a dual entity in one body: the real person, and the commercial fiction. Conveniently, the law attached/es differently to those two aspects of royal persons. Less so recently ref, e.g., Andrew. ISTM a lot of what SovCits want is to be 16th century-style royalty: above the law and able to rule their fief by decree.
For us ordinary proles, it’s also the case that a heck of a lot of historical surnames were/are occupational. The Smiths worked metal while the Millers ground grain and the Wrights made useful stuff from wood.
Female royal consorts are traditionally referred to by their maiden names/styles in historical records (ie Mary of Teck, Caroline of Brunswick, etc). Eventually the same will happen to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon as she fades from living memory and future historians will talk about Camila Shand and Catherine (Kate) Middleton.