I’m not worried about it, what with our Sun King Prince William born auspiciously on the Summer Solstice solidly in line for it. 
Jacobites? Piffle. They should go back to the line of the Duke of Clarence (yes, the one who may have been drowned in a butt of malmsey), who one historian says should have become King instead of Edward IV. There is a current heir of the Duke of Clarence available, living in Australia.
Even after Captain Phillips declined the Queen’s offer of an earldom (traditional for male commoners who marry into the Royal Family) when Anne was pregnant with Peter the Queen offered to create her children Prince(sse)s of the UK, but Anne declinded.
They are the children of Princess Anne (aka “The Princess Royal”, oldest daughter of the Sovereign). Anne married a commoner, Mark Phillips, so the kids get zip in the way of titles. According to the Wikipedia article on Phillips, the Queen supposedly offered him a peerage on the day he was to marry Anne, but he declined. If that happened, and had he accepted, the children would be entitled to all the honorifics that normally go to children of that level of peer. If he’d been made an Earl, then Peter would likely have been a Viscount by courtesy and Zara would have been Lady Zara Phillips.
Wow. Why was Anne so opposed to her immediate family having any titles? The Wiki article I just cited implied the possibility that it was she who pressured Mark not to accept that honor. Granted, it’s all a lot of hooey but if you’re going to grow up in that milieu, where just about everyone else in your extended family has a title, it seems rather a bummer not having one.
Why would it be a “bummer” if it’s “a lot of hooey”?
Yeah, but I can name their names.
By one estimate, if you have any western european blood in you at all, there’s over a 90% chance you’re descended from Charlemagne.
Thus far, I descended from at least 4 of his kids. :eek:
J
Just because, while on one hand it’s just a sort of meaningless “decoration” to one’s life and name, on the other hand if you’re constantly associating with near relatives who have titles it seems like being…underdressed.
Or something.
Unless you’re a Jacobite.
The exiled Stuarts never accepted the legitimacy of the 1707 Union, on the grounds that they refused to recognise the legitimacy of either of the Parliaments which had approved it or of the monarch who had assented to it. Reversing it would, in fact, have been the biggest, most immediate change if they ever had regained the throne.
And, for what it’s worth (which isn’t much), the best-known of the current Jacobite pretenders, the (extremely bogus) ‘Prince Michael of Albany’ has said the same.
Perhaps the Princess Royal thought that it would be more distinctive for her family to all be commoners without titles: they would stand out more that way.
Interesting point, I hadn’t thought of that. Now that I come to think of it there’s also the possibility that a brand-new title would be less impressive among all those ancient ones in the family, then just plain Mr. and Ms.
Just as an aside, even Mr. and Mrs. can be granted. I read somewhere once about an old faithful retainer of the Windsors’, a woman named Something Crawford who was a nanny or something like that. She wasn’t married, but the Queen “created” her Mrs. Crawford.
Let’s assume for a minute that the other 9 people in front of Mr. Peter Phillips all go to a garden party, eat some bad shrimp, and drop off all in the same night. Mr. Philllips ascends to the thrown without first bearing any sort of title at all.
When was the last time that happened?
Announcing, His Royal Highness, King Peter - formerly Mr. Phillips.
Or there could someday be a Queen Zara, as suggested by the graphic novel V for Vendetta. See at the bottom of this Wiki article, under “In popular culture”: Zara Tindall - Wikipedia
As royal women go, I think she’s rather pretty: http://core-target.ro/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/LandRoverZaraPhillips.gif
The only British heads of state to have no royal titles or titles of nobility would have been Oliver Cromwell and Richard Cromwell – but neither of those was King.
Lady Jane Grey only had a courtesy title of “Lady” as the daughter of the Duke of Suffolk: perhaps she comes closest to being without a title, since she wasn’t nobility in her own right.
Nitpick: he’d be “His Majesty.”
You do realize that predicate nominatives should be, well, nominative case.
The Royal Family “recycles” a set of titles: the Duchies of York, Kent, Gloucester, Clarence, and a few others. Whenever the Duke of something (usually York) becomes King, or the last Duke dies without legal heir, the duchy reverts to the Crown, who gives it out again to a junior child in a new generation. The last two Dukes of York before Prince Andrew became King George V and King George VI, at which point their previous dukedoms became a bit redundant?
AFAIK, the Queen never created Crawfie anything. Rather, that bit of titling comes from an obsolescent custom: While Miss Brown traditionally becomes Mrs. Jones at her marriage, the Miss/Mrs. significator being the marker of whether married, there was for many years a custom that an unmarried woman of mature years, the homemaker and mistress of her own home, would receive the “Mrs.” honorific, it being the mark, not of married status, but of being the matriarch of a household whether married or no. In particular, if the unmarried person was raising orphaned neices/nephews or acting as a governess, use of the “Mrs.” was pretty much standard.
Winston Churchill was cared for by a beloved nanny for many years who was called “Mrs. Everest,” although she was not married either, IIRC.
It could be that she would like her kids to have something approaching a normal life though thats just my guess.
Being in the Royal circle involves a lot of constraints ,you’re a target for terrorists ,your every move is dogged by paparazzi and analysed/condemned in the tabloids (you cant pick your nose ,swear,get drunk ,fart or look bored for example )
I’ve actually met Anne and shes a really great person ,no airs or graces ,very down to earth,I couldn’t fancy her though.
In the U.K. all female teachers irrespective of whether they are married or not are called “miss” by their pupils so maybe it was a job thing.