The Royals!

[ChiO]

Lord Warren Tippy-Rural-Route V sounds like a Preston Sturges reject.

Chris, will you be joining us this time next year as we celebrate their 1st Anniversary?

[movieman1957]

I'll always be around April 29. We can compare our first year with theirs. I bet we'll have had the better year.

[moira finnie]

Lord Donald Sam-Unaka checking in. So far MJ has the rest of us beat with Bandit-Brandywine.

Wait a minute. April 29 is movieman's wedding anniversary, and also ChiO's anniversary? It's Michael's and my anniversary as well. No wonder Kate and William picked April 29!

Holy-molley. Is there something in the air on that date?

[movieman1957]

There must be. ChiO and I were married to our brides on the same exact day, April 29, 1984.

[moira finnie]

I watched a doc the other day where is said after WW1, the King wanted his children to marry British partners, whereas before Royals married other Royals from other Countries. This was because he wanter the Windsors to become more popular with the public. It seems that Bertie and Elizabeth married out of love in 1924, and was not arranged. Mind you after Elizabeth gave a harmless interview, just before the wedding, she was told in no uncertain terms not to do it again. However, she still came from an upper class family.

One good change is that the future heirs wife no longer has to be virginal. I think that was part of the problem with Charles and Diana. While she was suitable in class, Charles was a middle-aged man and she an innocent teenager. Kate is older and looks able to cope with whatever the future holds

I kept wondering why the media doesn't mention the late Queen Mum and George VI as one of the happier marital unions in the Windsor family. Their marriage appears to have been a strong one and set an example in times of crisis, since they certainly were key figures in British society in WWII by insisting on staying in London. Marrying British partners does make sense too, though maybe avoiding one's cousins in this pursuit is a good idea. The "untouched by human hands" bit does seem old-fashioned. Frankly, that virginal requirement seemed out-of-date thirty years ago when Will's parents got married--though it sounds as though the courtiers in the palace were more out of touch in those days than now (I hope).

Catherine M. should bring in some good, hardy genes--though the psychic I saw yesterday on the "news" said the first born will be a female. Guess they better start working on changing those male primogeniture rules--pronto.

Thanks for your response, Stuart. What would your name be using the MichiganJ formula?

[stuart.uk]

Moira

There were 5 outstanding drama/docs where Emila Fox, Samantha Bond, Susan Jameson, Barbara Flynn and Diane Quick played the Queen over a 50-yr period. Though on you tube, as it's channel 4 it doesn't for copyright transfer over to Amercia. However, Emila Fox's Elizabeth was advised by her private secretary that it would be wrong for her sister to marry the divored Peter Townsend. In contrast in the 5th and IMO the best of the 5 Diane Quick's Elizabeth is advised by her private secretary to allow Charles to marry Camilla. It also gave the impression that while she mourned the passing of her sister and mother in a short space of time of each other, their death's made it easier for the Queen to give her consent

[charliechaplinfan]

From England Lady Alice Sally-Astley checking in.

Some bright spark on today's news pointed out that Hitler got married on 29th of April, they pay these people to come up with that Well it seems not to have harmed three of our members.

It sounds like you are having far more coverage in the States than we are getting. The news I'm watching leads on the news with the last ten minutes devoted to the Royal wediing, street parties etc. There are programmes on different channels every night giving the spin on the Royal love story. It feels like it's only now catching hold. I was 10 when Diana got engaged to Charles, for me she was an absolute fairytale princess, she was on the front of every paper and on every news programme, she was pursued everywhere she went and by the time the big day arrived everyone was keyed up into a huge state of excitement. This time, thank heavens it looks like many lessons have been learned. Three very important ones, give William space to chose his own bride without his dates being dogged by the press like his father's and his uncle's were. Don't confine the choice to only the pure or else he'd have been marrying an even younger bride than his father. Then, my favorite, let her be British and and not of the gentry. I think William has won lots of popularity by choosing such a level headed girl and giving her time to adjust to the huge role that she's undertaking. From what we've seen, she has the making of a great Princess and Queen. The fact that she's from the humble middle classes will, I feel has won them support and will give them a heap of goodwill to start their married life with.

Diana has got part in this story, her love for her children and humanity is what made us love her but 15 years on from her death she should be treated with respect and not have all the ups and downs rehashed again and again. The old chestnut of Harry's parentage being rehashed again just strikes me that the media are thrashing around for ideas and this one has no substance to it.

I'm feeling rather buoyant, to switch on the news and hear the trouble in people's lives bu tthen to get a little extra at the end about communities coming together and about a country sharing a national and historical event. It's good to have some good news. Our house is split, Libby and I are watching, Joe and Chris are laying turf.

[charliechaplinfan]

I think the love story between George VI and Elizabeth Bowes Lyon is a shining example of the Royal family getting it right, as is Victoria and Albert, Bertie and Alexandra (in their own way) and George V and Mary. Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip are another royal love story, some claim Phillip has had affairs, maybe he has but he has been a constant support and consort to the Queen for 60 plus years. 60 years spent at her side playing consort and not attending to his own career, Elizabeth and Phillip only got a small chance of a family life before she succeeded her father. When they have gone, the country will miss them both dearly, the Queen in now 85 and works as hard as many half her age, Phillip is 90 also working hard. It's only in the Queen's children's generation and with her own sister that things went astray, I wonder if it is the constant media scrutiny and none secrecy these days that has made it the more difficult for then to obtain lasting marriages.

[stuart.uk]

Alison

It's been suggested that George V was a bully toward his children and that he might have been a dificult husband

Funnily enough I've seen The Lost Prince many times and assumed that Georgie was George VI. However, I did wonder about Georgie, as the future King was known as Albert or Bertiein those days. Then it donned on me that George and Mary had a son called George, who died in a plane crash in 1940. He was Georgie

[charliechaplinfan]

It is confusing isn't it? Charles is on record as saying that he wats to be known as George VII on his ascension, now that will be strange. I used to devour books on the royal family as a child. I think George V gained great strength from his marriage to may of Teck, she of course had been promised to his elder brother Albert who died before the marriage, she married George instead, it's very convenient how the Royals in years gone by have passed brides on to the next son when the eldest died. My understanding was that he loved her very much and her him, she had 6 children but as a couple they seemed very staid, Victorian I suppose you'd call it. He was very different to his father Edward VII an indulgent, fun loving figure, very different to his own parents.

I read that Gordon Brown and Tony Blair hadn't been invited. Cherie will be spitting feathers about that, the inclusion of the Tory primeministers, surely they're not making a political point or an anti Scottish point. You'd have thought all of the living previous Primeministers would be included to keep up the impartiality.

[knitwit45]

Lady Gertrude Butch-Vineyard here. The first one to snerk will lose his head, Klondike.
Curtsies will be accepted.

[moira finnie]

Lady Gertrude Butch-Vineyard here. The first one to snerk will lose his head, Klondike.
Curtsies will be accepted.

LOVE that moniker, M'Lady.

[knitwit45]

me too! It could have been Lady Anna Freckles-Vineyard, but......

[klondike]

The first one to snerk will lose his head, Klondike.

Be patient, Cousin - let me catch me breath - I'm still trying to fathom how anyone could imagine or propose or defend an "anti-Scottish" anything !!!

(I mean, since the Third Reich collapsed, of course!)