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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 2002-04 > 1017792348


From: "Peter Stewart" <>
Subject: Re: The Queen Mother ---- Requiescat In Pace
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 00:05:48 +0000 (UTC)
References: <a8cosf$efd$3@news.panix.com>, <a8cu40$6ld$1@knossos.btinternet.com>, <xonq8.721$Tw6.28504@eagle.america.net>


I'm not sure how this correspondence came to be posted on SGM or SHM --
Queen Elizabeth may have been ancient, but not quite medieval.

However, there are a few common misconceptions here which members of
both newsgroups may wish to know better than to repeat (comments
interspersed with the nonsense):

> | Paul J Gans <> wrote in message
> | news:a8cosf$efd$3@news.panix.com...
>
> | > Paul Strohm <> wrote:
>
> | > So can we assume the Queen Mother was responsible for denying Wallis
> | > >Warfield the honorific of "Royal Highness" which she was legally
> | > >entitled to?

Absolutely wrong -- no subject is "legally entitled" to an honour or the
courtesy of address by its honorific, including "Royal Highness", except
through award by the sovereign, who is the sole fount of honour in
Britain. Edward VIII on a whim could have bestowed the "Royal Highness"
on Wallis Warfield Simpson before his abdication, but afterwards it was
quite inappropriate for his successors to do this. The reason has
nothing to do with anyone's imagined spite, but is simply because the
sovereign and fount of honour is also Supreme Governor of the Church of
England and under Anglican canon law the Windsors' marriage was not
recognised. Under civil law Wallis became the duke of Windsor's wife and
custom dictated that she was therefore known as the duchess of Windsor.
But she did not participate in her husband's honours beyond this without
a deliberate choice by the sovereign to extend these to her. George VI
would have had a whole bench of irate bishops to contend with had he
done this, rather than a bitter & cantankerous consort.

> | >
> | > >And what a streak of petty meanness on her part!

She had no discretion in the matter, which was one of straightforward
principle.

> | > You had to have been there. The man shucked the only
> | > responsibilities for which he had been bred and almost
> | > personally ensured the early death of her husband.
> |
> | Actually I don't think his 60 a day habit helped that much, he died
> | of lung cancer.

Edward VIII had in the course of nature no more choice about becoming
king than he in turn allowed to his brother George VI -- although he did
prove that it wasn't necessarily a life sentence. As prince of Wales,
the elder brother had expressed reservations about giving royal assent
in future to laws which might go against his conscience. A man may feel
he has duties other than to his inherited position, crown and country --
King Baudouin of the Belgians for instance salved his conscience by
abdicating temporarily while a law permitting abortion was promulgated.
Such a possibility was not in anyone's mind in 1936. Edward VIII's
reluctance to be king & emperor was not due entirely to self-indulgent
love. And by the way, an alternative was suggested to George VI: that he
could renounce the succession and become regent for his elder daughter
instead, retiring when she came of age. If he had pursued this unlikely
scenario, the Golden Jubilee would have ben celebrated in 1986.

Peter Stewart



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