The First Royal Visit to the US (1939)

Meanwhile... The White House posted a picture of President Trump and King Charles III with the caption “two Kings” amid the monarch’s visit to the U.S. on Tuesday.

What's going on with Prince Andrew?

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King Charles' prayer with the Pope may have worked

Pope Francis blessed King and Queen’s anniversary despite their divorces

Pope Francis gave the King and Queen a blessing for their 20th wedding anniversary, it has emerged.

The King and Queen, who had a private audience with the late pontiff in April, were offered his blessing behind closed doors.

Their marriage would not be recognised in the eyes of the Catholic Church. Both have been divorced, with Andrew Parker Bowles, the Queen’s ex-husband, still living.

But Pope Francis gave a blessing during a 20-minute meeting during their state visit to Rome, it has been claimed.

The late Pope and the King are also said to have prayed together, thought to be the first time the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and the Bishop of Rome have done so.

Read the rest here.

Why King Charles III is Opening Canada's Parliament

TORONTO (AP) — King Charles III is coming to Canada to deliver a message: Canada is a sovereign nation distinct from the United States.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated suggestion that the U.S. annex its northern neighbor prompted new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to invite Charles to give the speech from the throne on Tuesday where he will lay out the Canadian government’s agenda when Parliament reopens.

The monarch is the head of state in Canada, which is a member of the British Commonwealth of former colonies.

“Canada has a steadfast defender in our sovereign,” Carney said when he announced the visit earlier this month.

Read the rest here.

UK: New Law to Remove Last of Hereditary Lords from Parliament

The government is proposing to banish all remaining hereditary peers from the House of Lords in the biggest shake-up of parliament in a quarter century.

The UK’s 92 remaining hereditary peers – who have inherited their titles from their parents – will lose their right to sit and vote in the upper chamber under proposals put forward by ministers on Thursday.

The move would complete reforms first made by Tony Blair’s government, which revoked the 700-year-old right of all hereditary peers to sit in the Lords in 1999. Just 92 of them, elected from the whole group, were allowed to remain until an agreement could be reached to phase them out altogether.

All 92 hereditary peers who now hold seats in the Lords are white men, and their average age is just under 70. They have continued to top up their numbers by holding byelections when one of them retires or dies.

Campaigners have long called for the system to be overhauled. In its manifesto, Labour said the continued existence of hereditary peers was “indefensible”.

The government’s bill will mean that there will no longer be any hereditary peers in the upper chamber. The earl marshal and the lord great chamberlain, who had been expected to keep their seats because of their ceremonial functions, will also be removed.

The bill is likely to become law sometime next year, and will fulfil a Labour manifesto commitment.

Read the rest here.

King Charles has cancer

Respice post te. Hominem te esse memento. Memento mori.

James II/VII

Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem is Supplying the Chrism for Charles III Coronation

Interesting to say the least. 

Details

David Starkey on the Duke of Woke

The Duke and Duchess of Woke are at it again

Playing the same broken record. 

Aren't these the same people who wanted to live private lives unconnected to the Firm, a corrupt institution based on hierarchy and racism? And yet they complained bitterly at the prospect that their children might not be titled as prince and princess? Complained about being "cut off" while raking in an income well into the nine-figure range off their titles and by transforming themselves into professional victims? An income on which they don't have to pay UK tax because they are living abroad. If they really want to be credible, they should renounce their titles and declare themselves to be republicans and socialists. They could then give away all their money to the real victims of oppression and at the same time spare the King and William from having to smile and invite them to the coronation.

Speaking of which; I thank God that William was born first.

A Royal Zinger

‘With its raw, unflinching honesty, Spare is a landmark publication full of insight, revelation, self-examination and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.’ This prepublication blurb for Prince Harry’s forthcoming memoir – a friend thinks that Entitled would have been a better title than Spare – could hardly promise more.

Yet while it’s likely to be better than many celebrity memoirs – Penguin have employed JR Moehringer, who ghosted Andre Agassi’s excellent Open, to do the writing – it’s hard to know why the rest of the royal family are reportedly so nervous about its contents. Unless he’s going to spill the beans on their various sexual preferences. Because everything else Harry is likely to say we already know. That his father was a bit emotionally remote, he was deeply affected by the death of his mother, he lost his way in his 20s, he deeply regrets dressing up in Nazi uniform, Meghan taught him how to love again, various members of the royal family are a bit racist, Prince William has turned against him, he loves his rescue battery hens and he was very hurt not to be allowed to wear military uniform at the Queen’s funeral comes as no surprise.

Unless I’m missing something, what really would be a revelation would be for Harry to admit that, all things considered, he’s led a rather cushy, privileged life and if one of the worst things that happened to him was that he was born only second in line to the throne, then he might have done better not to have taken a reported £20m for a four-book deal – does anyone want to read Harry on leadership and wellness? – and to have sucked it up and not made such a fuss.

Source.

FWIW: My views on the royal brat can be found here.

UK: Sky News Coverage Live

Funeral Rites for Queen Victoria

News coverage from 121 years ago.

The Queen is Dead; God Save the King

Queen Elizabeth II: Doctors "Concerned" as Family Gathers

Something close to alarm is spreading in the UK as the Royal Family is reported to be gathering at the Queen's scottish residence. Statements by senior governement officals and clergy are elevating a sense of crisis.

Trooping the Colour

The traditional military parade begins the celebration of the Queen's 70th anniversary on the throne.

Prince Andrew is stripped of military honours and patronages

HM The Queen has stripped Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, of all his honorary military titles and royal patronages. Additionally, he is no longer permitted to use his HRH, according to an announcement from the Palace. The announcement stated that the Duke will defend himself in his current court case as a private citizen. 

I have up to now refrained from commenting on this sordid business, but I think this worth noting. My only response is that this is as welcome as it is overdue. 

Details.

Is Prince Harry a republican?

I'm not going to link to any of the numerous stories about Harry and how he is torching his family at every opportunity online, in the mass media and press. They are all over the place. A Google will get you scores of links. But I am starting to wonder if his bitterness has not reached the point where he just wants to burn the institution down? 

To be clear, I accept that Harry got dealt some really crappy hands at the card table of life. Fancy dinners, gilded furniture, and lots of servants can only compensate for so much. Everyone in that family lives in a very large and well appointed fish tank. And yes, the press/media pretty much killed his mother, for which he still, understandably, has a chip on his shoulder. I doubt he will ever forgive them. 

But since he threw the whole royal thing overboard and bolted from his own country, ultimately landing in California, he seems to have become an arsonist with a particular preference for bridges. Of course, Harry is hardly the first royal to feud with the family. The Duke of Windsor (formerly Edward VIII) had a notoriously chilly relationship with his brother and successor, George VI, and the late Queen Mother who detested him. But for the most part the family was able to keep the more unpleasant aspects of that story under wraps until after the Duke's death. 

By contrast this little civil war is starting to get downright ugly. And if Harry has a deeply ingrained loathing for the press, he seems quite willing to use them for his own purposes. Which brings me to a couple of observations. If Harry is not out to bring down the monarchy, he certainly is not going out of his way to reassure those who suspect exactly that. 

Beyond which, there is something unseemly in a man who owes everything he is and will ever be to the accident of birth that put him in the British Royal Family, suddenly going all woke and bleating endlessly about privilege and racism. All the while cashing in on his titles to the tune of well over $100 million and the stardom that only Hollywood can confer on the deserving. And while we are on the topic of privilege, I would note that there are billions of people in the world who have issues with their family. Almost none of them have the 'privilege' of being able to trash their relations in the global press with a virtual guarantee of front page coverage by the very people loathed, if possible, even more than the offending relatives. 

Real men, in the real world, deal with family problems in private. They reach out and try to set things right without causing scandal. And mayhap that won't work out. In the real world not every movie is a Disney picture with a happy ending. If an honest effort has been made, but failed, sometimes you just need to man up and say, privately, 'it's not working and we need to go our ways in peace.'

But I'm not seeing anything like that. I am seeing a man who is consumed by bitterness directed at everybody but himself, and who appears to be staging one of the most spectacular tantrums in recent memory. The tabloid press and his woke Hollywood pals will indulge this for a while. But sooner or later the public is going to get tired of the endless carping and moral lectures from one of the most privileged men on God's Earth. And then I fear he is going to discover the loneliness of being a man without a family or country. 

For history enthusiasts