[ANSTHRLD] Royal Crowns (was Re: arms - your thoughts)

[Diane Rudin]

--- tmcd at panix.com wrote:

> If I were to hand you the most ancient crown of the Middle Kingdom,
> you couldn't tell me whether it was for a king, a duke, a count, or
> a baron.

That's right.  A circlet of metal in my hands is a circlet of metal
in my hands.  It could be a crown, it could be a coronet, it could be
a weird frisbee.  

Despite all of the sidetracking on this topic, what I was trying to
respond to, obviously very poorly, was the notion that someone, I no
longer remember who, had of calling what an SCA duke or count ("royal
peers") is *wearing* a "crown".  I'm going to give this explanation
one last shot, and if I've still failed to communicate, I'm giving
up.

A circlet of metal on the head of a SCA duke/chess or count/ess is a
coronet.  It is NOT a crown, because s/he is not a sovereign.  

I, for one, am not going to say, in front of Elizabeth, Queen of
England etc., to her son the Prince of Wales, "Your Royal Highness,
may I please polish your crown for you?"

--Serena