[Ravensfort] The Court: The Queen Ltd.

HerrDetlef herrdetlef at gmail.com
Fri Oct 29 07:27:31 PDT 2010


"'The Court' is one of those terms which everybody seems to vaguely
understand, but which few can really pin down. The very concept of a court
is so archaic to most people today as to be something almost exclusively
associated with history books. But the Court of St. James's--that is, the
British court--is very much alive, functioning as smoothly as a Rolls-Royce
limousine. The royal establishment has its headquarters at Buckingham
Palace, but it is spread over the entire kingdom, from the Lord
Chamberlain's office in St. James's Palace to the estates of the various
members of the royal family, from the Royal Air Force Command center of the
Queen's Flight to the Royal Company of Archers, Archers Hall, Edinburgh. It
all forms a sort of 'Department of the Crown,' which not a few members of
Parliament with did, so as to more easily administer the Crown.
"The Court can be best thought of today as the body of bureaucrats who make
the monarchy 'go.' Some of these people are ensconced in the folds of high
and mighty titles of ancient origin, and only occasionally serve the Crown.
Others are full-time workers little distinguishable from their thousands of
fellow workers who man the high-rises of commerce all over Britain. The most
logical place to begin describing the British Court is at its
center--Buckingham Palace.
"Running the palace is akin to running a large hotel. There are 337
full-time and 126 part-time employees, who receive an aggregate salary of
more than 1,000,000 pounds annually. These employees are divided into three
rigidly distinct castes: Household, Officials and Clerks, and Staff. The
members of the first group can without equivocation be classified as
'courtiers'; the members of the second group can marginally be included
within the definition of 'the court,' but they aren't really 'courtiers';
and the third group--the servants, cleaners, and so forth--doesn't count,
socially speaking.
"Those at the top of the pecking order, the Household, are essentially the
ones who come into direct contact with the Queen on a routine basis. Most
Household members have under them Officials and Clerks, who in turn have
staff reporting to them. It all pretty much adds up to a typical
organization chart. A common thread running through the Household is that
most of its members were former military or naval officers. A senior member
of the Queen Mother's Household commented that the discipline and training
of the Services is found to be uncommonly useful in royal employment.
"Officially, the senior members of the Household are, in order, the Lord
Chamberlain (currently Lord Maclean), the Lord Steward (the Duke of
Northumberland), and the Master of the Horse (the Earl of Westmoreland),
responsible respectively for 'above stairs,' 'below stairs' and 'out of
doors.' In reality, the senior royal servant is the Queen's Private
Secretary, now Sir Philip Moore...
"The duties of the Lord Chamberlain, whose job is not a full-time one,
include responsibility for the direction of all State and Court
ceremonies--except coronations and funerals, which are under the Earl
Marshal--and, symbolically, he is the Queen's emissary to the House of
Lords...
"The Lord Steward's bailiwick covers the complex domestic management of the
palace, the cooks and maids, butlers and footmen. In practice, however, the
duties of the mostly ceremonial Lord Steward are carried out by the Master
of the Household, a full-time position held by Vice Admiral Sir Peter
Ashmore...
"The Master of the Horse, a title which of course originated in the
pre-automobile era, is responsible not only for the royal stables which hold
the world's most splendid carriages and coaches and some of its most
pampered horses, but also for the automobiles--mostly Rolls-Royces--which
the Queen and her family use...
"Also close to the Queen are her ladies-in-waiting, all of whom are her
personal choices nowadays, as opposed to the political choices of the past.
They are officially called either 'Ladies of the Bedchamber,' usually the
wives of earls, or 'Women of the Bedchamber,' lower ranking and often
untitled (but extremely well-connected) friends of the Queen. The 'ladies'
attend formal events with the Queen, taking care of her umbrellas and gloves
and so forth, their reward being the great honor inherent in the
appointment...
"The 'women' accompany the Queen on less formal appointments, answer the
majority of her correspondence, and perform other personal tasks...
"In addition to the royal employees are the military and semi-military
bodies which 'guard' the Queen while adding spender and color to British
life...
"The Queen is a stickler for absolute perfection in the (Trooping the
Colour) ceremony which she has performed so many times, beginning after the
War when she was deputized for her ailing father. Especially punctilious
about spacing, she once chastised an officer whose horse was encroaching on
her: 'Actually, Captain, I THINK they're coming to see ME.'
"Another classification of court personages are the Great Officers of State.
The royal Household was originally the center of Britain's government, and
the ranking members of the Court were the sovereign's closest advisers. By
virtue of their status they were, in effect, the principal executives and
administrators of the country...
"This great panoply of characters not only makes the monarchy run as if it
were on greased skids, but it also provides the pageantry which marks the
special flair of Britain's Crown. The public sees only the incredibly
smoothly functioning ceremonial side of royalty; hidden from view is the
mundane bureaucracy and plain hard hwork that makes the whole thing come
off.
In all likelihood, England's Queen is the world's busiest monarch. Overwork
was in large part responsible for her father's early death, and today the
Queen's many chorse are far greater than those her father had to face. She
is, in fact, busier than any of her civil servants, constantly presented
with endless piles of paperwork and endless rounds of public duties and
engagements."

Packard, Jerrold M. THE QUEEN AND HER COURT: A GUIDE TO THE BRITISH MONARCHY
TODAY. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981. 84-99.

-- 
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
--Micah 6:8
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ansteorra.org/pipermail/ravensfort-ansteorra.org/attachments/20101029/00a5b993/attachment-0004.htm>


More information about the Ravensfort mailing list