Today is St George’s Day. It was delayed in the church calendar from its usual date of 23rd April so as not to clash with Easter, though this was not well publicised in advance and in practice not widely observed. The movement also means that St George’s Day clashes with Ed Balls Day!
I was disappointed to see no new appointments to the Order of the Garter either today or last Wednesday. Currently there are four vacancies among the ordinary Knights and Ladies Companion.
I was a little surprised to see that the News page on GOV.UK included “Prime Minister Liz Truss’s statement on the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II“, given that said prime minister resigned thirty months ago. Upon inspection of the Updates section, it seems the page was originally published with only the video link, and the transcription has now very belatedly been added. Amusingly, the note doesn’t even say “transcription”, but rather “translation”. Surely, Truss’s thoughts weren’t that incomprehensible, were they?
As the eightieth anniversary of VE Day in World War II approaches, it would be easy to miss that there were also commemorations for World War I still going on.
The ceremonies carried out today in honour of the Gallipoli campaign were of a notably lower key, but still quite interesting.
The Australian & New Zealand Army Corps fought at the time as part of the British Empire under George V. Today Charles III is monarch of all three realms in separate capacities.
His Majesty put out messages relating to the anniversary, which the Royal Twitter feed illustrated with photographs and flags. The letterhead uses the new illustration of the British royal arms with the New Zealand and Australian flags (both containing the Union Flag in the canton) are displayed diagonally in the top corners.
The Palace also Tweeted links to separate messages for Australian and New Zealand veterans, but there is clearly a mistake in the Tweet as the New Zealand link is given twice. Luckily the Australian message is easily findable from that page on the website.
The Princess Royal, President of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, attended services in Turkey (where the Gallipoli campaign actually took place). While there it appears she left a note from her brother attached to a wreath. The card still uses the old illustration of the arms. I didn’t see the princess’s own banner flying anywhere. The Master of Ceremonies introduced her as “senior member of the British royal family” alongside Sam Mostyn as Governor General of Australia, Christopher Luxon as Prime Minister of New Zealand and Ömer Toroman as Governor of Çanakkale Province. He then moved onto introducing the senior representatives of each country’s armed forces, including First Sea Lord Sir Ben Key. That Britain had a specific national representative among the latter group but not the former implies by default that Anne must be representing the United Kingdom in particular**. When it came to the laying of the wreaths, Toroman went first representing the host nation, then Anne lay hers “on behalf of the British royal family” while Mostyn and Luxon lay theirs “on behalf of the government and people” of their respective countries. Wreaths for Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, South Africa and the United Kingdom were laid by their various diplomatic and military representatives, Britain’s being Ambassador Jill Morris. The order of precedence is interesting – most of the countries listed are simply in English alphabetical order***, but it is interesting that “the British royal family” as an institution got to be in the special group higher up the chain while the United Kingdom itself did not. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has been livestreaming the Gallipoli Dawn Service (and many others) for the past several years and the YouTube videos are still up, allowing one to compare the small variations in the ceremony over time. It doesn’t appear that Britain normally has any representative, royal or otherwise, among the first section of attendees, and indeed the Australian and New Zealand representatives are usually a bit lower-ranking than the ones who attended this time.
The Duchess of Edinburgh was the principal royal representative for services in London – both at Hyde Park and at Westminster Abbey. Getty has a photograph of the order of service for the Hyde Park event. It is a less-than-impressive affair, the title being typed in bold, block capitals Calibri font (the default now on Microsoft Office) and the illustrations of the royal arms of Australia and New Zealand, the latter (still using St Edward’s Crown) clearly being taken from Wikimedia Commons. The order of service for the Abbey event uses the same illustrations.
ITN’s Royal Family Channel on YouTube has, as usual, provided a great deal of raw feed. I particularly enjoyed the wobbly footage of the camera operator navigating behind the Abbey’s arches.
In the stream for the Hyde Park service we can see at 5:42 that one of the wreaths has two cards on it bearing the conjugal arms of the Duke & Duchess – two separate shields slightly angled beneath a single princely coronet.
These events also bring up an interesting conundrum about the use of national anthems in the Commonwealth Realms – at the 12:08 mark in the same video, it is announced that “…an Australian soprano*, a music educator based here in London. This morning she will sing the national anthems of the United Kingdom and Australia. I’m also delighted to welcome Lance Corporal Bryony Williams of the New Zealand Army to sing the national anthem of New Zealand.”
The British anthem used here is God Save The King!, the Australian Advance Australia Fair! and the New Zealand God Defend New Zealand! sung in both Maori and English. Trouble is, New Zealand officially has two national anthems, the other being… God Save The King! That same song is also officially the royal anthem of Australia. For the hymn to be used to represent one realm against another feels a little diplomatically questionable. Perhaps it would be better in these kinds of circumstances to use the royal anthem to represent all realms together and/or use an alternative patriotic song to represent Britain in particular – probably the best choice would be Rule, Britannia! The abbey service has the British anthem at the beginning then the other two at the end. The service also includes a prayer “for His Majesty The King; for the Governors
General of Australia and New Zealand, and for all who govern the nations of the world”.
A minor point to note here is that New Zealand’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Phil Goff, was dismissed last month after making critical comments about Donald Trump. A permanent successor has yet to be appointed so Chris Seed, a retired diplomat, is currently filling in.
The ceremony at the Whitehall cenotaph was attended by David Lammy and therefore produced a dozen photographs on the FCDO Flickr feed which are able to be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Sir Lindsay Hoyle also features prominently in these.
*Unfortunately the editing of the video cuts off the soprano’s name.
**Whether the multinational nature of the monarchy extends beyond the sovereign himself to the rest of the royal family is a long-running philosophical conundrum among Wikipedians and others.
***Ironically this tends to mean that the birthplace of said language comes at or near the end. I won’t rehash the tired joke about searching for Britain, Great Britain or United Kingdom on drop-down menus, but I will note this article by Michael Reiners for The Critic which was published coincidentally on the same day.
We find ourselves in the unusual situation where two of the large Commonwealth realms are simultaneously having federal general elections, with polling days in the same week. I was interested to compare the ways in which Canada and Australia go about dissolving one parliament and electing another.
In Australia, the relevant discussion is done in writing, with the government publishing both the Prime Minister’s letter and the Governor-General’s. These are not pro forma text, but there is little personal character in the prose which comprises mainly the essential technical details (especially the dates) and constitutional obligations. The proclamation itself is, compared to its British counterpart, remarkably short and unadorned. The Governor-General’s badge of office as seen in this letterhead still uses St Edward’s Crown. The monochrome government coat of arms in the Prime Minister’s letterhead is too small and low-resolution to determine, but probably the same.
The Canadian version has the dissolution of the old parliament, the issuance of writs of election and the meeting date of the new parliament done as three separate proclamations. Each individually is quite short, with apparent length padded out by the need to restate the monarch’s and governor’s style each time as well as the bilingual requirement. The familiar depiction of the Canadian royal arms is used, embedded as a vector image that loaded piece by piece. The crown here too is still St Edward’s, rather than the Tudor or Trudeau crown.
I know from previous examples that it is customary for the Australian dissolution proclamation to have a public reading, though have yet to find the video for this particular election.
Yesterday Mark Carney made his first international trips as Prime Minister of Canada, visiting first France and then Britain. He held bilateral talks with Emmanuel Macron and Sir Keir Starmer, as well as an audience with Charles III.
The meeting with Starmer was snapped by Downing Street photographers and uploaded on Flickr. I have already copied them to Wikimedia Commons. These appear to be the first free-licence photographs of Carney’s premiership, as Canada’s own government’s policy on official copyright is some way behind Britain’s.
The conversation at Buckingham Palace had among the strangest opening exchanges I’ve heard from any of these:
Bit of a disaster today sir. My Order of Canada pin broke.
Oh.
Yes. It fell on the tarmac… which is proof that (among) our founding people (are) the British.
Do you want mine?
I’m not of that rank.
Obviously, the more substantive discussion in all cases was kept off-camera.
Lest it be forgotten that the royals have other duties, today the Palace revealed more detail about Their Majesties’ state visits to Italy and the Vatican, ending speculation that the latter would be postponed due to the Pope’s recent hospitalisation. The press release explicitly states that there will be an audience with Francis, but it tactfully does not specify where said audience will take place. It would be an interesting (if also tragic) subversion of the concept of a state visit if the host head of state was not actually in his home state at the time of the meeting.
Yesterday, following his victory in the Liberal Party’s leadership election, Mark Carney was formally appointed Prime Minister of Canada. This took place at a meeting of the Privy Council in the presence of the Governor General.
British cabinet inaugurations are not televised – instead we have to rely on merely reading the orders in council off the website later – but this gives us a good guide to what it might look like (minus the speeches and the anthem, of course): Each minister in turn gets up to take his or her oath of office, with those not already privy counsellors (including Carney himself) taking that oath as well. The Privy Council oath contains frequent acknowledgement of Charles III as King of Canada.
This being Canada, proceedings were conducted in both English and French. Given that the vocabulary of the oaths heavily favours the Romantic over the Saxon, it often sounded like the same sentences but in different accents.
At twenty-four members in all (including himself), Carney’s cabinet is considerably smaller than Trudeau’s. All the other ministers are incumbent members of the House of Commons, though only two (Dominic LeBlanc and David McGuinty) began their parliamentary careers before Trudeau became party leader. Arielle Kayabaga, a relatively junior member still in her first parliamentary term, has been appointed Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, a role which will probably be more burdensome than normal given the Prime Minister’s non-membership.
Parliament is, of course, the elephant in the room. The legislature last conducted chamber business on 17th December and was supposed to meet again on 27th January, but then was prorogued. The new session is expected to begin on 24th March. That would be the start of a new session, requiring Her Excellency to give a new speech from the throne with the government’s legislative agenda. That would be an opportunity for Carney to attempt a government “relaunch”, but this will be hampered by the parliamentary balance of power – not only the Prime Minister’s own absence, but the fact that the party as a whole has not won a majority of seats in the lower house nor a plurality of the popular vote since 2015. The new government is severely lacking in democratic authority and, with an absent leader, may well struggle to get its business through even more than Trudeau’s did.
The current (44th) Parliament is near the end of its term. Under law, the next general election can be no later than 20th October, but the Governor General can arrange one earlier at the Prime Minister’s request. The Liberals’ polling was remarkably poor in January at the point of Trudeau’s resignation announcement, but has recovered dramatically in the face of invasion threats from the United States and now, in what may be deemed Carney’s “honeymoon period” as a new leader, some polls suggest they could actually win again.
The Leader of the Opposition, Pierre Poilievre, has campaigned hard against the personality, posturing and poor performance of Justin Trudeau, embracing a populist style often likened to that of Donald Trump and associating himself with other prominent figures in that sphere of politics. Now that Trudeau himself is off the stage and Trump is Canada’s principal antagonist, this is likely to fall flat.
Supporters of Carney and opponents of Poilievre are drawing attention to the latter being a “career politician” who “never held a real job” in contrast to the former’s extensive business experience. Of course, being an elected lawmaker and a party leader is an occupation and has a skillset different to that needed for appointed roles in the state or private sector, so a having Parliament sit for an extended period without his opponent may work to the Conservatives’ advantage, as may a protracted electoral campaign. From a partisan perspective, therefore, it is in Carney’s interest for the general election to take place as quickly as possible.
Whether that is in the national interest is not certain: At a time of serious external and internal crisis, Canada has been without a functioning legislature for three months. Dissolving it now would prolong this situation for at least another month, maybe two. Then again, it’s not clear how functional that Parliament was anyway – Trudeau referred in his January speech to there being months of paralysis. Still, Carney might wish for some emergency legislation to be passed to deal with current events.
In the absence of Parliament, the Carney government must rely on ministerial powers and orders-in-council to carry out its agenda. The Prime Minister has already had himself photographedsigning some form of instruction to eliminate an unpopular tax which his predecessor had devised, though people learned in the constitution have questioned its validity – news sources are calling it an order-in-council but neither the text nor the format match this.
While I’m discussing the King’s Privy Council for Canada, indulge me a little in discussing its British counterpart: The council has recently launched a complete redesign of its website. Rather than one big PDF for each meeting, there is now a separate link for each individual order and proclamation with a search function, distinct from the list of business.
It would now be prudent to check up on the state of relations between His Majesty’s Governments of Canada and the United Kingdom, as well as the stance of Charles himself.
In his first public speech after taking office, Carney referred to Canada’s “proud British heritage”. He has already announced that he will be rapidly visiting both France and the United Kingdom in the next few days, the latter obviously involving a meeting with the monarch.
The King planted a tree in the back garden of Buckingham Palace on Tuesday to commemorateThe Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy. That it was a red maple tree did not go unnoticed. On Wednesday he held an audience for two representatives of Canada’s sentate, Gregory Peters (Usher of the Black Rod) and Raymonde Gagné (Speaker). The King presented them with a new ceremonial sword bearing his royal cypher. I note that the heraldic illustration etched onto the blade shows the Tudor crown rather than St Edward’s or the Maple Leaf version. There is also a carving of the crown at the pommel, but I can’t make out what the objects around the rim are supposed to be.
From 12th-14th March the foreign ministers of the G7 held a summit at Charlevoix, Quebec. A join statement was put out regarding the situation in Ukraine, but David Lammy remained curiously noncommittal on the US-Canada dispute. Sir Ed Davey, by contrast, has been pressing the government on this issue, as well as showing support in his characteristic way.
UPDATE (16th March)
Global News has this discussion about the mechanics of the carbon tax repeal.
Sixty-two days after Trudeau announced his intention to step down, the leadership contest for the Liberal Party of Canada concluded last night. The winner, to the surprise of almost nobody, was former bank governor Mark Carney. He garnered 85.9% of the vote, albeit on only a 37% turnout, which really shows how uninspiring the other candidates must have been.
Carney’s Wikipedia page is already describing him as “Prime Minister Designate”, though the exact date at which the Governor General will formally appoint him to that office has not yet been decided. Canada tends to do governmental transitions at a rather slower pace than Britain does, with the time between leadership elections (or indeed general elections) and ministerial appointments often being measured in weeks rather than hours, but most indications are that this one will take place unusually quickly.
That the leadership election should eschew two experienced cabinet veterans in favour of someone who isn’t even an MP is a little surprising. In the Canadian constitution, as in the British, it is not illegal for a non-Parliamentarian to be appointed to a ministerial office, but it is considered improper and, above all, politically impractical. The nearest British precedent for Carney’s situation, and even then it is a very poor one, would be the much-discussed case of Sir Alec Douglas-Home disclaiming his peerages to jump back to the Commons in 1963. A more thorough comparison of these two situations may be worth a separate article.
Accession to the premiership will, of course, give Carney the right to constitutionally advise the King of Canada, including advising him to speak on Canadian matters.
For the moment, Charles continues in a state of political limbo. Following a long-established royal tradition, he must express himself in a cryptic, plausibly-deniable way, often through subtle sartorial cues.
Today is Commonwealth Day, which includes a service at Westminster Abbey and the publication of a message by His Majesty. As the position of Head of the Commonwealth has no formal powers at all, it is not subject to “advice” from the secretariat in the way that ministers advise their monarchs, and thus this is a rare opportunity for Charles to speak his own mind. Of course, the message is meant to broadly encompass all fifty-six-and-counting members of the organisation, so is still a poor venue for a determined diatribe about any particular one of them, so any comment about the defence of Canadian sovereignty must again be inferred rather than stated outright.
Sir Keir Starmer has been similarly cautious, Tweeting about “further deepening the UK-Canada relationship together” but not saying anything specific about what that would entail. It was also announced two days ago that the Department of National Defence had commissioned a fleet of new destroyers based on a British design, but this is likely unrelated to the state of relations with the White House.
Returning to more familiar territory, I notice that where the Commonwealth Day message has been quoted inphotographic form, the coat of arms in the letterhead is now the new Timothy Noad illustration with the Tudor crown. Said illustration has also now replaced the earlier versions on the royal website as well. As I noted to Sodacan, the change was done at some point in the morning of Wednesday 5th March.
The most surprising recent development in the past few days has been the launch of another royal podcast. Whereas Camilla has been patronising The Queen’s Reading Room (of which a podcast is but one part) for some years, Charles has only just announced The King’s Music Room (probably named that way for congruence with his wife’s project), but it has already generated a lot more headlines. The format is very different from the Reading Room, being very explicitly the product of a partnership with Apple and only available to their subscribers, among which I am not.
I wonder how long it took to get those signs printed.
International affairs continue to move at a dizzying pace. Far from being able to write comprehensive essays about events, it’s as much as I can do to keep up with the photographs being uploaded.
Shortly after meeting President Trump individually, Starmer, Macron, Zelenskyy and many other heads of government met at Lancaster House for an emergency summit on the Russia-Ukraine war. This was sometimes described in the press as a European leaders meeting, but that was not strictly true as it also included Justin Trudeau, a North American.
Back in D.C., Ambassador Mandelson has already caused a minor diplomatic row by airing a view on the Trump-Zelenskyy negotiations which contradicted British government policy.
The Downing Street Flickr account uploaded many photographs of Starmer’s bilateral meeting with Trump as well as of the conference he hosted. The White House also released photographs of the former and the European Commission of the latter. This presented a challenge for me when organising the files on Wikimedia Commons. For the scenes at the White House I decided to use “Trump-Starmer bilateral” for the American photographs and “Starmer-Trump bilateral” for the British ones. For the summit I put (UK pic) and (EC pic) in brackets. Further complicating matters is that London, Brussells and D.C. all sit in different time zones so that the meta-data on different cameras are inconsistent.
Following the meeting, Zelenskyy flew to the Sandringham estate for a meeting with His Majesty. Today Trudeau did the same. The choice of Sandringham for this part was confusing for three reasons:
Sandringham is a privately-owned property, yet clearly matters of state were being conducted.
The King’s main London residence at Clarence House is only a minute’s walk from where the summit took place, whereas the journey to Sandringham is over a hundred miles.
Sandringham is normally only used by the royal family from Christmas to early February, not into March.
Sadly, no government photographs of the royal meetings were taken, onlycommercial ones. Although this could be considered a private rather than an official visit (and certainly not a state one) I was a little disappointed that the Ukrainian president was not appointed an honorary GCB.
The presence of the Prime Minister of Canada at an otherwise-European conference may seem a little strange, but of course Canada is a nation directly adjacent at the opposite end of the main adversary, as well as bordering the United States. Among the proximate causes of this summit is that the latter, long considered the keystone of any global military policy, may now me as much an antagonist as Russia is.
Given the great affection in which Canada is held by the British public, as well as the long-standing cultural and constitutional links between the United Kingdom and its former dominion, many viewers expressed disappointment that Starmer, whether in his meeting with Trump or at the subsequent summit, did not explicitly push back against Trump’s threats of both economic and actual warfare against Canada, which they interpreted as indifference to attack on a senior Commonwealth partner. That our shared monarch did not comment on the matter either was also of grave concern.
The King, of course, can only make an official statement on such a politically-charged issue on the formal advice of his Canadian government. It is yet to be confirmed if any such advice was given at today’s meeting. I can only hope that when such a statement is made, it comes with the correct coat of arms to hammer the point home!
Then again, it is also worth remembering that we are only a week from Commonwealth Day, and with it the annual Commonwealth Message. As the position of Head of the Commonwealth is one which has no formal powers even in reserve, it is one from which His Majesty can speak without ministerial advice. While a dedicated diatribe in such an instance would be inappropriate, a coded reference or two would not go amiss.
In the past five days President Trump has in rapid succession hosted bilateral meetings at the White House with Emmanuel Macron, Sir Keir Starmer and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. I have not watched any of these events in full in order to write a proper political analysis – frankly, the small snippets I did see were already enough to leave me rocking in a corner – so am instead simply focusing on some aspects of government heraldry.
During a meeting in the oval office, Starmer gave Trump a letter from Charles III inviting him on a second state visit to the United Kingdom. The letter was marked “Private and Confidential”, yet presenting it in this way meant nearly all the words were caught on camera. I have copied out the text below (keeping the line breaks and punctuation the same) with equals signs representing the words that got obscured:
Dear Donald,
I just wanted to write and thank you for receiving====
in Washington so soon after your Inauguration. Given the====
breadth of challenges across the world, I can only think that====
of our two countries has a vital role to play in promoting and====
the values which matter so much to us all.
I remember with great fondness your visits to the United Kingdom
during your previous Presidency, and recall our nascent plan for you to
visit Dumfries House, in Scotland, as the global pandemic began and all
bets – and flights! – were off… I can only say that it would be a great
pleasure to extend that invitation once again, in the hope that you might at
some stage be visiting Turnberry and a detour to a relatively near
neighbour might not cause you too much inconvenience. An alternative
might perhaps be for you to visit Balmoral, if you are calling in at Menie.
There us much on both Estates which I think you might find interesting
and enjoy – particularly as my Foundation at Dumfries House provides
hospitality skills-training for young people who often end up as staff in
your own establishments!
Quite apart from this presenting an opportunity to discuss a wide
range of issues of mutual interest, it would also offer a valuable chance to
plan a historic second State Visit to the United Kingdom. As you will
====, this is unprecedented by a U.S. President. That is why I would find
it helpful for us to be able to discuss, together, a range of options for
location and programme content. In so doing, working together, I know
we will further enhance the special relationship between our two countries,
of which we are both so proud.
Yours Most Sincerely
Charles R
The letter is described as emanating from Buckingham Palace, and is topped by the familiar red outline of the British royal arms, still the old version with St Edward’s Crown.
On a related note, Starmer recently announced that, owing to the escalation of international military tensions, his government would be redirecting funds from international aid to defence. Anneliese Dodds, Minister of State for Development, resigned from the government in protest. The Prime Minister’s response to her resignation is published on Gov.UK as a PDF. His letterhead is the lesser version of the arms, again still using St Edward’s Crown.
One place (or rather a great many places) where the Tudor crown can now be seen in use is in the arms of Queen Camilla, as used by companies to which her royal warrant was granted late last year. The first example I’ve actually seen (through other heraldists pointing it out online, rather than in person) is Heaven Skincare, which proudly displays the warrant in the navigation bar of its website. Deborah Mitchell, the owner, Tweeted a photograph of the coat of arms on her branded packaging earlier today.
A week ago it was announced that Their Majesties would undertake state visits Italy and the Vatican in April this year, though not many details are yet available. Last night it was reported byThe Daily Mirror that next year would see a royal tour of Canada and a state visit to the United States, though naturally at this stage even less is known about these and the article itself is mainly waffle.
Interestingly these visits will be to the two republics where Britain is represented by peers – the Lord Llewellyn of Steep (Conservative) in Rome and the newly-appointed Lord Mandelson (Labour) in Washington.
Any discussion of royal travel this year and last (and likely next as well) has to take account of the monarch’s ongoing cancer treatment, around which long-haul journeys have to be carefully timed. In at least one instance, the health factor may be double-sided as Pope Francis was today hospitalised with bronchitis. The state visit to Italy will be hosted by Sergio Mattarella, President for a decade as of this month. The state visit to the United States will likely be hosted by President Trump, whose affection for the royal family is widely-viewed as an important tool for diplomatic leverage. It is not clear who will host the Canadian tour, as Canada could well be changing Prime Minister more than once between now and next year.
The Italian visit is the only one for which anything substantive has already taken place, as His Majesty preceded the trip with an Italian-themed dinner party at Highgrove. I would be interested to see if Princess Beatrice’s husband Count Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, who is of Italian descent, has any involvement.
The North American tour next year is purely in the speculative stages at this point, but that may be an advantage in that it gives more time for preparation. That Canada and the United States will be visited back-to-back could prove very interesting in the euphemistic sense given the currently-volatile state of relations between these two countries.
Unless something else is arranged in between, Canada would be the second Commonwealth Realm other than Britain that Charles III has visited since his accession (a planned trip to New Zealand last year having been abandoned). The last time the reigning monarch visited Canada was in 2010, and the last time Charles & Camilla personally visited (as Duke & Duchess of Cornwall) was in 2022.
Elizabeth II made six visits to the United States during her reign – in 1957, 1959, 1976, 1983, 1991 and 2007. On the latter four occasions she was representing Britain, but in 1959 she went in her capacity as Queen of Canada, with 1957 being a dual mandate. Notably she never represented any of her other realms abroad in this manner.
The 1976 visit is the most obvious precedent as it came just after the Bicentenary of the Declaration of Independence and was consciously planned as part of the commemorations. Next year will be the Semiquincentenary, and a royal visit will likely have similar intentions (albeit this time some weeks ahead of the actual anniversary date).
A longstanding frustration of British heraldists and constitutionalists is the misuse of the word “Lord” in conjunction with a person’s given name. “Lord” can, of course, have many different meanings depending on context. In particular, its placement before or after a person’s first name.
When “Lord” is placed before a person’s first name and surname (i.e. the place where a knight would put “Sir”) it indicates said person to be the younger son of a marquess, duke or occasionally prince – e.g. Lord Nicholas Windsor, son of the Duke of Kent; Lord Ivar Mountbatten, son of the Marquess of Milford Haven. When placed directly before the surname (or territorial title) omitting the first name, it indicates that the person is a baron, viscount, earl or marquess (most usually the former) in his own right – e.g. Lord Winston, Lord Stansgate, Lord Attlee and Lord Lothian.
Sometimes, where it is necessary to preserve the first name, the word Lord can be written between the two – most famously in the case of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It is also possible for the same person to occupy both states – the two-time Victorian prime minister John Russell was the younger son of the 6th Duke of Bedford and was later created an earl in his own right with the earldom using his surname as the title, thus going from “Lord John Russell” as a commoner to “John, Lord Russell” as a peer. If the use of commas between parts of a person’s name is not practical, especially in long lists of names where it may cause confusion, then one can sometimes get away with using brackets for this purpose instead e.g. Lord (Andrew) Lansley.
I bring this up due to the recent appointment of Peter, Lord Mandelson to be His Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador to the United States of America. His page on Gov.UK and the titles of a series of recent Flickr photographs both incorrectly call him “Lord Peter Mandelson”, thus greatly elevating the prestige of his parentage.
(Just to confuse you, Mandelson actually does have noble heritage on his mother’s side, but only from another life baron – Lord Morrison of Lambeth – whose own origins were distinctly proletarian.)
Once these photographs had been transferred to Wikimedia Commons, I made sure to change the names and captions to something more suitable.
Thankfully the Court Circular for 3rd February does better, stating that
The Lord Mandelson was received in audience by The King and kissed hands upon his appointment as His Majesty’s Ambassador to the United States of America.
On the day of his arrival, the British Embassy in Washington D.C. Tweeted a video of him giving a fluffy speech about his new role, accompanied with a sickeningly-dreamy montage and backing tune. Interestingly, the Tweet and the speech simply call him “Peter Mandelson” without mentioning his peerage at all. Since there did not appear to be a text copy anywhere, I have typed out his speech based on the subtitles. I have copied the punctuation exactly as it appeared there, despite this not always matching the way Mandelson actually spoke the words. Actually, given the syntactical incoherence of some of the sentences, I suspect he spoke in free-form and the written version came later. I have numbered the lines for ease of analysis.
Hello, I’m Peter Mandelson, and I’m proud to serve as His Majesty’s British Ambassador to the United States of America.
It’s great to be up and running in the US, a country in which I have spent so much of my adult life and admire so much.
I’m speaking to you from the Ambassador’s Residence, a building that symbolises decades of friendship, hosting countless presidents, prime ministers, politicians, royalty, and many ordinary American citizens.
I’m crystal clear: the UK has no closer ally than America.
And no one does more than our two countries together in intelligence sharing and defence.
With our jet fighters, our naval missions, and army special forces operating together in the world.
Our deep economic and cultural ties are unrivalled.
Looking ahead, President Trump’s administration is shaping up to be one of the most consequential periods in modern America.
I feel energised by the opportunities opening up to work more closely together in tackling threats to our security, and collaborating together in exploiting new technologies to boost jobs and higher living standards.
I was born in London to a middle-class family.
My father was from Jewish parents whose own father helped found a local synagogue.
My loving mother was always there for my older brother and me, and my father worked hard to send us both to university.
At Oxford University, my passion for learning and to drive change was ignited.
I’ve served as a legislator, elected first to the House of Commons, and more recently, in Parliament’s upper house.
I’ve also helped found and grow a successful international business, promoting market access and investment around the world.
I’m ready to bring my policy knowledge, entrepeneurial spirit, and experience at the highest levels of government to this role.
As Northern Ireland Secretary, I was responsible for implementing the Good Friday Agreement, which finally brought peace to that troubled part of the United Kingdom.
Today, the UK Government’s number one priority is economic growth.
More than 1 million Britons work for US companies, and a million Americans work for UK firms.
The UK and US already have $1.5 trillion invested in each other, and I’m confident we can go even further and faster together.
I’m hugely grateful for the warm welcome since our arrival, Reinaldo, with whom I have lived happily for 28 years and I are so happy to be here making our home in the great United States of America.
We look forward to exploring this magnificent country, from coast to coast, from state to state, and meeting many new friends along the way.
The montage includes a close-up shot of the pediment on the southern facade of the residence, as well as a clip of Mandelson speaking behind a podium (location unknown, but presumably within the embassy itself). Both the pediment and the podium feature the British royal arms, the former (built in 1928) using the Tudor crown and the latter (made at some point in Elizabeth II’s reign) using St Edward’s crown.
Lines 10-14 are most in need of analysis: His reference to “a middle-class family” overlooks that his grandfather, though not yet ennobled, was already a Companion of Honour and had been an MP for decades with several cabinet posts under his belt. Line 11 should really be split up to read something like “My father was from Jewish parents. His own father helped found a local synagogue.” as the single-clause formation he actually used implies his paternal grandparents were siblings! Line 13 is a little confusing – if he didn’t already have a passion for learning then how did he get into Oxford in the first place?
The inconsistency in line 14 is especially frustrating – he refers to Parliament’s lower house by name but its upper house merely by that description, despite the montage including a clip of his introduction ceremony. The verb “elected” obviously only applies to the former. The sentence would work better as “I’ve served as a legislator, first elected to Parliament’s lower house, then appointed to the upper house.” instead.
The assertion made in line 4 could also be a little disappointing to some of Britain’s European and Commonwealth allies – especially, given recent events, the ones in Canada.
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Robin Stanley Taylor 
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