Category Archives: Wikipedia

Oman, Sultan and Aberfan

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Recently I have been combing government Flickr accounts for photographs from recent state and royal occasions which could be transferred to Wikimedia Commons. Some efforts proved more fruitful than others.

The Opening of the Senedd

Whereas the Parliament of the United Kingdom tends to have a new session once per year, with the sovereign attending the state opening each time, the devolved legislatures tend to run in one continuous session for the entire five years of their existence between elections, and the royal visit for their official opening can happen several weeks or even months after the event.

Ten days ago Their Majesties attended the official opening of the seventh Welsh Parliament (or Senedd Cymru) in Cardiff. The Senedd’s own Flickr account released an album of seventy-two photographs from the event, all under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence, so we have plenty of high-quality shots of the chamber, the military band outside, the schoolchildren with flags and the regimental goat.

The Aberfan Commemorations

Commemorative events were held for the sixtieth anniversary of the Aberfan Disaster, which occurred on 21st October 1966.

Two days before the actual anniversary the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Wales visited the village to lay a wreath at the memorial and speak to the families of the victims. Number 10’s Flickr account released a twenty-shot album of the visit. Despite what it may say on the pictures themselves, an FOI request confirmed that these are available under OGL-3.

Burnham’s wreath with condolence card. Notice that there is still a stock of cards with the old-style lesser arms.

On the anniversary date itself Their Majesties, along with the Prince & Princess of Wales, attended another commemorative event. Sadly there are no free-licence photographs of this one, as the Kensington Palace account reserves all rights.

Haitham bin Tariq’s State Visit

The Sultan of Oman made a state visit to the United Kingdom from Tuesday to Thursday. It proceeded in the usual way, with the first day dedicated to the dignified part (carriage ride through Windsor, banquet in the state hall) and the second day to the efficient (meetings with ministers, hammering out a trade agreement). The government accounts have quite a few albums of the second part, but sadly there don’t seem to be any free-licence photographs released of the first day’s ceremonial events.

I will note that the scheduling here for the government and the royal family was a little awkward: The King & Queen must have barely had time to sleep off the banquet and wave the Sultan goodbye before shooting off to Aberfan. It might have worked better logistically if the Sultan’s state visit had been a week earlier and the Senedd’s state opening a week later, so that Their Majesties could attend both Welsh ceremonies in one excursion, with the Prime Minister also being able to go on the anniversary date instead of two days earlier. As it was, the timetable clash meant that the state visit did not get as much press coverage as perhaps it ought to have done.

Orders and Honours

The Sultan gave Queen Camilla the first class of the Order of Oman and King Charles the Collar of the Order of Al Said (an award with many British connections). He was in turn appointed an Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (though this article mistakenly said he received the Garter). He had already been made an Honorary GCVO in 2010 and an Honorary GCMG in 2021.

Music

While the majority of this post is about visual matters, there are some aural details to note as well. One of the fascinating parts about these state ceremonial occasions is when the military bands and orchestras sneak in some more modern tracks among the traditional marches and anthems. At last year’s Ceremony of the Keys in Edinburgh, for example, you can hear parts of Counting Stars by One Republic.

The YouTube channel Military Bands Everywhere has a film of the Central Band of the Royal Air Force outside the Senedd. Their playlist includes You Can’t Stop the Beat and It’s Not Unusual.

I can’t find a playlist for the state banquet, but in the prelude before the royal procession arrived I distinctly heard a rendition of Your Song by Sir Elton John, which is a little bit funny in a dark way as men like him are generally not well-treated in Oman. It could, I suppose, have been a subtle protest.

Winnie the Pooh

In lighter news, the British Embassy in Washington has recently issued a statement on “bear-lateral relations”, denying rumours of a campaign to have the original Milne’s original stuffed bear repatriated from New York Library back to Britain. The story seems to have emanated from an article in The Washington Post earlier this month, alleging that Queen Camilla and Gyles Brandreth (both of whom visited the library six months ago) were part of the plot. Noteworthy is that the Embassy’s statement replaces the royal arms with a Shepard-style illustration of a honey pot.

The original toys, photographed in 2006 by Spictacular.

Upcoming Events

Having just received a state visit, King Charles will shortly be going on one to Guyana, as well as royal tours of the Bahamas and Antigua & Barbuda, the latter of which will also host a Commonwealth Heads of Government. We can expect that at least two of those events will have decent photographic coverage by the British government, but the rest of it is less clear.

Early Summer Heraldic News

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10th June is International Heraldry Day. It’s not a widely-known occasion, of course, and I don’t have any particular way of celebrating it, but it felt like the occasion to post some updates.

Humphrey Lyttelton

Over the last few months I have been listening obsessively to the archives of the classic panel show I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue (which, incidentally, is back for a new series this week). Among the hundreds of hours of babble and bickering, I picked up on a couple of heraldic references in Humphrey Lyttelton’s introductory monologues:

William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633, was born in broad street where WH Smith stands, which is evidenced by the Laud family crest of a crossed pen and pencil set Argent topped by readers’ wives rampant.

(S37E1, 28th May 2001)

 

The story of Darlington’s history is neatly encompassed in its coat of arms. The Cross of St Cuthbert represents the town’s resistance to Viking raids, a bull’s head signifies the local breeding of fine cattle, and white chevrons with black lines indicate no overtaking on an urban freeway.

(S41E1, 26th May 2003)

If I manage to find enough of these, I could create a new armorial page called Humph’s Heraldry or I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Crest.

Humph himself would be no stranger to heraldry, coming as he did from the aristocratic Lyttelton family. Humph was the only son of Hon. George William Lyttelton, himself the second son of Charles George Lyttelton, 8th Viscount Cobham. He was too far removed from the peerage to gain any style or honorific from it, but he still would have been an esquire by some of the traditional definitions, and of course that would make him an armiger too.

Lord Cobham’s arms were Argent a chevron between three escallops Sable and his crest was a Moor’s head in profile couped at the shoulders Proper wreathed about the temples Argent and Sable. Humph would have presumably displayed these with a crescent for difference, if following the rules of cadency.

The mention of William Laud prompted me to look for his actual heraldic bearings. The blazon I uncovered for his shield was Sable on a chevron between three estoiles Or three crosses pattee fitchy Gules. I cannot find the blazon for his crest, though as a clergyman he obviously would not have used one. That means I cannot explicitly disprove Humph’s suggestion, though as Laud died over a century before the establishment of the WH Smith company I suspect a direct homage is unlikely.

Anglican Archbishops

I was surprised to find that Laud’s personal arms, and those of several other Anglican bishops, were listed on Heraldry of the World, which normally only carries corporate arms. I then went about adding as many blazons as were available to their owners’ Wikipedia pages. When I got to William Temple I discovered that the arms were already cited, and the link was to the book The Blazon of Episcopacy by William Bedford, 1897. I don’t know how I missed this before. I have long been frustrated by the fact that Burke’s and Debrett’s only list the Lords Spiritual by the corporate arms of their sees instead of the personal arms of the incumbents, so this book was a revelation, if you’ll pardon the pun. This has given the the opportunity to start illustrating arms en masse again, having run low on material in the last few years. It also pushed my edit count past 24000, allowing me to upgrade my user rank to Senior Editor or Labutnum.

I have now set about creating an Armorial of the Archbishops of Canterbury, and after that will probably do so for all the other bishoprics in Bedford’s book too. Five years ago I created one for the Bishops of Chester because there was already a website which collated them, but did not have the necessary resources to go any further.

Articles on Other Sites

Yesterday The Atlantic published an article by British journalist Helen Lewis about the phenomenon of Americans applying to the College of Arms in London for honorary grants. Despite the timing, no mention is made of IHD and the article is clearly intended more as part of the commemorations for the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It includes snippets of interviews from several American armigers, as well as Dominic Ingram (Chester Herald) and an account of Lewis’s own visit to the College’s headquarters. Ingram makes a comment about his heart sinking when a client asks for lions due to their overuse. David White, now Garter, made the same comment a while back.

On 1st April the retired rector Ian Gomersall posted about receiving his letters patent, and even included some photographs of the artistic process. Four days ago Ian Leslie posted a long article which included a paragraph about William Shakespeare’s quest for heraldry, something which I have also discussed before.

Miscellaneous

In less exciting news, it has now been an entire year since the College posted a new edition of its own newsletter. The message in the sidebar still insists that the letter is produced every three months, but that has not been true for quite a while now.

On a quasi-related note, today would also have been the 105th birthday of the late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (he was eighteen days younger than Humph). Recently I inherited a copy of H.R.H. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: A Portrait by his Valet. The book was curiously undated, but Google Books tells me it was published in 1954. That feels remarkably early to be writing a biography like this, given that he would go on to live until 2021. The use of “Prince” in the title is also interesting, given that this book came out after he relinquished his Greek & Danish princely title but before he was granted his British one. Of course, I will have to get around to actually reading the book before I can make further judgement.

UPDATE (13th June)

The King’s Birthday Honours were published late last night. David Vines White, Garter since 2021, has been appointed a KCVO. This is routine for holders of his office, though it is interesting that he got it at what must be about the halfway point of his tenure, whereas his predecessors Woodcock and Gwynne-Jones didn’t get theirs until very near the end.

UPDATE (16th June)

Birkbeck College has published an interview with Timothy Noad, exploring the creative process behind the creation of the new royal cypher.

Notes on the 2026 State Opening

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The State Opening of Parliament took place today. This opens the second session of the fifty-ninth Parliament of the United Kingdom, and the third of the new Carolean era. There was not one in 2025*, but at least Their Majesties got to open the Canadian parliament instead.

Notes on the Ceremonial Elements

  • The King has a new Parliamentary robe (and Dr Allan Barton has already made a video about it). Previously he wore the one made in 1937 for his grandfather.
  • The Queen, having worn something different in 2024, seems to be wearing her coronation gown as she did in 2023, albeit without the gold highlights this time.
  • Ed Davis had his first state opening as Black Rod. He addressed the Commons as “this Noble house” rather than “this Honourable house”. Nobody pulled him up on that, at least publicly.
  • David Lammy attended his first state opening as Lord Chancellor. He revived the tradition of walking backwards down the steps of the throne having handed the speech to the monarch.
  • The Duke of Norfolk, the Lord Carrington and the Lord de Mauley all took part in the royal procession as Earl Marshal, Lord Great Chamberlain and Master of the Horse respectively. They still have access to Parliament for these purposes, but are no longer actually members of the upper house as a legislative body (though de Mauley will shortly be reappointed).
  • The Duke of Norfolk did not wear his Parliamentary robe (with its characteristic four strips of miniver) over his uniform. Having been removed as a legislator he can likely never wear it again. He last wore it in 2022, omitting it in 2023 and 2024.
  • The Princess Anne, as Gold Stick-in-Waiting, did not attend this state opening or that in 2024, but did in 2023.
  • The choreography was a little different this time: In 2022 and 2023 Charles entered the Lords chamber through the door on the government side and departed through the door on the opposition side, Camilla vice-versa. This time they entered as normal but both departed through the opposition side, walking adjacent.
  • One again Charles had four pages holding his train while Camilla only had two, so the end of her robe trailed along the carpet.
  • Dennis Skinner last attended a state opening in October 2019. Since then nobody else has picked up his tradition of jibes at Black Rod. This time somebody (not yet identified) shouted “Not Now, Andy!” as the door was knocked, referring to Andy Burnham’s attempts to get back into the lower house.

Notes on Photography

Both of the Parliamentary Flickr accounts uploaded a good selection of stills from the event. Unfortunately neither set used a Wiki-compatible licence this time, so they can’t be moved across. On the other hand, the government website’s page about the speech decided to illustrate it with not with a photograph from today’s event, but rather what is clearly a crop of one of the post-coronation portraits at Buckingham Palace on 6th May 2023.

Previously the copyright on these portraits was very tightly controlled, but by using it here HM Government may have inadvertently released it under OGL3. It has already been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and will probably stay there until someone clarifies otherwise.

The Political Element

Of course, we must not forget that the event is not pure theatre: The actual speech is the most important part as that lays out the government’s agenda for the next year. This, however, assumes that there will actually be a government.

The fallout from Labour’s poor performance in the local elections is still raging and the night before the state opening four junior ministers had to be replaced because they resigned in protest at Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership. So far this is nowhere near the scale of what happened to Jeremy Corbyn in 2016 or Boris Johnson in 2022 but for this to happen at all on a day like this is still very concerning for any government. At time of posting there are rumours circling that Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health & Social Care, may be about to resign from the Cabinet and begin a leadership challenge. If this does occur, it will be interesting to see how much of today’s speech ever actually gets implemented. Watch this space, I suppose.

New Garter Knights for 2026

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There were no new appointments made to the Order of the Garter in 2025, the most recent addition being the off-cycle appointment of the Emperor of Japan as a Stranger Knight on his state visit in 2024.

Today three new Knights Companion were announced, leaving just one vacancy among the ordinary category: Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, Lord O’Donnell and Lord Burnett of Maldon. All three are crossbench life peers. Actually, all of the non-royal recipients of the Garter so far this reign have been life peers. By contrast, the fifteen still-living members added by Elizabeth II comprise seven life peers, four hereditary peers and four commoners. It may be too early to determine if this represents a significant trend.

O’Donnell was Cabinet Secretary from 2005 to 2011. From lectures and documentaries I get the sense that he was a particularly-revered holder of that office. It is also notable that he was the last in a long string to be simultaneously Head of the Home Civil Service, Cabinet Secretary and Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet Office, after which there was an attempt to split these into three separate roles (though the first two were reunited not long afterwards). His first name is formally Augustine, but in practice is nearly always given as Gus, giving him the initials G.O.D. Ironically, while he is now a Knight of the Garter and has since 2005 been a Knight of the Bath as well, he has not been appointed to the Order of St Michael and St George, which denies him the opportunity to live out this classic joke from Yes, Minister.

Burnett was Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales from 2017 to 2023, his six-year tenure making him the longest-serving LCJ since Geoffrey Lane (1980-1992).

He doesn’t seem to be as famous as O’Donnell, though I note he was part of the divisional court of the Queen’s Bench Division for the Miller 2 case in 2019. After retiring from the English judiciary he became Chief Justice of a commercial court based in Kazakhstan.

Both Burnett and O’Donnell are the sort of people one could expect to receive the Garter based on their offices as the existing membership included Lord Butler of Brockwell and Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, though neither office guarantees the award and there are plenty of emeriti from each who have not received it.

Hennessy is the exception here, as although a parliamentarian he does not seem to have held any particular public office, whether governmental, ministerial, diplomatic, judicial or vice-regal. There have been a handful of people like this, like Mary Soames and Edmund Hillary, but they are definitely a rarity. He co-founded the Institute of Contemporary British History in 1986 and has been Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History since 1992 at QMUL since 1992. He has written at least two-dozen books on history and politics, making him the most (first?) prominent academic to receive the nation’s highest order. Norton must be quietly seething.

I illustrated Hennessy’s shield for Wikimedia Commons in 2022. It is about what one would expect for a man who has worked in academia. I suspect that Rs-nouse will be re-illustrating it in his characteristic style fairly shortly. Neither O’Donnell nor Burnett had arms listed in Debrett’s 2019, so the hanging of their banners in St George’s Chapel will be an exciting revelation.

Garter appointments are traditionally announced on 23rd April because it is St George’s Day, St George of Lydda being the patron saint of the Order of the Garter since its inception in 1348 and of England more generally thereafter. In modern times, today is also the eighth birthday of Prince Louis of Wales. I can’t help wondering if the Duke & Duchess of Cambridge quietly kicked themselves for having already given the name George to their July-born first son, thus missing another chance for poetic alignment.

Louis & George in June 2023

On another note, we are approaching the tenth anniversary of the EU Referendum, and with it the tenth anniversary of when Theresa May succeeded David Cameron as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It is also the year that he turns sixty and she seventy. Both have been ennobled relatively recently but neither has received any British order of chivalry. I had thought that this would be a good occasion for one of them to receive the Garter, but evidently that will have to wait for some time yet.

Reformare vel Florere

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Photograph from 9th July 2024 in the House of Commons Chamber

It has been widely reported in the past few months that Reform UK has experienced significant growth in Parliamentary representation. In July 2024 its caucus in the House of Commons had five members:

  • Lee Ashfield (Ashfield)
  • Nigel Farage (Clacton)
  • Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth)
  • James McMurdock (South Basildon & East Thurrock)
  • Richard Tice (Boston & Skegness)

(Anderson is not included in the photograph above because it was an event for new MPs and he had already served since 2019. More on that later.)

Given the history of parties with which Farage has been associated, it should be no surprise that this combination did not last long.

Lowe was the first to go: On 7th March 2025 he was suspended from the party due to bullying allegations. On 30th June that year he launched his own party named Restore Britain. Oddly, on 1st December he then launched a second (though as yet unregistered) local party named Great Yarmouth First. I don’t know of any precedent for the same person leading two self-founded parties simultaneously.

Mc Murdock wasn’t long behind him: On 5th July, the anniversary of his election declaration, he was suspended due to allegations that he fraudulently claimed state loans for his businesses during the pandemic. Three days later he resigned from the party and now sits as an independent.

Losing forty per cent of your original parliamentary party in the first year of that Parliament’s sitting is, to say the least, unfortunate, but the party gained MPs faster than it lost them:

On 1st May 2025 Reform candidate Sarah Pochin narrowly wrought the seat of Runcorn & Helsby in a by-election, following the resignation of disgraced Labour MP Mike Amesbury. On 15th September the shadow junior minister Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) defected. In January 2026 there were three further defections from the Conservatives to Reform:

  • Robert Jenrick (Newark) on 15th.
  • Andrew Rosindell (Romford) on 18th.
  • Suella Braverman (Fareham & Waterlooville) on 26th.

Rosindell has been mentioned on this blog once before. He is relatively-low profile, being a junior shadow minister under both Cameron and Badenoch (the latter right up until his defection) but missing out on any actual post while his party was in government. Jenrick and Braverman are relative high-flyers, having both been Secretaries of State since 2019 and both contested the Conservative Party leadership at least once.

On 6th December last year, the Lord Offord of Garvel (a junior minister from 2021 to 2024) joined the party, and on 15th January was appointed head of its Scottish branch with the intent to lead the party into the Holyrood elections in May. This gave Reform its first representation in the upper house, but the experience was short-lived because he formally retired on Friday.

Looking at the Reform group in the House of Commons now, this is what we get:

  • Lee Ashfield (original)
  • Suella Braverman (defection)
  • Nigel Farage (original)
  • Robert Jenrick (defection)
  • Danny Kruger (defection)
  • Sarah Pochin (by-election)
  • Andrew Rosindell (defection)
  • Richard Tice (defection)

Nineteen months from the general election, the original group have already become a minority, outnumbered by the newcomers — which feels oddly poignant given how much of the party’s support is based on anxieties about immigration. It’s worth remembering that even among the original group, Ashfield was not new to the House of Commons, having been elected as a Conservative candidate in 2019 and served as that party’s Deputy Chairman as recently as January 2024. It remains to be seen how stable this association will be given that it involves at least two people who only joined the new party after trying and failing to win the crown of the old, and who may not be comfortable for long submitting to the authority of Farage when he has so much less legislative and governmental experience than they do.

As has been pointed out in numerous articles and editorials by now, this illustrates the dilemma facing Reform: They have long leaned on their “outsider”, “anti-establishment” status under their charismatic leader, but now as it looks ever more likely that they could actually win power they obviously need to start acting more like a serious party of government rather than a protest movement, which means getting people on board with experience of how to operate in Whitehall and Westminster. Unfortunately for them, the Conservatives aren’t necessarily sending their best people, so that Farage could end up being forced to present the electorate with a supposedly-revolutionary government composed in no small part of the very same individuals who created the mess against which he’s revolting!

As a counter all this, a new movement has recently emerged called Prosper UK. This is a group within the Conservative Party, rather than a new party in its own right, though ironically the same name was used in 2018-20 for an unrelated (and unsuccessful) minor party under Alan Sked, the original founder of UKIP.

Prosper is predominantly a campaign for the liberal, moderate, “One Nation” (and also Remain-voting) Conservatives who have found themselves increasingly marginalised following the referendum ten years ago.

The Baroness Davidson of Lundin Links, Co-Founder and Co-Chair of Prosper

I found the group’s Wikipedia page with a simple list of the names of its supporters taken directly from its own website. Bit by bit I transformed the simple list into a sortable table with photographs and notes. Unlike the ill-fated Change UK/Independent Group from 2019, Prosper launches with seventy prominent names attached, many of whom have held senior government posts. The downside is that the group looks to be mainly a collection of yesterday’s stars: Among the seventy names in that list I found only three who are currently holding an elected public office (one council leader and two police commissioners). There are no incumbent members of the House of Commons at all, instead the vast majority are former MPs who either stood down or were voted out out some time ago. Fifteen of the former MPs now sit in the House of Lords, as do two of the party’s former leaders in the Scottish and European Parliaments (Davidson and Kirkhope respectively).

Shortly after the launch, Kemi Badenoch gave a speech explicitly rejecting a return to centrism, which means that their prospects of meaningful influence over the direction of the wider party are likely to be very limited for the foreseeable future. Still, at least this whole exercise helped me to bump my edit count up. Labutnum rank, here I come!

Jimmy Wales on the BBC

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Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, yesterday gave an interview about the challenges of keeping the project running, including maintaining fidelity in the age of misinformation and staying neutral in the face of (often bad faith) bias allegations from both sides of a paranoid partisan divide. These are of course issues with which the BBC itself is all too familiar.

Two months ago Wales gave a similar interview to Channel 4.

Notes on the German State Visit

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Last week Windsor Castle hosted the last of three state visits this year, featuring Frank-Walter Steinmeier & Elke Büdenbender, President & First Lady of the Federal Republic of Germany.

This one made the news far less (most likely because it was far less controversial) than that of Donald Trump in September. Unlike Trump, Steinmeier was able to partake in the public-facing elements of a state visit, such as the carriage ride through the streets of Windsor and an address in the royal gallery of the House of Lords.

This was in some ways the reciprocation of the state visit which our King & Queen made to Germany in 2023. In his state banquet speech Steinmeier said to Charles

“the fact that your very first trip abroad as King brought you to Germany was a special symbol of the German-British friendship, a gesture of appreciation which meant a great deal to me and to us Germans.”

This is not strictly true as Their Majesties had been planning to visit France first, but that visit was postponed a few months as Macron dealt with protests over state pensions.

The King’s speech at the same event included this quip

“our languages, English and German, [ ] share such deep common roots, but now do sound a little different. It is undoubtedly true, that your language contains a very large number of very long words. As someone who has spent some time trying to learn a little Welsh, I have some sympathy for the proposition that needless gaps between words are a dreadfully inefficient use of paper… “

There was no exchange of honours this time, as Steinmeier had already been appointed an honorary GCB during the aforementioned 2023 visit. He and Charles both wore their red sashes to dinner. The Prime Minister, a KCB, notably continues not to wear his badge.

The Duke of Kent did not attend the state banquet but he later separately met the Bundespräsident at a service at Coventry Cathedral, to commemorate its bombing during the Second World War. It is worth remembering that the Duke is now the only living British prince to have been born before that war started. We got a rare glimpse of his royal cypher on a wreath lain at the old altar.

Steinmeier also had a meeting with Sir Keir Starmer at 10 Downing Street. While his state visit was still going on Starmer also had an unrelated meeting with the Prime Minister of Norway, and already since the President’s departure he has held another “Coalition of the Willing” meeting including Chancellor Merz.

From a ceremonial perspective there is little innovation here (bar a lot of stories about tiaras), as the proceedings stuck closely to the template established by recent precedents. The most interesting parts are His Majesty’s and His Excellency’s speeches, which I think, well, speak for themselves.

Recent state visits have been good opportunities for uploading free-licence photographs to Wikimedia Commons but sadly on this occasion the pickings have been very limited as the government Flickr accounts’ only pictures of Steinmeier are of his visit to Downing Street, leaving out anything involving the royals. Those on the Parliamentary accounts are not released under the correct licence, and it doesn’t look as if the German government has the same attitude to copyright that the British one does so finding anything from their end is also unlikely.

Royals and Remembrance

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Once Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night have passed, poppy season is all that remains to block Christmas from achieving total domination for the rest of the year. There are, of course, two separate dates for this occasion — Armistice Day (always 11th November, the exact anniversary of the end of the First World War) and Remembrance Sunday (second Sunday in November, a broader commemoration of war dead). Both of these events involve two-minute national silences… assuming, of course, that a silence actually falls. Due to the logistics and practicalities of the working week, some organisations have to hold subsidiary events outside the universal dates. Silences here can be hard to regulate if everyone around isn’t coordinated with it. I remember quite a few occasions from childhood when a reverent, contemplative peace was anything but. Even the highest are not immune to this: The Queen attended a service at Westminster Abbey last Thursday, but it was immediately outside rather than inside the main building. As you would expect from an open-air event in central London on a weekday, the “silence” was actually filled with a lot of traffic noise as well as two different emergency sirens. The only blessing was that at least there were no dogs barking. I’m actually a little surprised that this phenomenon hasn’t been the subject of a Family Guy cutaway by now, given that it would be an easy way to get two minutes of padding with minimal animation.

Another big event in November is the United Nations Climate Change Conference, now taking place in Belém, Brazil. The Prince of Wales flew down some days in advance to present his Earthshot Prize, which Sir Keir Starmer also attended, though neither stayed for COP30 itself. This is the latest in a long line of solo overseas engagements undertaken by the heir apparent since his wife’s cancer diagnosis last year*. William was back in time for the Sunday cenotaph service but he missed the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday night. Prince George attended for the first time, in his father’s place. The festival includes the religious and patriotic music expected for a solemn occasion, but also a handful of modern entries. One of these was a cover of Avicii’s The Nights. I can’t work out whether it adds to or detracts from the spirit of the event to know that Avicii himself, err, left this world behind some years ago, his life clearly remembered but tragically brief, and predeceased his father. He was from Sweden, a country formally neutral in both world wars. The festival featured multiple performances from Sir Rod Stewart, who sported the unusual sartorial combination of a knight bachelor’s badge hung from an open shirt.

The cenotaph ceremony in Whitehall traditionally involves the laying of wreaths by senior royals, senior servicemen, cabinet ministers, diplomats, various officials representing the British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, and leaders of the significant political parties in the House of Commons. This has always been a bugbear for Nigel Farage, because his parties have so far never met the threshold of six MPs needed to qualify. UKIP in 2015 got 12.6% of the popular vote but only one seat. Douglas Carswell, as the party’s sole representative in the Commons, was regarded for procedural purposes as an independent rather than a leader. Reform in 2024 got 14.3% of the vote and five seats. The cruel twist here is that since the election the Reform caucus has gained two members (one from defection, one from by-election) but also lost two of the originals, so that when November came they were back as they started. It should be noted that the six-member rule, introduced in 1984, has exceptions for the Northern Ireland parties to avoid the appearance of sectarian bias. It is also possible for two or more parties to coalesce for this purpose, as Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party have done since 2001**.

The Princess Royal was also absent from the London commemorations, having gone on a royal tour of Australia. She instead paid her respects at the ANZAC memorial in Sydney. It is a little extraordinary for two royal overseas visits to take place at the same time, especially when both of those away from the United Kingdom are counsellors of state. Recently I have been constructing a Wikipedia page listing all of Anne’s official overseas travel (similar to those which already exist for other senior royals) but it has quickly become a little overwhelming to see just how busy she is, with twenty such journeys listed in the Court Circular just for the last two years.

One ought probably to discuss heraldic matters now. In some of the photographs of Anne’s visit I can see her two crosses and a heart flying in various places. I didn’t see William or Camilla flying theirs in the outings aforementioned. Close-up shots of the wreaths laid and crosses planted also show royal symbols. The Queen’s monogram appeared on hers, complete with the Tudor crown. William’s, even now, still uses the pre-Carolean design (note the oak leaves and lack of arch on the coronet). The King’s wreath did not use his monogram, but instead the full royal achievement with BUCKINGHAM PALACE underneath. Once again it was the old-style illustration with St Edward’s crown.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle is something of a vexillophile and has taken to Tweeting whenever a new flag is flown from New Palace Yard. In 2021 he began making a point of raising the flags of the Overseas Territories. His most recent example was the flag of the British Indian Ocean Territory, allegedly celebrating its national day. I can’t find photographic evidence (including on Parliament.UK) of the flag actually flying in the yard, so I can only go on the image shown in the Tweet itself. The BIOT flag includes the Imperial crown, sometimes with a cap of maintenance and sometimes without, but always in the St Edward form. Hoyle’s picture had a Tudor crown. I cannot find this version on the territory’s website or any other source. Is it a custom make? The BIOT is currently the subject of a slow-moving but high-stakes political controversy as Starmer’s government intends to cede sovereignty of the landmasses to Mauritius. This would mean that the territory as a political entity ceases to exist, hence no point updating the flag. I notice that there was not a representative of the BIOT among all the other BOT representatives laying wreaths at the cenotaph. The flag of the BIOT has been widely used in the campaign against the handover, including by the displaced islanders themselves. The bill to ratify the handover passed the House of Commons and recently had its second reading in the Lords, but then there were reports that the government has paused its progress due to public resistance. In this context it is tempting to read Mr Speaker’s Tweet as a not-so-subtle dig at the Prime Minister.

Finally, a point about Flickr: The cenotaph ceremony and the Earthshot prize both produced plenty of government photographs which can be moved onto Wikimedia Commons. The former had two photographers: Simon Dawson for the Prime Minister’s Office and Gunter Hofer for the DCMS. After migrating both albums across I quickly realised that the time stamps given in the metadata were wrong. Dawson’s were one hour too late (probably not adjusted for daylight savings) while the DCMS ones were in some cases out by a whole year! This feels like an elementary mistake for a professional photographer. Sadly there are not likely to be many photographs of Anne’s excursion to Sydney for the reasons I explained last year.

FOOTNOTES

*The Princess of Wales appears not to have gone abroad on official business since 15 October 2023.
**The SNP alone has won at least six seats in every subsequent general election, so in practice the utility of this alliance is one-sided.

Rolling Coverage

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It quickly became apparent that the Duke of York’s dedication on 17th October to cease the use of his titles and honours was not enough to satisfy the public mood and so, not even a fortnight later, a further announcement was made that His Majesty would be taking measures to enact these changes in a formal way, and also that the changes would go further by removing his princely title as well so that he became Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. No notice to this effect has yet appeared in the London Gazette, but then it is fairly normal for that publication to lag by a few days and indeed for these processes themselves to take a few days to carry out. This is the first time since 1917 that a Prince of the United Kingdom has had that dignity removed in this way.

Less than a day after this announcement it was noted that the Roll of the Peerage had been updated to omit his name*. This is not actually a roll of parchment but rather a PDF. It is uploaded on and accessed through the website of the College of Arms but is actually controlled by the Ministry of Justice. As the page explains, the Roll was created as a government register of everyone who possessed a peerage of any rank of the United Kingdom or its predecessor states, the Roll of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal having been rendered quite inadequate for that purpose following the House of Lords Act 1999. Newly-created peers are added to the Roll automatically but those who have inherited their titles but those who inherit their titles are responsible for writing to the Secretary of State with the necessary documentation to prove their succession. It is also possible for those already listed to request their own removal. The absence of a peer from the Roll does not actually cause his peerages to cease to exist but does effectively mean that the state in its official capacity will cease to recognise him as holding them. This is probably as close as Andrew can get to fully giving up his dukedom and its subsidiaries without an Act of Parliament being passed specially for that purpose.

This has of course led to another flurry of edits on the former prince’s Wikipedia page. Some commentators noted how quickly the page had been moved from “Prince Andrew” to “Andrew Mountbatten Windsor“, but actually this was against procedure so the page name was reverted and not moved again until editor consensus was established. It would have been a lot more convenient for us if both of last month’s announcements had been made as one so that two separate page moves (and thus two separate discussions) would not have been needed. Of course, this still doesn’t entirely resolve matters because there is still some confusion as to whether “Mountbatten Windsor” needs a hyphen, as the royal warrant from 1960 includes one but the recent announcement does not. There is a further important, if largely academic, point to be made that even if Andrew has agreed to simply go by Mr from now on, he could still be called Sir until his knighthoods are fully removed, or indeed Lord as the younger son of a duke.

FOOTNOTES

*Contrast this version (archived on 16th December last year) to this one (archived yesterday): The first two pages list the principal peerages of members of the royal family, then the rest of the document lists all the non-royal peers. Within both groups the titles are listed alphabetically, so “York” was previously the last of the royals. Now he doesn’t appear at all. I note that the current version omits the “Latest revision” date underneath the Crown Copyright line on the first page, which makes me think that yesterday’s update was done in a hurry.

EXTERNAL LINKS

UPDATE (5th November)

The Gazette website has now published (as of noon today) notices confirming the removal of Andrew’s titles:

  • THE KING has been pleased by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm dated 3 November 2025 to declare that Andrew Mountbatten Windsor shall no longer be entitled to hold and enjoy the style, title or attribute of “Royal Highness” and the titular dignity of “Prince”.
  • THE KING has been pleased by Warrant under His Royal Sign Manual dated 30 October 2025 to direct His Secretary of State to cause the Duke of York to be removed from the Roll of the Peerage with immediate effect.

The first appears only in the London Gazette, while the second also appears in the Edinburgh and Belfast. So far I have not seen any of the usual experts dissecting these, although that will likely come in a few days. These are of course only the Gazette notices and not the full texts of the relevant documents, for which I have already seen some of them say they will file FOI requests. I will note that the removal of princely titles does not take the form of a royal licence, and refers to its target as already being named Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. The second, despite its triple publication, only refers to the Dukedom of York so the removal of the subsidiary earldom and barony must be read as implicit. It says that His Majesty directed the action rather than the Duke himself requesting it as the original warrant laid out, so presumably the new warrant must be amending the original in some way.

Miscellaneous Monarchical Minutiae

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Alright, I couldn’t find a more recent picture.

More from Torrance

In an update to my post from two days ago, I noted that Dr David Torrance had put out a research briefing for the House of Commons Library covering much of the same substance as I had. Today, hot off his own heels, he put out an “Insight” on the concept of Royal Warrants. It examines the distinction between Royal Warrants and Letters Patent, which has long been a source of confusion to me. The Insight covers some details about process and format, though any distinction in fundamental purpose is not resolved.

What struck me in both his recent updates were his repeated links to this site: the Corpus of British Administrative Instruments. This is a website by Jason Loch of Venerable Puzzle fame. I can’t work out how recent this is as Loch doesn’t mention the site on his aforementioned blog or on his Twitter feed. The Wayback Machine shows no records at all until today.

CBAI has a lot of overlap in principle with Heraldica, which I mentioned on Sunday, although a little more modern in terms of the coding and presentation. It collates the texts of reems of patents, warrants, ministerial letters and other documents of state and royal authority. The most fascinating part is that it includes photographs of these items as well. My favourite document so far is the patent from 12th April last year appointing Mark Scott as Somerset Herald. It features a delightful illustration by Timothy Noad of Charles III at his coronation.

Following on from the main thrust of yesterday’s article, a look now at the disused duke’s wife and daughters:

The Other Yorks

None of those called “The Yorks” actually use the word York in their names anymore.

Sarah Ferguson married The Prince Andrew in 1986. Their actual marriage did not last long as they separated in 1992 and divorced in 1996. Despite being separated almost thrice as long as they were married they still live together and often behave as if still a couple. As a wife she was “Her Royal Highness The Duchess of York” and subsequently she was “Sarah, Duchess of York” — the latter following the standard formula for how divorced former peeresses are styled, and also how wives of all royal peers are styled in biographical indexes as well as the titles of their Wikipedia articles (e.g. Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, whose marriage is still going strong). There have been quite a few contexts, such as their daughters’ engagement announcements, in 2018 and 2019, where Palace communications have still referred to the couple together as “The Duke and Duchess of York”, probably because “His Royal Highness The Duke of York and Sarah, Duchess of York” would have looked a bit strange. Although there wasn’t a direct statement from her, news reports said that when Andrew had ceased use of the Dukedom of York Sarah had also ceased use of the courtesy title Duchess and had reverted to her maiden name. Talks are ongoing on both their Wikipedia pages as to how to present this. It would have been interesting to see what happened if a formal deprivation of the peerages had taken place, I’m not sure there is any precedent for whether the formally depriving a divorced peer of his peerage would automatically remove the courtesy title of his ex-wife as well.

Their daughters Beatrice and Eugenie also bear the title of Princess and the style of Royal Highness as children of a son of a sovereign per the 1917 letters patent. As is custom for second-generation descendants, they originally bore “of York” after their given names. We do not yet have a good custom for what to do when British princesses acquire commoner husbands: formally they are “Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrice, Mrs* Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi” and “Her Royal Highness Princess Eugenie, Mrs Jack Brooksbank”. In practice most references, and the names of their Wikipedia pages, omit anything after their first names. As with their father, this can be a little difficult for disambiguation**, as their have been other princes named Andrew (including his own paternal grandfather) and other princesses called Beatrice and Eugenie. This is also a problem for Princess Alexandra, originally “of Kent”, later “The Honourable Lady Ogilvy”. Even adding “of the United Kingdom” would not solve the problem in most of these cases, so either birth years are given in brackets or the living British one is given primacy over all others on the basis that they are overwhelmingly the most famous among current English-language sources.

Wrap-Up

In other news, His Majesty has recently appeared on another podcast. Not The King’s Music Room this time, but Unearthed with Cate Blanchett, looking at the progress of the Millennium Seed Bank. The Queen, meanwhile, has gotten herself written into the crime novel The Hawk is Dead by Peter James.

FOOTNOTES

*She might have been a Countess, but Edoardo’s comital title from the former Kingdom of Italy has no official recognition now.
**This is less of a problem for Anne, who also has the title Princess Royal.

UPDATE (31st October)

Loch has now put out a new post explaining the launch of the CBAI.