Sealing the Deal

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This is the old one, obviously.

A mere thirty-two months into the New Carolean era, a new Great Seal of the Realm has been unveiled. The design is largely the same as the version made for Elizabeth II in 2001 – the obverse shows the monarch enthroned, the reverse shows the royal armorial achievement (as illustrated by Noad).

Noad’s heraldic drawing is well-known by now. The depiction of Charles on the front* has attracted some criticism: The King is, as at his actual coronation, wearing trousers rather than the more traditional stockings, and his shoes appear to jut out too much. Personally, I think they resemble the feet of 2006-era Cybermen. It is also notable that the crown shown on the monarch’s head is the idealised depiction of the Tudor crown, as opposed to the Imperial State Crown or the Crown of St Edward which he wore at the coronation itself.

The inscription around the outer rim is CHARLES III DEI GRATIA BRITANNIARUM REGNORUMQUE SUORIMQUE CETERORUM REX COSORTIONIS POPULARUM PRINCEPS FID DEF.

This is the official Latin equivalent of CHARLES III BY THE GRACE OF GOD OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND AND OF HIS OTHER REALMS AND TERRITORIES KING HEAD OF THE COMMONWEALTH DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, and the formulation is similar to that used by British sovereigns for centuries, though even I, eleven years on from having formally studied Latin, can see that it is not a perfectly literal translation.

Judging by the talk pages for both the English and Latin Wikipedias, it is clear I am not the only one to notice this. Britanniarum Regnorum just means “Kingdom of the Britains”** with no specific reference to Hibernia Septentrionalis.

Oddly it seems that the seals used from 1930 to 1953 actually did specify MAG BR and  HIB, short for Magnae Britanniae and Hiberniae as distinct items, but seals used both before and after do not. Uniti does not appear in any of them. The exact name in English of the polity ruling these isles has, of course, gone through many changes due to the evolution of our constitutional arrangements and is very confusing even to natives, but it is interesting to note that the Latin title doesn’t exactly move in step with the English one.

The use of Consortionis Populorum Princeps to mean Head of the Commonwealth of Nations is also a bit odd – “princeps” is of course whence we derive the words “prince” and “principal”, but it originally meant “chief” or “first in rank”. “Consortio Populorum” (“Partnership of the Peoples”?) is probably used because a more literal translation would probably be something more like “Respublica”, but of course in modern English (or British English at any rate), the words commonwealth and republic have diverged almost entirely to where the former means an organisation headed by a monarch and the latter means precisely not that.

Perhaps it is fitting that this event should take place just as a new Pope emerges – we’ll be seeing a lot of official Latin in use very soon!

*The many news articles I have found relating to this story all seem to be nearly word-for-word the same, and none of them identify the portrait artist.
**This is distinct from “King of the Britons”, which would be “Regnum Brittanorum”

On Terence Etherton

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Official parliamentary portrait from 2021 by Roger Harris (CC-BY-3.0)

The Lord Speaker today announced the death of Terence, Lord Etherton.

Etherton only took his seat in the House of Lords in 2021, having recently retired from the office of Master of the Rolls. Aged 73, he was only slightly older than the median for the Upper House, and still below the recently re-raised mandatory judicial retirement age.

Etherton is another of those people whose armorial bearings I know to exist but have never seen: That he received a grant was noted in the College of Arms newsletter no. 65, and a vague description is given on the Birkbeck, University of London website, which is repeated in Joshua Rozenberg’s obituary for him. While we are told that the motto was the Hebrew word הננ (Hineini) – “Here I Am.” we are not given any blazon for the rest of the achievement, only that it features sapphires and a sword.

Etherton’s career in fencing was, of course, also mentioned in the infamous “Enemies of the People” headline published by the Daily Mail in 2016.

I will have to hope that a photograph of the late noble and learned lord’s arms emerges at some point, for he was created too late to appear in the final print edition of Debrett’s Peerage and so it may be impossible to find out in the traditional way.

Carney Summons The King

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In the lead-up to, and immediate aftermath of, the Canadian general election, there were a few news pieces about the prospect of King Charles visiting in person to open the new Parliament. Most of these seemed like mere idle speculation or, indeed wishful thinking.

Today, however, it has been confirmed by both Buckingham Palace and the Office of the Prime Minister that Their Majesties will indeed be visiting for that purpose. This is unusually short notice for an overseas trip, particularly given the sovereign’s ongoing health problems and the length of the journey. As the couple are due to arrive on May 26th and leave on May 27th, it looks as if this will be a flying visit to Ottawa to perform the state opening and not much else, in contrast to last month’s state visit in Italy or last year’s royal tour of Australia. There has been no further detail about the hinted royal tour in 2026, but I presume any more elaborate plans are still delayed until then.

I know nothing at this point of the actual contents of the speech, and indeed suspect that the text will not be especially interesting from a literary perspective (throne speeches rarely are). Their Majesty’s attire may prove the more politically-contentious topic: When Elizabeth II opened Parliament in 1957 and 1977 she prominently wore the Order of the Garter, while Prince Philip wore a military uniform with his many decorations on it.

This will be the first time that the monarch has opened Parliament in person since the Patriation of the Constitution and, as much as Mark Carney is obviously an Anglophile, the purpose of this excursion is to reassert Canada’s sovereignty and national identity in the face of aggression from the United States. The King & Queen of Canada will need to find a distinctly Canadian look for themselves. This will be difficult as the Crown of Canada, before or after Trudeau’s controversial redesign, does not exist in real life as a physical object. Nor, for that matter, does the snowflake diadem. A separate set of Canadian royal robes does not exist either. To make matters worse, this won’t even be taking place in the real Parliament building, as that has been closed for major renovation works over the past few years. Currently the Senate meets in a repurposed railway station and the House of Commons in the West Block. These two buildings are a ten-minute walk apart, which could make the summoning of MPs a rather tedious ordeal. In 2021 shuttle buses were used for the 700m journey.

If maximum splendour is the goal then I suspect that Charles will wear a ceremonial military uniform (with corresponding hat) and Camilla either her coronation gown or a generic white dress with a tiara, both with all their Canadian medals as well as the sash of the Royal Victorian Order (since that is not realm-specific).

Finally, a point about Palace press releases – whereas the public sees these announcements on Royal.UK as text on a webpage, they seem to be sent to journalists as PDFs (which I only know because of how often I see journalists Tweeting them). Even now the old red outline illustration of Elizabeth II’s British arms (with St Edward’s Crown) is still used, despite this announcement relating to Canada. It’s also typed in Calibri, which irks me even more.

This story by Sky News includes a screenshot of an earlier version of the Tweet, in which the bullet points are punctuated with the French and British flags instead of the flag of Canada. Was this a clumsy attempt at representing Canada’s dual heritage, or had the template been mixed up with something intended for Macron’s state visit due this month?

A Very Late Announcement

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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?

Observations on ANZAC Commemorations

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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.

Two Former Dominions, Two Federal Dissolutions

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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.

Review: The First Four Georges by J. H. Plumb

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One of the many books I picked up from Hull’s YMCA shop last year was The First Four Georges by Sir John Harold Plumb. The book was originally published in 1956 but my edition was from 1966. It is, rather self-evidently, a history of the lives and reigns of King George I, King George II, King George III and King George IV, who ruled the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland from 1714 to 1800, then the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland from 1801 to 1830.

At 177 pages it is considerably shorter than most of the other books in my collection and reading it was a breeze (helped by the improvement of the weather this month allowing me to sit and read it in the orchard on the weekends).

My first knowledge of the Georgian period came from Horrible Histories, followed by David Starkey’s Monarchy and Lucy Worsley’s The First Georgians. I also occasionally dipped into the Oxford History of England. Consequently by the time I got to this short volume there was much that I did not already know: The way each father and son hated each other, the development of rival royal courts that fostered the birth of government and opposition, the emergence of the cabinet and the prime minister, the persistent threat of Jacobitism, the poor choices all four kings made in wives, the explosion of political satire and the struggles over the American colonies.

Still, this book does a good job of covering a large number of topics in a relatively small number of words. The parts new to me were the details of George III’s early life, in particular his emotional crutches regarding his senior government advisers. The stand-out piece of prose was this howler on page 100, which suggested an alternative – or at least supplementary –  and unusually explicit explanation for His Majesty’s madness:

The first year of George III’s reign had been taken up almost entirely by the problem of his marriage. Animal passion and the unique sense of public duty in the need for an heir combined to make the matter one of almost neurotic, compulsive frenzy for George III. In the end he settled rashly and unwisely on Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a dim, formidably ugly girl. George himself regretted her plainness. Like his forbears, a sensual man, he was quickly stirred by feminine beauty but, unlike them, his high sense of morality would not allow him to indulge his fancies. Plain and undesirable as she was George III doggedly fulfilled his marital duties, and they bred child after child. On his part it was more an act of will than desire, and the strain on his already unsteady mind is thought to have been a strong contributory cause of those fits of insanity to which he became a prey.

Did George really lose his mind due to the strain of living with an ugly wife? That would have made for an interesting scene in the Alan Bennett play!

The Premier and the Palace

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Dammit, Mark, look forward!

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.

 

The Carney Cabinet, and Other Matters

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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 photographed signing 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 commemorate The 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.

Canada, Carney and Commonwealth

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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 in photographic 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.

During the abbey service itself, I distinctly noticed Their Majesties sitting behind ornate wooden faldstools with what looked like the old-style royal arms of Canada on them. This is not in itself the cryptic clue that it might seem – they were donated by the Canada Club in 1949.

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.