Who rules the waves?

There were frequent references to King Canute during the recent flooding, but how many journalists properly understood the moral of the story?

The story of Canute, or Cnut, and the waves was first recorded by the chronicler Henry of Huntingdon a hundred years or so after Canute's reign.

When he was at the height of his ascendancy, he ordered his chair to be placed on the sea shore as the tide was coming in. Then he said to the rising tide 'You are subject to me, as the land on which I am sitting is mine, and no-one has resisted my overlordship with impunity. I command you, therefore, not to rise on my land, nor to presume to wet the clothing or limbs of your master.'

But the sea came up as usual, and disrespectfully drenched the king's feet and shins. So jumping back, the king cried 'Let all the world know that the power of kings is empty and worthless, and there is no king worthy of the name save Him by whose will heaven, earth and sea bey eternal laws.'

Thereafter King Cnut never wore the golden crown, but placed it on the image of the Crucified Lord, in eternal praise of God the great king. 


Canute was a king of England, but he was not an English king. He was Danish, already king of Denmark when he succeeded to the English throne. He became king of England after the disastrous reign of Ethelred Unraed and the untimely death of Ethelred's son Edmund Ironside, a proven warrior who might have been an effective ruler.

Edmund's brother and sons were young, and Canute was in England with an army and a fleet. He was able to impose his rule on England with the support of people in the east of the country who were of Danish origin, descendants of the Danes who had been settling there since the second half of the ninth century. The Danish influence is still very evident in the place names and dialect of the region.

Canute reigned until 1035, bringing some much needed stability to the government of England.

An obscure grave

I must have walked along Greyfriars many times when I was in Leicester in the mid 1980s, having no idea that a King of England was possibly lying a few yards away.

There is still much work to be done before it can be stated with any certainty whether the remains found at Greyfriars are those of Richard III. DNA testing, if samples can be recovered, isotope analysis, which can establish where someone lived as a child or young person, establishing the age of the bones, establishing the age of the man at his death, forensic examination of the head injuries already identified and any others that might be discovered and facial reconstruction are among the techniques which could be used.

Even when all possible investigations have been carried out, it may still not be possible to say more than that there is strong likelihood that this is Richard III.

The intention is that  the remains will be re-interred in Leicester Cathedral, close to where they were discovered. Commenters on the BBC website and elsewhere have suggested that York Minster might be more appropriate. That is where Richard himself hoped to be buried. The citizens of York remained loyal to Richard to the last.

Others suggest Westminster Abbey, where Richard’s wife, Anne Neville, is buried.

Of course, neither of these would be an option if it cannot be conclusively proved that the remains are those of the King.

I have mixed feelings about this story. Obviously it is exciting to watch it unfolding. But is it right to disturb the remains of someone who seems to have had a proper, if simple, burial, merely to satisfy curiosity? Even if the remains are positively identified, it’s very unlikely they’ll reveal anything new about Richard’s personality or  the events of his reign, despite the assertion by the University of Leicester that the discovery 'has potential to rewrite history'.

The archaeologists have also uncovered information about the Greyfriars, but that was not the object of the dig.

Reading comments on the BBC website and elsewhere, I have been surprised at the number of people who seem not to know that the present Royal family is descended  from both York and Lancaster. One would think that anyone interested enough to read and comment on the story would know that.

I was also interested to see commenters expressing surprise that that the present street plan of Leicester is the same as that in the eighteenth century map used by the archaeologists. Apart from modern redevelopments and road ‘improvements’, most towns do retain their original street patterns which might date back to the early Mediaeval or Anglo Saxon periods.

Even the streets of nineteenth or early twentieth century greenfield suburban developments can sometimes be shown to follow much older tracks and field boundaries.

Perhaps the real value of discoveries such as this is not in the story of the lost king,   but in the incidental things that people learn about the history of their own towns and the people who once lived there.

'The tumult and the shouting dies -

- the captains and the kings depart.'

There's little left to say about the Jubilee that is deeply profound.

It's perhaps worth mentioning that the processions, the heraldry, the ceremonies, the rituals, are not mere 'pageantry' or 'fairy tale', put together because they are colourful and give the crowds something to cheer at.

They all have meaning and say something about the evolution over the centuries of the United Kingdom and of the monarchy, and about the monarch's  relationship with his or her subjects.

Before widespread literacy and mass media, these visual signs and ceremonies told people who was who and how they related to each other and to the crowds who watched.

Much of the ceremonial reinforced the fact that the sovereign, in England, has never had absolute power. The ritual whereby the sovereign formally requests the Lord Mayor's permission to enter the City of London reminded everyone, not least the sovereign, of how dependent he or she was on the goodwill of the City.

Other, lesser, conventions of protocol and etiquette also have meaning.

Too often, journalists refer to the Queen being introduced to Mr or Mrs Somebody.

The Queen is not introduced to anyone. People are introduced to her.

Referring to the Queen being introduced to someone implies that the person to whom she is introduced doesn't know who she is, which is nonsense.

A gentleman is introduced to a lady.
A lower ranking person is introduced to a higher ranking one.
A younger person is introduced to an older one.
Among reigning kings and queens, the one who has reigned longest is considered senior to the others.

Going by these rules, there is no-one on the planet who outranks the Queen. 

The proper form of words is
'Mrs Jones, may I introduce (or, more formally, may I present)  my friend Jack Robinson?'

This, theoretically, gives Mrs Jones the opportunity to decline the introduction if, for example, Mr Robinson is a young man of dubious reputation whom she doesn't want anywhere near her daughters.  

Having been introduced they would continue to be 'Mrs Jones' and 'Mr Robinson' unless or until Mr Robinson did become Mrs Jones's son-in-law, when less formal forms of address might be adopted.

Ignoring the conventions did not necessarily make for a pleasantly informal atmosphere. It could cause embarrassment by forcing people into a degree of intimacy they didn't necessarily want, or cause relationships to be misinterpreted - if, for example, Miss Jones and Mr Robinson were addressing each other as 'Maisie' and 'Jack' when they were barely acquainted.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries many guides to etiquette were published, on their own or as part of guides to household management.  They advised people  what to say or write in any conceivable situation - a servant giving notice, a housewife complaining to the milkman, a father asking a young man's intentions towards his daughter, a young woman declining a proposal of marriage, a man applying for a job. They used to be easily obtainable in secondhand bookshops.

The BBC should acquire some - and give the first one to the reporter who referred to Her Majesty the Queen as 'Her Royal Highness'. 

Things I missed

Other things have got in the way of keeping up this blog over the winter. There are several things I might have posted about. Now I have time to get back to blogging, I'll catch up on some of them.

6 February was the sixtieth anniversary of the accession of the Queen.  Normally the royal family does not celebrate this date,  because it is also the anniversary of the death of  the Queen’s father, King George VI.

George VI was a shy, unassuming family man who had no wish to be king. Following the abdication of Edward VIII, however, he took up the duty and performed it admirably, leading the nation, the Empire and the Commonwealth through the Second World War. 

’Personally, I feel happier now that we have no allies to be polite to,’ he wrote after the fall of France in 1940.  He and the Queen and the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret stayed at Windsor throughout the war. The King and Queen travelled daily to London  or other areas that had been bombed. When it was suggested that the Princesses should be sent  to Canada for safety, the Queen is said to have replied ‘Our daughters could not go without me. I cannot leave the King. And the King will never leave.’

The King had served in the Royal Navy in the First World War. He very much wanted to be present, on board HMS Belfast, at the D-Day landings in June 1944. However, he was persuaded not to go by his advisers, who said that it would be too great a responsibility for Belfast’s commander to have him on board, and too great a blow to morale if he should be killed. The King then had the task of convincing Winston Churchill, who had also planned to be on board HMS Belfast, that he too should not take the risk.

The King was able to visit the Normandy beach head, and General Montgomery’s headquarters, ten days after the landings.

The stress of kingship during such a critical period is said to have contributed to the deterioration of the King’s health from the late 1940s. He died in 1952 aged 56. 

‘My Husband and I’

- was a phrase often used by the Queen as a means of acknowledging the Duke of Edinburgh's contribution to her private and public life.

His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh is ninety years old today. Her Majesty the Queen has a few years to go before she becomes our longest reigning sovereign, but the Duke is already the longest serving consort. The second is Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. She became queen when she married George III in 1761 and lived until 1818. 

The Duke of Edinburgh was born a prince of Greece, but his ancestry is mostly German and Danish. He and the Queen are both descendants of Queen Victoria and of King Christian IX of Denmark.

Who to marry, and what official role a consort should play, has always been a difficult question for a reigning queen. It was considered inappropriate, and likely to cause faction and rivalry among the nobility, for a queen to marry a subject. Marrying a foreign prince, however, was likely to result in England being drawn into Continental  conflicts.

Mary Tudor chose to marry Philip II of Spain, who took the title of ‘king’, the only consort ever to do so. The match was unpopular in England from the start; there were armed protests against it. Philip took England into his war with France which cost money the country did not have and led to the loss of Calais, England’s last remaining territory in the French mainland. 

Following this, Elizabeth I’s decision not to marry was wise; but a childless sovereign leads to uncertainty over the succession.

Mary II reigned jointly with her husband William of Orange (William III), who was the nearest Protestant male claimant to the throne. After her death in 1694 William ruled alone. He was succeeded in 1702 by his wife's sister Anne. She had married Prince George of Denmark in 1683. Prince George was devoted to and supportive of his wife. He was given the title Duke of Cumberland and the office of Lord High Admiral. This is now a purely ceremonial office, but at this time the Lord High Admiral had overall responsibility for the Royal Navy. 

The last queen's consort before the Duke of Edinburgh was Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg, husband of Queen Victoria. Prince Albert did much to repair the reputation of the monarchy, which had been damaged in the later years of George III by the activities of his sons. Albert and Victoria, with their children, presented an image of happy family life. Albert was unpopular with some. The Queen's husband has no constitutional role and it was thought that the Queen should not involve him so closely in official business. However, his advice was usually good, and he helped to counterbalance the Queen's more impulsive nature. The Queen was devoted to him and inconsolable when he died in 1861.

Like Prince Albert,  the Duke of Edinburgh has not had a clearly defined role. However, he has had a wide range of interests, has worked to promote a number of causes, and has supported the Queen throughout the nearly sixty years of her reign.