Guest Post by The Hon Peter Malcolm de Brissac Dickinson, FRSL†, OBE
Blog honours
I’ll try and put a bit of flesh onto the dry bones of yesterday’s post. Honours get dished out twice a year, once at the New Year and once on the Queen’s birthday. Except that it isn’t her birthday, it’s George III’s. When he died in 1820 he’d been king for so long, and his birthday on June 4 was conveniently far from the New Year, that they decided to hang on to it, so Her Majesty also gets to have an almost normal birthday whenever it is, with candles on the cake and the family rallying round and telling her she’s wonderful.
The whole honours system is like that, dotty-sounding but mysteriously practical. It’s a formal attempt to express and strengthen the coherence of our society. At the same time it seems to symbolise the importance of not making any such attempt explicit. It’s bound to seem way out of date, despite the efforts to include the latest sporting heroine or TV personality of the month. The ludicrous names of the various orders are dead right. Knight Commander of the Bath, for goodness’ sake! My first father-in-law was one* because that’s what senior military people get made unless they’ve blotted their copybooks somehow.†† It goes way back to the time when monarchs were attended by courtiers pretty well every hour of the day, though it summons up a vision of guys in doublet and hose waiting around swapping court gossip outside the royal loo until the monarch emerged and they could applaud him for the success of his mission.
We aren’t the only ones of course. The French have several grades of the Legion of Honour, but I don’t think they go in for our proliferation of Orders. There was a master at school who held the Order of the Yellow Elephant (Third Class).††† Siamese, I seem to remember. We thought that was hilarious, but took the Garter in our stride. In case you don’t know, since history teaching has gone to pieces since I was a lad, huff huff snort,‡ there was this noble lady at some royal function (no, not the bathroom) whose garter came undone so that the mediaeval equivalent of her pantyhose collapsed (don’t ask me about the mechanics of mediaeval underwear) and the courtiers were jeering at the poor woman when the king, Ed III I seem to think, stepped forward, knelt and with his own with his own royal hand replaced the garter,** saying “Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense,” (kings get to speak with capitals like that) which means “Shame on him who thinks ill of her,”***. It was the equivalent of a photo op, of course, (tapestry op?) faked up so that the king could use this ultimately chivalric gesture to found his own equivalent of Arthur’s round table.‡‡
The Garter’s a big deal. It goes to ex-prime-ministers and such. I don’t know how far down the hierarchies it goes (Knight Grand Commander, Knight or Dame Commander, Commander, Order and Member+) is the progression. I don’t think the Garter has plain Members, unless MG is reserved for their cars.
Then there’s the Order of the Bath, as above, and then the mysterious Order of St Michael and St George, for Ambassadors and such. Nobody knows much about it, so it’s probably a diplomatic secret. Then there’s the Royal Victorian Order, which is in the personal gift of the monarch. Probably a notion of Disraeli’s, to keep the Queen sweet, like the Indian Empire. I don’t think Her Majesty’s given it to a horse yet, but I bet she’s been tempted.‡‡‡ My uncle was a GCVO, believe it or not.++
Then there’s the Thistle for Scotland, and I’ve feeling there used to be something for Ireland (St Patrick?). I don’t know about Wales. St David? Not the Leek, surely. I know even less about that.
Finally the Order of the British Empire to which I now belong. It was invented to recognise the extra worthiness of some ordinary citizens, a workaday kind of order, nothing exciting about it, though with our genius for this sort of thing we’ve managed to name it after something that is already moving into the realm of romantic myth. It will be a while however before the Empire can aspire to the full absurdity of the Garter and the Bath. We have our KCBEs and DBEs too (my aunt was one of those) so as a simple possessor of the Order I am well down in the scheme of things, but it’s still a big deal for me. I’ve always told people that I wouldn’t be interested in anything that wasn’t hereditary, but now that it’s for real of course I’m thrilled to bits.
* * *
*He was also Fourth Sea Lord. Now there’s a great title. Lots better than Chief of Naval Procurement. That’s what he was at the time of the coronation. It meant that he got to ride a horse in the procession, and very splendid the five Sea Lords looked in full Sea Lord fig riding five abreast on their white horses, though in fact G. was the only one who had a clue how to ride a horse, thanks to his fox-hunting mad father.
** I don’t know about the pantyhose. My mind is already at full boggle attempting to envision the scene. ^
^ However I think we can assume she was cute.
*** Or, according to Sellar and Yeatman, “Honey, your silk stocking’s hanging down.” If you don’t know 1066 and All That, their magisterial run-down on English history, get hold of a copy. Schoolboy humour raised to the level of the sublime. ^
^ Seconded.
+Knights and Danes have titles, so get to be called Sir This or Dame That. The rest of us have honours only and are stuck with Mr and Ms. §
++Yes, I really do have the connections, which is why I feel free to write this without checking any of the facts. Remember I have a genius for inaccuracy, as somebody said of George Gissing, or was it Edmund Gosse?
† Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. I’m tired and it’s late and we’re just going to have all the hellgoddess footnotes down here in a wodge, okay?^ —Peter is always telling me I don’t know how to take care of myself^^. He doesn’t know how to boast.
^ Arrgh. Only I don’t think the title line takes colour. Well, you’ll just have to figure it out.
^^ I wonder if he really believes I wouldn’t pour myself champagne if he weren’t around to do it for me?#
# He has a point however that I might not remember to put a glass in the refrigerator first to get cold.
†† http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-blo4.htm I doubt Peter even knows he’s using a funny old-fashioned British phrase.
††† Eton. No, really. And King’s College Cambridge. Sometimes I think I’ve wandered into an Albert Campion novel. Although Campion went to Rugby. Anybody know where Raffles went to school? He was a Cambridge man. (Lord Peter Wimsey went to Oxford. Pish on Lord Peter.)
‡ You can imagine him rattling his gold-headed cane here. He doesn’t have a gold-headed cane. Maybe his next birthday.
‡‡ Sir Walter Raleigh was no doubt hoping to start an Order of the Muddy Cloak but he was beheaded instead.
‡‡‡ No, but it’s gone to six corgis. Tassel, Hassle, Mussy, Fussy, Cousin Itt, and Yog-Sothoth.
§ Hey. You’re an Hon.
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