Notes On The Royal Wedding 3

[poliphilo]

I had said I wouldn't watch it but I did.

It was the prettiest Royal Wedding ever. The weather had a lot to do with that.

Royal taste has improved since Lady Di went to her wedding dressed as a cream puff. Do you regret the 80s? I don't.

Ailz tells me Meghan is the first ever Duchess of Sussex. There have been Dukes before but they were bachelors. And short-lived.

It will take some processing- this interlacing of the royal and celebrity cultures. What does it mean that Oprah Winfrey was invited and Donald Trump wasn't? Elton was in the congregation but not asked to tickle the ivories. The queen took a back seat; Charles didn't. Has Meghan- and what she stands for- been absorbed into the Firm or is she the thin end of a wedge?

I have this suspicion that when the old Queen dies the Monarchy will break apart in a cloud of diamond dust.

My sister rang. This conversation ensued.

My Sis: Did you watch the Royal Wedding?

My Mother: Oh yes,

M.S.: Did you enjoy it?

M.M.: Not particularly.

M.S.: Not particularly!?

M.M.: Well it wasn't very exciting...

Comments

[cmcmck]

One Duke only iirc under one of the Georges and he was a somewhat dodgy cove!

[poliphilo]

Only one? I'm sure you're right, but I thought there'd been others.

"Dodgy cove" describes a lot of Royal Dukes- past and present.

[oakmouse]

Yep, one of George III and Charlotte's sons was the first and only previous Duke of Sussex. (The things you learn reading Georgette Heyer novels...)

[poliphilo]

Yeah, I get a lot of my historical knowledge from novels too.

[oakmouse]

I particularly learned a lot from Heyer because she was a thorough and painstaking researcher. I don't like the milieu of most of her novels --- I have very little patience for the meticulously groomed, sickeningly rich nobility and gentry --- but I love the way she puts the reader right into the world of the Regency period: clothes, food, social customs, books, music, etc. And her characters, especially the minor (and often merchant/professional class or working class) characters, are vividly sketched and very lively. So I hold my nose and tolerate Lord Somebody or the Duke of Whoosis to enjoy the rest of the book.

[poliphilo]

I've been reading C.S. Forester- and learning a lot about early 19th century warfare. It's grim.

[cmcmck]

All black powder warfare is grim and I should know..........

[poliphilo]

The Hornblower book I just read brought home to me that ordinary seamen in the Napoleonic era were essentially slaves.

[oakmouse]

Complete with floggings, and executions of those who rebelled and tried to run away.

[oakmouse]

Oh, perfectly horrible. I'm a Peninsular War buff myself, and have also read a lot of Forester. Soldiers and sailors alike all endured appalling conditions and suffered the most ghastly wounds, but sailors on top of that were often enslaved by press gangs instead of being volunteers. And almost none of them were fit to support themselves when they were turned off at the end of the war, which feeds into so many of the problems Britain suffered through in the late 18-teens and into the 1820s.

[oakmouse]

Meghan's dress was much nicer than Diana's. No, there's not much to regret about the 80s; not the food, nor the clothes, nor the hairstyles, nor for that matter the music.

[poliphilo]

There's always nostalgia for the age you grew up in and today's movers and shakers are children of the 80s. I however am of an earlier vintage.

[oakmouse]

So am I --- I'm 57, and thus I suppose would count as a child of the late 60s and early 70s. I'm one of the teenagers whose doors of perception were opened up not by drugs or alcohol but by the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

(Edited to fix a typo.)

[poliphilo]

I'm ten years older- which means I remember the 50s....

[oakmouse]

*nods* So do my older siblings (vintage 1944, 1949, and 1953). It's very interesting, watching the deeply ingrained cultural attitudes of the four of us, and how they differ.

[poliphilo]

The 50s really were another world.

[oakmouse]

Indeed they were; I've been told as much by everyone I know who lived through them.