A wedding, 1,000 years of history, admiring crowds, no "terrorist" interruptions!

[kit-kit]

happened upon broadcast of the Royal Wedding live from London

as i watched (not knowing what was next - this was live, of course) i marveled at the beautiful wedding gown and all attendants' special clothes, the open, horse-drawn carriage from 1902 and multiple horsemen escorts - a thumpin' along

i was so glad to see their special day was not marred by terrorist acts nor inclement weather

it was so astonishing to see the intimacy the cameras were giving us -- we were at the royal couple's elbow! The couple allowed this photography unabashed (contrast that with many worldwide celebrities who do not allow photographs until they have been paid exorbitant sums or exclude photographs completely).

Even more astounding was the camera view from the topmost perch above the altar in Westminster Abbey (looking down): it looked like 1,000 feet from there to the floor (these architectural statistics must be available).

simply took my breath away; amazing.

thank you to them all for sharing such a special day and special moments.

[sambacat]

Well, I had a quite different, and unexpected, reaction. I was all set to ooh and ahh over the whole lovely event. But when the ceremony actually began, I became more and more, well, repelled, by the rigid ridiculousness of the pomp and circumstances of the affair. It was completely joyLESS. The word "love" was never mentioned. Fear of God was mentioned a lot and the fact that procreation was the primary reason for a marriage was jaw-dropping. The "kiss" on the balcony did not involve any embrace. William's hands were clasped as he leaned over to kiss his bride. I started looking at it through the eyes of some of the other cultures that were represented by dignitaries and heads of state from African nations, South America, and the Middle East. What a shocking and revealing difference from weddings in their countries -- joyous celebrations with song and dance and communities coming together. Sheesh. No wonder "Westerners" have the need to go out and conquer the world, since they have no "Life" in their's. Pretty soulless overall.
The Dress was lovely, though.

[kit-kit]

well, you know what they say, "...to each his/her own..."

the thing is, this is an amalgam of a government entity and a personal loving relationship.

each of us has to say, "what would I do if I were to find myself in that very same situation?"

we simply cannot imagine it: we are worlds and social stratas apart.

the monarchy is steeped in history. This history goes back, in that very building, for 1,000 years. Look at that! When the United States became its own government c. 1776, the English had already been "at it" for 700 years. we are newcomers, novices.

Look at what a chore it is to just have our U.S. President come to town. His itinerary is timed to the very minute.

This young couple was under such time constraints. If you had the eyes of the entire world on you, your amorous behavior (such as balcony kisses) would be very, very, very different too.

Yes, the dress was lovely, especially the diaphanous veil (so delicate and high quality) and the way it stopped just above her waist, slight resistance to the wind, plus the matching subtle pleats (echoed in the bridesmaids' dresses, bolder pleats).

the after-ceremony dress was so reminiscent of a medieval princess' garment: Kate would have looked completely at home in an eleventh century castle. [yumm, no indoor plumbing, heating, nor electricity] are we spoiled or what?

[Dixon]

Monarchies, like most governments, got into power by being more effective at brutality and ruthlessness than their competitors. The richer ones, like England, got rich mainly by pursuing empire, which is unutterably brutal and exploitive. The concept of royalty is a bigoted concept which holds that people who are born into certain families are superior to those whose labor supports them. Royals are leeches, receiving huge amounts of money and other benefits for little if any work, while social services for the workers who support them are cut again and again so that expensive weddings and other extravagances can be supported by the workers' blood, sweat and tears.

The fact that many people find this charming and beautiful is a measure of the degree to which we have been conditioned to love our oppression.

Yecchhh!

[podfish]

The fact that many people find this charming and beautiful is a measure of the degree to which we have been conditioned to love our oppression. Yecchhh!

sure it's conditioning?
cats make more sense to me than dogs...

[Sara S]

from delancyplace.com:

In today's excerpt - the mansions and retinues of such kings and queens as Britain's
King Henry VIII and his daughter Queen Elizabeth:

"Traditionally, the great house builders (and house accumulators) in Britain were
monarchs. At the time of his death Henry VIII had no fewer than forty-two palaces.
But his daughter Elizabeth cannily saw that it was much cheaper to visit others
and let them absorb the costs of her travels, so she resurrected in a big way the
venerable practice of making annual royal "progresses" (lengthy visits to the houses
of nobles). The queen was not in truth a great traveler - she never left England
or even ventured very far within it - but she was a terrific visitor. Her annual
progresses lasted eight to twelve weeks and took in about two dozen houses.

"Royal progresses were nearly always greeted with a mixture of excitement and dread
by those on whom the monarch called. On the one hand they provided unrivaled opportunities
for preferment and social advancement, but on the other they were stupefyingly expensive.
The royal household numbered up to about 1,500 people, and a good many of these
- 150 or so in the case of Elizabeth 1 - traveled with the royal personage on her
annual pilgrimages. Hosts not only had the towering expenditure of feeding, housing,
and entertaining an army of spoiled and privileged people but also could expect
to experience quite a lot of pilfering and property damage, as well as some less
salubrious surprises. After the court of Charles II departed from Oxford in about
1660, one of those left behind remarked in an understandably appalled tone how the
royal visitors had left 'their excrements in every corner, in chimneys, studies,
coal-houses, cellars.'

"Since a successful royal visit could pay big dividends, most hosts labored inventively
and painstakingly to please the royal guest. Owners learned to provide elaborate
masques and pageants as a very minimum, but many built boating lakes, added wings,
or reconstructed whole landscapes in the hope of eliciting a small cry of pleasure
from the royal lips. Gifts were lavished freely. A hapless courtier named Sir John
Puckering gave Elizabeth a diamond-festooned silk fan, several loose jewels, a gown
of rare splendor, and a pair of exceptionally fine virginals, then watched at their
first dinner as Her Majesty admired the silver cutlery and a salt cellar and, without
a word, dropped them into the royal handbag.

"Even her most long-standing ministers learned to be hypersensitive to the queen's
pleasures. When Elizabeth complained of the distance to his country house in Lincolnshire,
Lord Burghley bought and extended another at Waltham Cross, in London's Home Counties.
Christopher Hatton, Elizabeth's lord chancellor, built a mighty edifice called Holdenby
House expressly for receiving the queen. In the event, she never came, and Hatton
died £18,000 in debt - a crushing burden, equivalent to about £9 million today.
"Sometimes the builders of these houses didn't have a great deal of choice. James
I ordered the loyal but inconsequential Sir Francis Fane to rebuild Apethorpe Hall
in Northamptonshire on a colossal scale so that he and the Duke of Buckingham, his
lover, would have some rooms of suitable grandeur to saunter through en route to
the bedroom.

"The worst imposition of all was to be instructed to take on some costly, long-standing
obligation to the crown. Such was the fate of Bess of Hardwick's husband, the sixth
Lord Shrewsbury. For sixteen years he was required to act as jailer to Mary, Queen
of Scots, which in effect meant maintaining the court of a small, fantastically
disloyal state in his own home. We can only imagine his sinking heart as he saw
a line of eighty horse-drawn wagons - enough to make a procession a third of a mile
long - coming up his drive bearing the Scottish queen, fifty servants and secretaries,
and all their possessions. In addition to housing and feeding this force of people,
Shrewsbury had to maintain a private army to provide security."

Author: Bill Bryson
Title: At Home
Publisher: Doubleday
Date: Copyright 2010 by Bill Bryson
Pages: 63-64
At Home: A Short History of Private Life
by Bill Bryson by Doubleday
Hardcover ~ Release Date: 2010-10-05

Monarchies, like most governments, got into power by being more effective at brutality and ruthlessness than their competitors. The richer ones, like England, got rich mainly by pursuing empire, which is unutterably brutal and exploitive. The concept of royalty is a bigoted concept which holds that people who are born into certain families are superior to those whose labor supports them. Royals are leeches, receiving huge amounts of money and other benefits for little if any work, while social services for the workers who support them are cut again and again so that expensive weddings and other extravagances can be supported by the workers' blood, sweat and tears.

The fact that many people find this charming and beautiful is a measure of the degree to which we have been conditioned to love our oppression.

Yecchhh!

[kit-kit]

...i submit the roaming visitations by QE1 may not be all that different from our President's travels (save perhaps the lack of toilet training) -- we're talking five hundred years in the past!

i feel a debt of gratitude to the English for the foundations of law such as the Magna Carta.

we had to start somewhere!

interesting movie called The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) -- if the King wanted a woman for a mistress (according to this movie) she was commanded to be offered up. It was non-negotiable.

[Sara S]

and then there's this:

Droit de seigneur is a term now popularly used to describe an alleged legal right allowing the lord of an estate to take the virginity of his serfs' maiden daughters. Little or no historical evidence has been unearthed from the Middle Ages to support the idea that such a right ever actually existed.^[1]

[mamaglee]

touche