UK Org Q

[Andreas]

I think John is horribly in need of a good Sam Smith's bitter.

Next week sometime?

[Monty's Double]

Andreas, if you are ever travelling North (and why you'd need an excuse to get out of that hell-hole we call a capital God only knows), there's a little village called Saxton where you'll find a pub called the Greyhound. They serve (or used to when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, OK a giant mutant grasshopper if you're being picky), Sam Smith's finest from oak casks kept behind the bar. That's because the pub is 400 years old and has sunk into its own cellar (they had to shore up the wall in the ladies' loos because the bodies from the graveyard next door were starting to poke through the wall.

Delightful place, give it a try if you get chance. It's only 5 miles from the Towton battlefield, which is worth a quick look, and 10 miles from York, which is worth a much longer one.

PS Isn't the reason Dandelion's drunken Marine friend refused to call the Army Royal because it isn't. Can't remember why, might be to do with the Civil War.

[Dandelion]

It was the Naval officer who denied them the title Royal. Although in a sense he was a marine form of life in many ways that evening, he was still particular about being a gentleman of the Navy. He fit the role too I must say. Grey eyes and he spoke the Queens English and all. Plus a peculiar "r" that he seemed to add whenever words ended with a vowel. I looked some of those words up when I got back to my flat and there is no "r" at the end of them. Maybe it's a Navy thing.

The army really isn't Royal? How come? Did it rebel in the Civil war? And a few hundred years is no time to forgive? What is it if not Royal? Parlimentary? Secretly Republican? Cornish separatist? Cromwellian?

Seriously, I really finally want to understand this joke (at the time I just smiled back at him as if I understood perfectly - it seemed the social thing to do).

Regards

Dandelion

[JonS]

The Army isn't 'Royal.' There is the Royal Navy, and the Royal Airforce, but the Army is just the Army.

But ... individual units and corps within the Army certainly do carry the 'Royal' moniker.

Examples of corps: Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers, Royal Armoured Corps, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Royal Military Police.

Examples of units: Royal Anglian Regiment, Royal Dragoon Guards, Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment, Royal Green Jackets, Royal Gurkha Rifles, Royal Highland Fusiliers, Royal Irish Regiment, Royal Lancers, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, Royal Regiment of Wales, Royal Tank Regiment, Royal Scots, Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, Royal Welch Fusiliers, Royal Scots Dragoon Guards.

Here in NZ all (or very nearly all?) of the individual units carry the Royal distinction, but the NZ Army as a whole doesn't.

Regards

JonS

[Dandelion]

Ok Jon.

So why is this? Is the Queen not the formal c-in-c of the British (and NZ?) Armed Forces? Logically, that would make the Army Royal? And why are not all regiments called "Royal"?

Of course, I've tried this logic business before with the Anglo-Saxons, without much success. But there must be some story behind this, some reason why it is not called the Royal Army. A demotion? Or just a development?

Incidentally, what's the difference between "The Kings" and "The Kings Own"?

Regards

Dandelion

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Dandelion:

It was the Naval officer who denied them the title Royal. Although in a sense he was a marine form of life in many ways that evening, he was still particular about being a gentleman of the Navy.

Ah, being a gentleman in the Royal Navy was not possible for most of the last century; I believe it was Queen Victoria who said of Naval Officers that "they are not gentlemen" when she heard that they had lied to their men after some ringleaders of the Spithead Mutiny were punished, going against promises given earlier. Thereafter Naval Officers were required to carry their swords at the trail, and people before a mixed audience were sometimes heard to address them as "Ladies, Gentlemen and Naval Officers". I believe that this idictment has now been lifted, but I think only fairly recently.

Originally posted by Dandelion:

He fit the role too I must say. Grey eyes and he spoke the Queens English and all. Plus a peculiar "r" that he seemed to add whenever words ended with a vowel. I looked some of those words up when I got back to my flat and there is no "r" at the end of them. Maybe it's a Navy thing.

No, quite a lot of English English speakers do that (as opposed to people who speak English as a Liguar Francar).

Originally posted by Dandelion:

The army really isn't Royal? How come? Did it rebel in the Civil war? And a few hundred years is no time to forgive? What is it if not Royal? Parlimentary? Secretly Republican? Cornish separatist? Cromwellian?

The parliamentary New Model Army was the first regular army to be raised in England, so the roots of the Army are indeed parliamentarian. In 1661, Monck's Regiment of Foot paraded on Tower Hill in London and grounded its arms, to indicate its disbandment as a regiment of Parliament's army; immediately after, it was ordered to pick them up again, now as a regiment of the (restored) King. The regiment became the Coldstream Guards, the oldest continuously-existing regiment in the Army.

I'm not aware of any particular strain of Cornish separatism in any regiment, and the DCLI have now been amalgamated, but it is worth recalling that the shamrock on St. Patricks's day is a tradition with its roots in the British Army: Queen Victoria was so pleased with the performance of her Irish regiments in the Crimea that she permitted them to wear the shamrock, hitherto a secret sign of separatist tendencies.

Likewise, there were Scottish regiments so rife with Jacobite tendencies that some would drink the loyal toast ("The King!") while passing their wine-glasses over their finger-bowls, thus changing the toast to "The King over the water".

All the best,

John.

[Dandelion]

Dear John,

>"I believe it was Queen Victoria who said of Naval Officers that "they are not gentlemen"

- Harsh dealings. To think that she would say that about national heros such as Nelson. Still, a gentleman cannot back down on his word. This story provides fascinating contrast to the popular image - thus the one I too carried in this case - probably best embodied by the late Admiral Beatty. That of the gallant womanising yacht-club type of gentleman. Mrs Tuchmann also gives a story of some contrast in her book "The First Salute", in which one is given a very grim picture of the Royal Navy indeed. The men either press-ganged or dragged out of jail, the officers ferociously grumpy and greedy brutes with an intense hatred for primarily eachother. And yet she loved the English, especially a certain naval officer named Rodney. Another gallant, womanising yacht-club type gentleman.

And in fact the officer in Vienna fit that description also.

>"particular strain of Cornish separatism"

- I saw a television interview with a Cornish gentleman referring to another gentleman as being a "fellow countryman, Cornish". (In the context it would have made more sense to say fellow Englishman). I found that amusing and have everafter made frequent reference to the Cornish as a supressed nationality with separatist undercurrents. I suppose they might have a separate celtic identity as opposed to the rest of the germannic Englishmen, but I've never really heard of any separatists there since the Anglo-Saxon-Jute invasion myself.

Speaking of which, I read in Mr Weintraubs wonderful book "Silent Night" that British and German Saxons expressed kinship as late as WWI. Fellow countrymen, in a distant but yet tangible sense. I wonder if the people from Kent feel kinship with the now Danish Jutes?

>"quite a lot of English English speakers do that"

- Is it regional or a general English lingustic trait? Or is it a class marker?

>"The King over the water".

- The King of France? The Scotsmen toasted the King of France? Ah well. Like Ho-Chi-Minh, I find it too much to ask of a man not to love France, and too much to ask of a man to love the French. Maybe the Scotsmen reasoned likewise.

Hm. I am forced to display my ignorance further here. Are the Scotsmen catholic?

Regards

Dandelion

[JonS]

The Scottish king was in exile in France at the time.

IIRC, as a result of this practice, it became the norm to completely clear the tables at formal dinners before the toasts to prevent this kind of ambiguity.

Dandy,

re: "why?" I don't know the root reason. It's just one of those things I've gotten used to. There are so many contradictions in the way the British army uses nomenclature that I would be far greyer and far balder than I already am if I tried to understand it all

Regards

JonS

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Dandelion:

[snips]

>"particular strain of Cornish separatism"

- I saw a television interview with a Cornish gentleman referring to another gentleman as being a "fellow countryman, Cornish". (In the context it would have made more sense to say fellow Englishman). I found that amusing and have everafter made frequent reference to the Cornish as a supressed nationality with separatist undercurrents. I suppose they might have a separate celtic identity as opposed to the rest of the germannic Englishmen, but I've never really heard of any separatists there since the Anglo-Saxon-Jute invasion myself.

There is currently a Cornish nationalist party, Mebyon Kernow, which contests parliamentary elections. Its badge is based on the Black Flag of Cornwall, a white cross on a black ground, also known as St. Perran's (alternatively spelt Piran) cross.

One should, of course, take Cornish nationalism very seriously, but I find it hard to do so when St. Perran died by getting drunk and falling down a well, and the cached traces of the Mebyon Kernow web page seem to show that it was co-located with The Official Novelty Sporran Website.

Originally posted by Dandelion:

[snips]

>"quite a lot of English English speakers do that"

- Is it regional or a general English lingustic trait? Or is it a class marker?

I'm not sure. If he'd put "l" on the end of everyhting, you could have been reasonably sure that he was from Bristol.

It doesn't sound very upper-class to me, anyway; one upper-class affectation of speech is to pretend to be unable to pronounce the letter "r" at all. I still recall with a shudder of horror a friend's wedding reception, which was held in the Great Hall at Lincoln's Inn. A very posh do; the women were all dressed in dead animals, and the men all dressed as penguins. An interminable succession of upper-class twits felt constrained to stand on their hind legs and blather out of themsevles interminably, and it seemed that every single one started by saying "It is a vey geat pleashah and pivelege to be asked to say a few wahds..."

Originally posted by Dandelion:

>"The King over the water".

- The King of France? The Scotsmen toasted the King of France? Ah well. Like Ho-Chi-Minh, I find it too much to ask of a man not to love France, and too much to ask of a man to love the French. Maybe the Scotsmen reasoned likewise.

JonS has already explained this one; but I would add that Scotland and France have always been friends ("The Auld Alliance"), thanks to what is probably the most effective unifying force ever know to history, hatred of the English.

Originally posted by Dandelion:

Hm. I am forced to display my ignorance further here. Are the Scotsmen catholic?

There are all sorts -- RCs, Church of Scotland, Presbyterians, Baptists, Wee Frees. A Celtic vs. Rangers match can be thought of as the sublimation of Catholic vs. Protestant conflict, just as in England a cricket match between Yorkshire and Lancashire is still called "a Roses match" in memory of the war of the Roses.

All the best,

John.

[Michael Dorosh]

The Canadian Army did away with all its corps in the late 1960s, in the process all the corps that had earned the "Royal" title (and they had to be earned in battle, mostly in WW I, not just automatically granted) then lost them.

The Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps became the Canadian Forces Medical Service.

The Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps was amalgamated with the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps to become the Canadian Forces Logistics Branch.

etc.

For some reason, though, the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps and the Royal Canadian Infantry Corps kept their titles, as did all royal regiments, as well as the Royal Canadian Artillery.

HM Queen Elizabeth II is the Colonel in Chief of my regiment, yet we have never been Royal or the Queen's Own.

I believe the Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers were created in 1944 sans the Royal title but it was practically automatic. Today. they are known only as the Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (EME as opposed to RCEME), and the cap badge as EME/GRE on it to incorporate the French version of the title.

And most strangely, the premiere French speaking unit in the Canadian Army, is the Royal 22e Regiment....

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by JonS:

The Scottish king was in exile in France at the time.

IIRC, as a result of this practice, it became the norm to completely clear the tables at formal dinners before the toasts to prevent this kind of ambiguity.

[snips]

True in many regiments -- but in the Royal Scots (the First of Foot, Pontius Pilate's Bodyguard), the regiment does not drink the loyal toast at all, supposedly on the grounds that its loyalty is unquestioned. Given that they served the French as Le regiment de Douglas, one might suspect otherwise...

The Queen's used to drink the loyal toast sitting down, as do the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, in memory of their sea service previously alluded to. Stories that it is only because the officers are habitually too drunk to stand are as contumelious as they are untrue. I believe that the tradition is maintained by the PWRRs.

All the best,

John.

[Chelt]

For a social history of a regimental depot town, you might look at Geoffrey Moorhouse's Hell's Foundations. Moorhouse examines the history of the Lancashire Fusiliers and their home town, Bury, focusing on the effects of the regiment's heavy losses at Gallipoli.