Thursday, April 28, 2011

What's Your Royal Title?

Well, the Royal Wedding is almost upon us. Many of us wish we could be on the guest list to have one of the treasured seats in the congregation, but unfortunately, we don’t have the right kind of name – one containing a royal title.

Since it is the time for all the wedding hoopla to take place I decided to have some fun with my Facebook status by posting the following – “What is the name of your Royal Wedding Guest name? Start with Lord or Lady…Your first name is the first name of your grandparents….Surname is the name of your first pet….The name of the street you grew up on with “of”.”

Who knew I had such important friends? They came up with names like Lord Everett Pretzel of Viceroy, Lady Lilby Piper of Preakness, Lord Wilbur Smokey of Welcome Hill, Lady Elizabeth Pepe of Pullen, Lady Annie Bucky of Chapel Hill, Lady Sarah Tinkerbell of Valencia and last but not least Lord Charlie Hotdog of Windridge.

The made up names are rather comical, aren’t they?

However, real royal titles can be a little strange also and some are downright funny.

Take King Niall of the Nine Hostages, for example. You don’t know about him? He’s the one who kidnapped Saint Patrick.

Sir William Douglas the Hardy at Scone also known as Black Douglas fought alongside William Wallace.

The Marquess of Bute was create in 1796 and the title is still in use today by a British racecar driver. Dumfries House serves as their family seat.

Then , of course, we have the more familiar Earl of Sandwich. While he didn’t invent the sandwich the food is attributed to him. Seems he liked the gaming tables so much he would have servants bring him some meat between two slices of bread to eat. Hmmmm…..I wonder if he hung out with the Earl of Mayo or the Earl of Munster.

….and what about Baron Strange? Hmmm…..that’s just strange.

The Earl of Inchcape is a title that was created in 1929 for a shipping magnate, and one of the Earls of Jellico commanded the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland.

Earl Nugent brings to mind Wango Tango Cat Scratchin' Ted.... and The Earl of Rocksavage sounds like a wrestler with the WWF, but it’s actually the courtesy title for the heir of the Marchess of Cholmondeley which is pronounced “Chumley”. Doesn’t that name make you think of Chumlee from the History Channel’s Pawn Stars.

What about the Earl of Camperdown as in “Did you take the camper down after our NASCAR weekend at Rockingham?”

The Duke of Atholl makes me think of “The Focker’s” series of movies for some reason.

Thankfully the title Earl of Wigtown was surrendered in 1372 because……well, seriously…..Wigtown????

And finally…..the Earl of Lovelace….when I mentioned this title to my husband he asked, “Is he kin to ‘Duke’ Throat?”

After this I doubt I will ever be invited to any royal parties.

Oh well…..

Many congrats to the Happy Couple!

1 comment:

Cynthia Banks@aloveofthepast said...

Wonderful article on one of my favorite subjects - no pun intended. Love ya girl.