Posted by Marlene on 9/6/2009, 2:35:39, in reply to "A question of titles"
68.100.39.201
One rarely sees the use of the term dowager in modern times... after all, Queen Fabiola is the widow of a Belgian king (where the language is not English.)
Her official title in English is HM Queen Fabiola ... plain and simple. She is no longer the Queen Consort because her husband is deceased ... so she is Queen Fabiola.
It is Saxe-Meiningen. The original qualification was HSH, but this later changed to HH following the Congress of Vienna.
Adelaide was styled as the Queen Dowager in the Court Circular after William's death. Her Majesty the Queen Dowager.
Before her marriage she was a Princess of Saxe-Meiningen, Duchess of Saxony.
Is all this correct?
Nope! Adelaide was born Adelheid, actually - and her official title, to repeat, was HM The Dowager Queen ... no name
and who is this international community to which you refer ... Of course, in the case of Belgium, a phone call to the protocol office at the Belgian embassy in DC would have provided an answer.
In Spanish, one sees Doña Sofia in magazines, but that's not official. Here is how she is styled in Spanish
http://www.casareal.es/familia/index-ides-idweb.html
:If you were writing in English you would write - Queen Sofia of Spain today visited Chicago. The queen toured several museums before dining with the mayor and other city officials.
If you were presented to the queen, you would say Your Majesty ...
: I didn't wish to sound presumptuous, but I
: wanted to create distinctions for a queen's
: style and title, from a national and
: international perspective. It only stands
: to reason, after all, that the international
: community cannot be expected to
: automatically understand just who exactly is
: being referred to, when "The
: Queen" is mentioned. Also, there is no
: obligation to be especially reverential by
: using the style "Majesty", when
: mentioning a foreign queen (that being said,
: one is obliged out of courtesy to use this
: in the context of a personal meeting or
: greeting -- even if the queen in question is
: not your own. That is: if I came face to
: face with the Spanish queen, then although
: I'm not a Spaniard myself, I would be
: obliged to call her "Your Majesty"
: -- although not to go so far as to curtsy).
:
: Conversely, in a national setting, it really
: makes no sense to refer to Sofia as
: "The Queen of Spain". I don't
: consider it pretentious for a Spaniard to
: assume that a fellow Spaniard knows whom he
: is referring to, when mentioning "Her
: Majesty the Queen" -- even in the
: context of distinguishing her from another
: queen (say during a state visit), referred
: to as "The Queen of Sweden."
:
:
:
Message Thread:
« Back to thread