But many -- both royals and commoners -- have problems in making the adjustment. Queen Alexandra of Great Britain had a hard time in accepting that she was no longer queen consort. She also was egged on by her sister Dagmar in Russia, where a dowager empress outranks an empress consort in protocol, to think that the same applied to Great Britain.

As such, she refused to defer to her daughter-in-law, the new Queen Mary: like her sister Dagmar, she also initially refused to hand over the crown jewels to her. Fortunately, Queen Mary herself was a stickler for protocol and knew how to defer to the new sovereigns and consorts who ascended the throne after the death of her husband, King George V.

She was the first to curtsy and kiss the hand of her eldest son, the new King Edward VIII -- and famously did to to her granddaughter later on. Unfortunately, Queen Elizabeth II's own mother had a hard time in making the transition: Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother refused at first to leave Buckingham Palace -- among other things ...