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Saturday, November 20, 2010

Royal News Roundup

What news happened this week? Well, in case you haven’t heard Prince William announced his engagement to longtime girlfriend Kate Middleton -that’s been rather a big story around the world. The future King of Great Britain and the Commonwealths popped the question in October while vacationing in Africa and presented his bride-to-be with his late mother’s engagement ring after getting the approval of Kate’s father. No official word yet on an exact time or place for the wedding next year (so far Westminster Abbey seems to be the odds-on favorite). After looking after some details the Prince was back to Wales to resume his duties as a rescue pilot with the RAF while Kate has been at Buckingham Palace spending some time with her future grandmother-in-law, the Queen. The wedding promises to be a huge affair, already garnering a frenzy of media activity from the United States to Australia. Spring or summer of 2011 is the closest we have yet to a date. Once again, The Mad Monarchist sends congratulations to the happy young couple and best wishes that their marriage will be a happy, life-long one.

On the continent, newlyweds of the past five months Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden finally moved into a place of their own; the Haga Palace, childhood home of the Swedish king and his sisters. In Spain HM King Juan Carlos donned his uniform to review and congratulate some 46,000 Spanish military forces, veterans of the 18-year Spanish peace-keeping presence in the troubled Balkan state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The King of Spain congratulated the soldiers, sailors and airmen for their service and noted that the hard earned experience these forces gained in Bosnia will prove invaluable in the other areas of the world in which Spanish forces are deployed, from Lebanon to Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Queen Sofia of Spain has spent the last few days in New York visiting the Spanish Institute which promotes Spanish culture in the Americas. On Monday the Belgian Royal Family, sans-the King and Queen, were on hand to celebrate “King’s Day” in which the people pay tribute to their monarch. Starting with a special Church service in which the Archbishop of Brussels prayed for national unity, a meeting at Parliament followed and finally there was a march past the palace for the King to take the salute of his military forces in a pledge of loyalty to the Crown. Yesterday the Principality of Monaco celebrated its national day, honoring the five year anniversary of the reign of Prince Albert II. This was the first time Princess of Monaco-to be Charlene Wittstock appeared on the balcony with the Princely Family alongside the Sovereign Prince. You can review the day-long coverage of this event at Mad for Monaco.

4 comments:

  1. On the subject of the upcoming British royal wedding, I read this fairly sympathetic and pro-monarchy article in the Telegraph. Thought you might be interested:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/simonheffer/8147175/Prince-William-and-Kate-Middleton-After-the-royal-wedding-news-the-inevitable-drivel.html

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  2. The engagement of Prince William and Kate is so wonderful for us here in Britain! At last, after months of dreary news, there is something to celebrate :-)

    It would make a wonderful change if they could choose to be married somewhere up north - York Minster, for example....but I guess they will 'make do' with the Abbey!

    Huge congratulations to them - and what perfect timing!

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  3. Since Ms Middleton had expressed her desire to be known as 'Catherine' and not 'Kate' it would be nice to use her full name here in the blog too.
    Ms Catherine is the future Queen!:)

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  4. Good enough, but if you're going to consistent you have an awful lot of blogs to visit to make the same comment.

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