Court Etiquette

For centuries etiquette has been used to create a code of conduct within different cultures; even though some has dissolved many still stand today that uphold honor to the ones who hold positions in Court. 

There are different circumstances where etiquette within the Court was held up to the highest regard even when it comes to a kind gesture.

Court Etiquette

Although the origin of court etiquette is traceable to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, it was in Spain that its fantastic growth was most luxuriant. A story is told of the wife of Charles II., who, catching her foot in the stirrup, as she fell off he horse, remained in a helpless condition in the presence of forty-three attendants. Motionless stood the attendants, and helpless hung the royal lady. Because the equerry was out of the way whose duty it was to unhook the queen’s ankle on such occasions. A passer-by who ventured to release her Majesty was rewarded with gold for his services, but was condemned to exile for his indiscretion.

In France the King could not visit a sick person in bed unless a second bed was prepared for his Majesty to occupy during the visit, since no subject could have been suffered to lie down while his Sovereign was in a less easy position. In this way Louis XIII, visited Richelieu, and le Grande Monarque condoled with Marshal Vallars after a wound received at Malplaquet.

At Versailles, when Marie Leczinska was fretting because cards were interdicted on the occasion of court mourning, she was relieved by a courtier’s assurance that “the game piquet was deep mourning”.

In England at the present day, we have a Herald’s College to settle who shall walk first in a procession; an important point, considering that there are ninety ranks of men classed in order of precedence om the sovereign to a burgess. Pope Julius II drew up a list of precedence among European sovereigns, twenty-six in number, of whose titles it is noteworthy that four only exist in their old form – the Emperor of Germany, and the Kings of England, Spain and Portugal.

It is easy to understand that ceremonial would hold an especial tyranny in the strict circle of diplomacy. In 1661 the Spanish Envoy, attacking the French Ambassador in the streets of London, hamstrung his horses and killed his men merely in order to get to court before his rival. In certain cases, every detail of diplomatic form was regulated by the strictest equality.

Thus, we have seen the French and imperialist envoys balancing step at the door of the Ryswick council-chamber; and when Mazarin and Don Lois de Haro met to settle the marriage of Louis XIV, with Maria Theresa, the two ministers stepped side by side into a room hung in corresponding halves with their respective colors, and sat down at the same instant on undistinguishable chairs.

The first Napoleon was foolishly tenacious of precedence, and one year seized every copy of the Almanach de Gotha, because in accordance with its custom of alphabetical arrangement, the list of reigning Houses therein published was headed Anhalt Duchies, and not Napoleon.

Among other curiosities of court etiquette, it will not be commonly known that an Ambassador has the privilege, though never used, of putting on his hat in the presence of the sovereign when he reads his reception speech. Maritime ceremonial was for more important than other forms, as being at one time the measure of maritime supremacy, and based on the theory that salutes should render the saluter temporarily powerless.

In the time of James I., England insisted upon the disappearance of the flags and sails of all other ships as a salute to her own; and it was not until the end of last century that the resistance and disputes caused by such an overbearing and disputes caused by such an overbearing requisition were finally settled, through the agreements of France and Russia to dispense with maritime salutes in any form. At this day, they are pure acts of courtesy between ships of war. ~ Chamber’s Journal; New York Times 26 Dec 1875