Everyone held their breath in England when Queen Elizabeth went into hospital a few weeks ago. Under common law, Prince Charles will automatically become King the moment the Queen dies. Prince William could only become King if Prince Charles chose to abdicate. That would require legislation, as happened with the Declaration of Abdication Act 1936. While there are "reports" he considers the job a very difficult one and not one that he wants, there are also "reports" that he's waited so long - he will take up the role.
I wondered what were the circumstances that the current Queen is only the second Elizabeth? I assume it is because if a monarch had sons, they took precedence over daughters. That was changed with the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 along with removing the disqualification arising from a marriage to a Roman Catholic. The history of the monarchy in Britain is so complicated, that I stopped looking.
I hadn't realize that there was controversy over her being the second Elizabeth: Rather than choose a regnal name; she chose to remain Elizabeth, "of course"; thus she was called Elizabeth II. This annoyed many Scots, as she was the first Elizabeth to rule in Scotland.
So much tradition: What number in the succession stops being important and becomes just a number? Is there a top 10 or 20 that count more than the others - Wikipedia goes to 63. I realized it would be those directly related to the Queen - the first twenty-four. Below is the top twenty - this comes from the official British monarchy website. It is https://www.royal.uk
So the succession of the Monarchy is importance to us today. This is a time when one can find out their ancestry and get a sense of their family tree. I expect the British Monarchy to stay around for a while given our intense curiosity about our own ancestors. And there are exciting times ahead with the countdown to the year-long Queen's Platinum Jubilee 2022 celebration.
Here's an elegant Christmas tree from a few years ago at the Fantasy of Trees.
I listen to CBC radio on Saturday mornings as I drive around doing my food shopping at the bakeries, Italian grocery store and the local vegetable/fruit market. Last week on the advertising podcast, Terry O'Reilly relayed the story of the song "The House of the Rising Sun." And what is the story? O'Reilly says there are two stories.
The first is that Alan Price was the only name listed on the song and so was the only one to receive royalties. Being a traditional song, it had no songwriter, so it is typical to identify who arranged it for the royalties.
Mike Jefferey came in and said it was too long to put “Trad. Arranged by”… with all our names on the record. And we’ll sort the division of the money out later.” That later never came. Alan Price was the only name credited with the song. It caused him to leave the group that he had formed. I wonder how much money made that happen.
Burdon stated, “Many years later, on the ’83 Animals reunion tour, Chas Chandler called a meeting. He proposed that all the royalties from that day on be shared among the original members. Alan Price’s reaction was ‘Go **** yourself,’ or words to that effect. He got up and left. Definitely a lot of money was at stake.
The second storyTerry O'Reilly says associated with this song was that Bob Dylan heard the Burden version of the song while driving his car. He stopped the car, jumped out and hit the hood with his fist and decided at that moment to go electric.
Here's another image from the Georgia O'Keefe Gallery in Santa Fe with selective colour.
