With these words spoken yesterday in the House of Lords, the Queen revealed the plans for her visit to the Commonwealth of Virginia for the upcoming celebrations surrounding the quatercentenary of the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Her Majesty is no stranger to Virginia, nor even to Jamestown, as her very first visit to the New World took place in 1957 when she attended the 350th anniversary celebrations at Jamestown. Following that 1957 official visit to the United States, the Queen opened her parliament at Ottawa for the first time since her accession to the Canadian throne. (more…)

Thus wrote Francis Finnegan of the Ancient Order of Hibernians to H.R.H. Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, (above, in the uniform of the Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars) inviting him to partake in New York’s St. Patrick’s Day festivities in 1966 during his visit to North America. The invitation was made in recompense for the opprobrious breach of propriety in 1861 when Col. Michael Corcoran, Commanding Officer of the New York 69th committed an act of insubordination when he refused to order his troops to take part in the official festivities welcoming the Prince of Wales to New York. Corcoran was dropped from the Officers Roll of the New York State Militia for the offense, and was to be court-martialled but for the outbreak of the Civil War.

Finnegan, the public relations director of the New York St. Patrick’s Day Parade organised by the Ancient Order of Hibernians every year, assured the Duke of Edinburgh that he would not be mistreated as the Prince of Wales had been one hundred and five years previous. “Alas,” TIME magazine reported, “he arrived in Manhattan too late on St. Patrick’s Day to march in the Fifth Avenue parade, even though he did sport a fine green tie. Britain’s Prince Philip, 44, in a green tie? ‘Just a coincidence,’ chuckled the consort.” (TIME, 25 March, 1966).

The 1861 visit of the Prince of Wales to New York was a spectacular event, despite the insults of Col. Corcoran. A ball was held, just as for the Queen Mother during her 1954 visit to New York, as well as a parade and pass-in-review.

The castle of Bran (above), and the castles of Peles (below), and Pelisor (bottom) are to be restituted by the Romanian government to the Habsburgs and the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringens respectively, and then purchased back by the government for over $60 million, according to Adrian Iorgulescu, the Romanian Minister of Culture. The castles were illegitimately seized by the Communist authorities after they took power in 1947, and after buying them back the government will keep the castles as museums.

The Habsurgs are the Imperial Family of Austria as well as being the Royal Family of Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia, Lodomeria, Illyria, and Jerusalem, and the Ducal Family of Tuscany, Krakow, Lorraine, Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, the Bukovina, Transylvania, Upper Silesia, Lower Silesia, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Guastalla, Auschwitz, Zator, Teschen, Friuli, Ragusa, and Zara. The Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen family, on the other hand, are a cadet branch of the senior Swabian branch of the Hohenzollerns, and are the Royal Family of Romania, which has been a republic since the Communist takeover in 1947 and has since, sadly, failed to restore its monarchy. Unlike the more reknowned Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg, the Romanian Royal Family are not Protestant.

UPDATE: A reader corrects: “The Hohenzollern-Sigmaringens are not the cadet branch, but in fact the surviving senior branch, which position they inherited upon the extinction in the male line of the true senior line, the Hohenzollern-Hechingens, in 1869. Historically they are of minor importance in comparison to their apostate cousins, but still a storied family. Schloss Sigmaringen, by the way, is a magnificent seat, romantically restored in the 19th century. They own it still, but do not tend to live within its forbidding walls. I was shown round it once in dead of winter: an unforgettable experience.”

In 1954 Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (n.1900, m.2002) visited New York to accept an educational fund raised by Americans in memory of the late King George VI. On the evening of November 1 of that year, the Seventh Regiment entertained Her Majesty with a special ball held in her honor at the Armory on Park Avenue (view above). Her Majesty also visited the Cathedral of St. John the Divine where she was received by the (Episcopal) Bishop of New York, the Dean, and the clergy of the Cathedral. The three stone blocks on the façade seen in the view below have since been sculpted.

Whilst rummaging through my room at home in New York last week, I came across this article which I had cut out of the ill-fated European in 1998 written by none other than Mr. Gerald Warner, KM. I was fourteen years old in 1998 and the European folded about a year later. Click here to read in jpg form. (A large file, some browsers may require resizing to view the text at a readable size).

Last night, Fr. Emerson popped up from Edinburgh and gave a talk on the Hapsburg dynasty. It was tremendously interesting. I learned so much I hadn’t known before and it opened up a terrific number of avenues of information down which I have only begun to stroll.

I had no idea how remarkable a man Franz Ferdinand was. All they teach you in America is “This is the guy who got shot” instead of “This man would have been the savior of all that is good and holy in Europe.”

I have seen and read a lot of what Europe is today; Fr. Emerson gave us a glimpse of what Europe was yesterday, before the utter destruction of the social order of the continent by that moment in Sarajevo and everything that came after it. Knowing what Europe was, how depressing to see it now!

It also filled me with some optimism, oddly enough. I used to be partly in the school of thought that’s convinced that Europe is lost. If this is how Europe was, surely it could be again? Perhaps, perhaps not. (more…)

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