The second biggest question for the State Banquet next week is whether Kate, Duchess of Cambridge will be wearing the Royal Family Order of Queen Elizabeth II. For a Kate stan like myself, this is a burning question.
But what the hell is a Family Order? You ask, because you have lives and interests and aren’t a royally obsessed weirdo like me. Behold: THIS is the Royal Family Order of QEII, in all its sparkly fabulousness:
The Queen isn’t the first British monarch to have a Royal Family Order, and the WIndsors aren’t the only Royals that have them. There are variations in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Tongo. A Royal Family Order is usually given by the monarch to women in his or her family, and it’s worn the way the gents wear their military medals, on the left chesticle area.
The first British monarch to create an RFO was George IV. Then there weren’t any until Queen Victoria got married, and she created the RFO of Victoria and Albert (of course.) She was the first and only monarch to include her spouse as part of her order, and she was also unique in that there were four classes to her order.
Edward VII, George V, George VI and Elizabeth II have all had their own orders, with none for Edward VIII for obvious reasons (he sucked.) Since George V, they’ve all looked like the one above, except the color of the ribbon is different and obviously the enamel portrait is of the monarch.
If you’re super cool or important or really old, you might have more than one family order. And you can wear more than one at a time- the Queen herself wears two- one from her father George Vi and one from her grandfather, George V.
The all time record for MOST RFOs in the British Royal Family is a TIE between Queen Mary and Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, who each had FIVE. (V&A, EVII, GV, GVI, and EII) Princess Alice was born in 1883 and died in 1981 and is SUPER DUPER FASCINATING, but that may be a post for another time. Here she is wearing a chunk of her orders, but this is before 1952 so there’s no QEII. You can make out the cameo V&A order towards the bottom.
Because the RFO is a personal gift from the Queen, there’s NO INFORMATION given out about who gets them, and when, and why. The only way you know your royal fave has it is when she heads to an evening tiara event where orders are worn. (Compare this to Sweden, where they wear theirs ALL THE TIME. Practically on grocery runs.) And since we have no idea what rationale the Queen uses when deciding to give one, there’s no way to reasonably expect your royal fave has it.
Here’s the current line-up of members (as far as we know:) The Queen’s cousin, Princess Alexandra has one (she actually has the George VI as well.) The Queen’s cousins-in-law, the Duchesses of Kent and Gloucester, also have them. The Queen’s daughter Princess Anne has one, as do her two daughters-in-law the Duchess of Cornwall and the Countess of Essex. Camilla (Cornwall) got hers after being married about two years, but Sophie (Wessex) had to wait FIVE years.
BUT THAT’S IT! Only six people! Other confirmed members have passed away, (Diana, the Queen Mum, Princess Margaret & more) and while it’s possible Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie have them, neither of them has ever been to a tiara event so we have no way of knowing. And there are members of the Royal Family who’ve NEVER gotten, it, like Princess Michael of Kent and Sarah, Duchess of York.
So you can see why Kate getting it is such a big fucking deal and why some of us are so excited. My take: I think it will be super weird at this point if she DOESN’T have it, so I’m leaning towards YES.
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