Prior Engagement

So, Archbishop Albus Dumbledore applied the Sorting Hat to Charles yesterday, but it didn't say anything. The 'Other Woman' got her Sorting Hat too and got to call herself Queen, instead of Queen Consort. Bet there were a few mutterings among the crowd.

I heard that Charles, the Third of That Name, was swearing at oafs. I'm not sure which oafs - there were plenty to choose from. Not a single Targeryn turned up to contest the succession though, nor a single dragon to be seen.

I was hoping to see the stage coach held up at Queen Victoria Gulch by a bunch of desperado Republicans. At least the soldiers didn't massacre to onlookers, like they did in 1066, when they thought that the cries of; "God save the King," was an insurrection, as they didn't understand Saxon. William the Conqueror was called William the Bastard by the Saxons, but not to his face.

Henry Somerset, the 12th Duke of Beaufort, who lives near to us in Badminton, was on the guest list for the Sorting Hat Ceremony.

Now the Duke of Beaufort has an annual shindig at his place that goes by the name of The Badminton Horse Trials, and it's a big thing in these parts, as it bring money into the community and into His Grace's coffers. 

Planning takes ages and all the horsey people throughout the UK (and the world) attend. The roads around J18 on the M4 are blocked with traffic. And when does it happen this year? 4th May to 7th May, and the coronation is right in the middle of it.

I'll bet anything The Duke of Beaufort was hoping he'd be left off the guest list and was pleading furiously that he had a prior engagement, but as a Royal Duke there was no dodging it.

Interesting facts about the Dukes of Beaufort:

FitzRoy Somerset (First Baron Raglan, who lost an arm at Waterloo), who issued the fatal order that led to The Charge of the Light Brigade, was the 9th son of the then Duke of Beaufort. The Beaufort dukedom is one of only two that aren't named after places in Britain, Waterloo being the other.

The Dukes of Beaufort are descended from Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset, a Lancastrian commander in the Wars of the Roses. The names Beaufort and Somerset were merely swapped.

The Old Duke, who died a couple of years ago, was, in his younger years, a dear ringer for Christopher Lee as Dracula.

See what I mean? Widow's peak and all. Hay's relatives on her dad's side all worked in service for the 9th Duke, who went by the magnificent name of Henry Adelbert Wellington FitzRoy Somerset. They all thought highly of his Mrs, who was the widow of a Dutch nobleman, Baron Charles Frederic van Tuyll van Serooskerken. The Tuylls are well represented in graveyards around here.

As for arresting the protesters; bringing in draconian laws against protesting heralds the rise of ugly authoritarianism. Instead of leaving them alone, they have been given unparalleled publicity and there will doubtless be legal challenges arising from the arrests. The right to protest is enshrined in the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, protected respectively under articles 10 and 11 of the European convention on human rights, which was directly incorporated into domestic British law by the Human Rights Act. No wonder the country has turned against our government - it rants against cancel culture and advocates free speech. and then cancels protesters and muffles their free speech. Rank hypocrisy!

Hay kept watching the highlights in the evening, but I could only raise the same enthusiasm as I do for Countryfile - I'll watch bits, but not the whole damned programme. The Hatting Ceremony was enough for me, followed by the concert, but that isn't till tonight. No amount of saying; "Is there anything else on," worked. Tonight it will probably be Countryfile in preference to the Hatting Concert. I tend to wipe Sunday evening out as far as televisual entertainment is concerned..