Word: debrett
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Nothing of the sort had ever happened before in the crusty world of Debrett's, the handbook of the British aristocracy, and it took a three-year court battle to force the decision to confer the title. That struggle really began, however, in 1912, when Sir Ewan was born, registered a female and baptized Elizabeth. As he grew up, Elizabeth became more and more convinced that he was, in fact, male. "It was hell," he recalled in a 1952 interview, "especially when I was forced to attend the debutante balls during my first London season." By the time...
...past 182 years, Britons have engaged in a strange vernal rite. Armed with a strong reading glass and a stronger curiosity, they amble attentively through the scarlet-and-gold-bound thickets of Debrett's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage & Companionage, the annual compendium of who's who in the British aristocracy. The sport is more sedentary than bird watching, but the discoveries can be just as fascinating. Take this year's 6-lb., 3,202-page edition, which made its appearance last week...
...only could Debrett watchers read for the first time the biographies of Scottish clan chiefs,* but in a special introductory article by Editor P. W. Montague-Smith they learned some new facts about Queen Elizabeth II. Everybody knows that the Queen is descended from William the Conqueror, who defeated Saxon King Harold at Hastings just 900 years ago this October. What Montague-Smith has discovered, though, is that Elizabeth also carries the blood of Harold in her veins...
When his father's death made him a viscount in 1960, a popular, promising Labor M.P. named Anthony Wedgwood Benn rocked the Debrett set by declaring vehemently that he wanted no part of the peerage. Reason: lords, lunatics, criminals and minors are barred from sitting in the House of Commons, where political careers are made and most Cabinet ministers chosen...
Last year Britain's Debrett set had some etiquette pointers for the Radziwills. After accompanying the President of the U.S. and his wife to a dinner at Buckingham Palace, they were listed on the official court calendar as Prince and Princess. Proper Britons boggled over the fact that Stash is now a British subject, thus could correctly use his title only if he had a special license from the Queen, which might be as hard to get as some annulments. The accepted explanation for the faux pas was that palace protocol officers consciously elevated the Radziwills on that occasion...