Today’s funeral of her late Majesty Elizabeth II was obviously going to attract a lot of etiquette junkies. So why shouldn’t Etiquetteer offer a few observations along with everyone else?
Handkerchiefs: Etiquetteer couldn’t help noticing the number of bare hands drifting to Facial Features to wipe away tears or scratch. This is done with most Perfect Propriety with a proper, forthright cloth handkerchief — linen, cotton, or silk, Etiquetteer is not here to judge you*. People do go on about their paper tissues, but Etiquetteer remains unmoved. Handkerchiefs for mourning often have a black border; order yours now for the next funeral, as it’s best to be prepared.
Gloves: In the same vein, Etiquetteer misses gloves, and would have loved to see some Perfectly Proper hands gloved in black or white, as appropriate.
Public speaking: Practice, Poise, and Phrasing make all the difference when one has to speak in public, particularly at such an august event as a Royal funeral — not to mention Diction and Enunciation. Etiquetteer can only add that any speaker who can make listeners consider a familiar text in a new way has achieved the goal.
Mourning (Participants):As a rule, mourning is not ostentatious; it doesn’t call attention to itself. All the Royal ladies, unsurprisingly, appeared with unrelieved black; Etiquetteer might have subtracted a bow or two, but that would be “to cavil at the customs of the great.” The severely simple costume of the much-discussed Duchess of Sussex with its with cape takes the honors from Etiquetteer’s point of view, achieving what Shaw’s description of Ann Whitfield’s mourning dress in Man and Superman: “She has devised a mourning costume . . . which does honor to her late father and reveals the family tradition of brave unconventionality.”
Sticklers will recall the custom of the deuil blanc, when Royal ladies would dress in all white for deepest mourning. (The most famous example of this in modern times is Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’s all-white wardrobe for an unavoidable State visit to France which was complicated by the death of her mother immediately before.) That example obscures another important part of the deuil blanc: seclusion. When Francis II of France died, his widow Mary Queen of Scots had to submit to “forty days of strict seclusion during which she might not for a moment leave her private apartments . . . “** We’ve moved on from that.
It was also more usual that Royal ladies didn’t attend funerals. Sometimes traditions need to be abandoned, and that’s a good example. Consider how very impressively the Princess Royal has participated, and also the granddaughters of the Queen joining a vigil around the coffin with her grandsons.
Mourning Jewelry: Again, mourning is about the absence of display and color. This is why, in general, mourning jewelry is limited to jewelry one wears every day (wedding rings, a string of pearls) and jet. Sentiment plays its part, too, and this is why it’s become more usual to allow jewelry that has a special link to the deceased. Princess Charlotte’s horseshoe brooch was a gift from her great-grandmother, for instance. Queen Camilla also chose a brooch given her by the Queen, which turns out to be a present to Queen Victoria from her Hessian grandchildren for her Diamond Jubilee.
Mourning (Shoes): Moving away from the Family, did you notice the woman marching in the procession wearing black sneakers? Many people would take umbrage over athletic shoes on such an occasion. But we don’t know her relationship with her podiatrist, or how many miles one has to march, and it's best not to judge under the circumstances. Certainly they looked clean and tidy, which could only be Perfectly Proper.
Mourning (Spectators): Did you also observe the mourner wrapped in the Union Jack and sporting a fur hunter's cap? Sorry dear, that’s not showing respect, that’s exhibitionism. That woman was a pair of horns and a tube of face paint away from the Crazed Insurrectionist. This is a funeral, dear, not a football game.
Steadfastness: Etiquetteer could not help noticing the evidence of horses dotting the route; “horse apples” is an old Victorian euphemism. Etiquetteer remained anxious for those marchers who found these in their direct path, but Duty and Protocol allow one to break stride only so much (read: not at all), and admired their self-control. Under the circumstances, they’ll need to tip their bootblacks extra.
*Or perhaps Etiquetteer is . . . 🤔😬
**Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles, by Stefan Zweig (1935).