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Well this was an awesome display of pangeantry as only the Brits know how to do. I'm glad I caught it, if only the end.

I noticed that! The orchestra is really outdoing itself with Rule Britannia!

Didn't see William and Kate but the Queen looked radiant in white. I enjoyed seeing her and Camilla together on the barge.

Hi, I haven't posted much lately but I lurk from time to time. I just had to stop in and say I'm really enjoying the Jubilee pageant. The queen looks great! Pity the weather isn't better. Does anyone know where to get livestreaming with commentary? I'm watching the Guardians live feed and while...

As far as I can tell, we don't know what advice the Queen gave Diana. I do know that Diana was the only in-law that the Queen was willing to see without an appointment and she wasn't willing to do that even for her children. They did have quite a few private conversations but the Queen is not...

Yeah, I can agree with that. There was the infamous comment where he said he wished he had two wives so he could send both of them on opposite sides of the royal walkabout so he could re-direct traffic. Honestly though, I think Diana did more public sniping but after reading Wharfe's book, I...

Compared to some mother-in-laws I know, the Queen was an ideal mother-in-law because she didn't get involved in their marriage. I can't count how many women I have heard say that they wish their mother-in-law would stay out of their marriage. Honestly, if Diana was looking for that kind of...

Hi, I haven't been here in awhile and I thought I'd check in because I just got around to finishing Ken Wharfe's book, Closely Guarded Secret. According to him, the marriage between Charles and Diana was way beyond bad by the time William got hurt. Most of the time, they couldn't stay in the...

I think its difficult for the Royal Family to handle any of the Royals carrying on their own personal agenda in public - even if the agenda itself is good or noble. They've got to make it look like they all represent the same institution or else people won't know what the institution stands for...

Thanks for that update, skydragon. I didn't know about the fall from this horse. Looks like Zara is trying to put some show miles on some younger horses - with the predictable thrills and spills. :D

Hi Arncliffe. Well Zara is still doing 3 day eventing. She rode another horse, Secret Legacy, at the HSBC World Cup Qualifier at Tattersalls but withdrew her horse from the cross-country. So it seems she's trying out a lot of horses. The trial at Tattersalls looked tough.

Well Angeline, she just sent a new racehorse she trained to her maiden race and the mare won. Zara's not doing too much with Toytown and Ardfield Magic Star but she did take two of her younger horses out to a smaller competition. I wrote a blog about it here...

Good point, Zara. Badminton had a lot of small 2-jump combinations. At first thought the course was TOO easy compared to last year but no one was seriously hurt this year and a lot of riders had time penalties so it couldn't have been that easy.

Hi sgl, I don't think so. At least I haven't heard that Zara was planning on pulling Toytown out of future events. But then again, I would be surprised if she did pull him out since he wasn't hurt. I'd be more concerned about Ardfield Magic Star since he did pull up lame. Yeah, I know lameness...

You're welcome iceflower. :) Here's a clip of Zara's run with Toytown. The crash is towards the end of the clip. It looks quite scary but Toytown wasn't hurt. YouTube - Zara Phillips & Toytown at Badminton 09

The country-country phase didn't go so well today for Zara Philips in the Badminton Horse Trials. She had to retire both of her horses from the competition: Ardfield Magic Star and Toytown. Better luck next time, Zara.

This is a horrible and shocking event. Frighteningly, nowadays I think there are a lot of people who are just angry at the world and take it out on everybody. Unfortunately I think it will make future royal events less open which is a shame but what can they do?

I've been away from here, picking up riding, and learning from others who compete in the various horse sports. From what I've seen, Zara is pretty respected by all types of riders in Britain and the U.S. not just the wealthy. I just wrote a blog post about Zara and her eventing sponsorships...

Sounds like a republican writer who was rather pissed that Diana didn't take the groundswell of public affection and use it to topple over the monarchy. I always suspected that some of the media that seemed so supportive of Diana were not so supportive of Diana herself but were rather using her...

Until Harry's tape, I never heard anybody but Pakis use the term Paki and I'm sure they didn't mean it offensively. So I was a bit confused about this incident. Perhaps the term has different connotations in Britain but here we don't hear it that much except from the people themselves.

From what I've read about David, he was ambivalent about taking the throne. He may have loved Wallis but abdicating the throne meant that he just dropped the troubles onto his younger brother who was ill prepared for it. That's not taking responsibility in my book; that's saying if I can't have...

I think it depends on what you think a reward is. I don't see marriage as being a reward but more of a responsibility. The message from the Queen seemed to be that if Camilla was going to enjoy the private side of her son, then they'd better make it legal and both take on the public...

Well the first Duke of Cornwall was Edward the Black Prince but in literature, the most famous Duchess of Cornwall had to be King Arthur's mother, Ygraine. The title, Duke of Cornwall, probably had an older history than that of the Prince of Wales.

I don't know why its so hard to find signatures of historical monarchs but I found two from previous Swedish kings during the rule of absolutism; one of them signed his name 'Sigismundus Rex' and the other signed his name simply 'Carolus' You would expect at least the absolute monarchs to sign...

Its hard to tell with Carl Gustaf's signature but I think he doesn't use the 'R'. http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1222/868588411_994b3e0bba.jpg?v=0