Yes, Victoria was amused
QUESTION Was any British monarch known to be a good joke-teller? The popular image of Queen Victoria is of a dour, unsmiling widow, but this is a false impression.
In most of her photographs, she is stonyfaced, yet this was a normal pose when long camera exposure times meant subjects had to remain still for several minutes to get a sharp image.
Victoria was associated incorrectly with the grim phrase ‘We are not amused’ and maintained a controlled expression in public so as not to appear frivolous.
however, in private she is said to have often roared with laughter. She would joke about her diminutive stature (‘everybody grows but me’) and loved wordplay. She referred to the daughter of a Mr Gunn as ‘little Miss Pistol’.
She even laughed at danger, commenting after an assassination attempt that it was worth being shot at to see how beloved she was to her people.
her predecessor William IV was known for his bluff, sometimes crude, humour. When the Privy Council was first brought in to greet him and collectively dropped to one knee, he mischievously asked: ‘Who is Silly Billy now?’
Instances of humour are few and far between by monarchs in medieval times. however, it appears that henry III (12071272) was something of a practical joker.
In 1242, he was returning from France having sealed a peace with his brother-inlaw Louis IX, when he put the wind up his long-serving clerk Peter the Poitevin.
During the voyage home, he had a fake note entered into the Crown records recording that Peter owed henry an enormous list of debts, including ‘five dozen capons for a trespass onboard ship’ and ‘34 tuns of wine’.
The list was left out for Peter to see and he was panicked by the size of his debt. henry had the entries struck through, but the joke was maintained with concerned members of the court asking Peter what he intended to do about the great debt he owed the king.
Paul Hughes, Welwyn Garden City, Herts. WhILe not exactly royalty, Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) was the feared Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of england, Scotland and Ireland.
however, as a young man he was known for his roistering behaviour and as an inveterate practical joker.
Cromwell sent messages to his daughter Bridget through her second husband, Charles Fleetwood, punning on her nickname Biddy: ‘ Bid her beware’ and ‘Bid her be cheerful’.
During a Commons debate, he broke up the discussion by starting a pillow fight. he threw a cushion at the MP edmund Ludlow, ‘springing down the stairs away from Ludlow’s vengeance’.
Antonia Fraser’s biography of Cromwell refers to the astonishing story that, after the signing of Charles I’s death warrant, Cromwell and henry Marten, a Parliamentary judge: ‘ Inked each other’s faces with pens . . . as the warrant lay in the Painted Chamber, like grotesque schoolboys’.
Adam Coleman, Ludlow, Shropshire. QUESTION Why did German SS officers dress in jodhpurs and riding boots? The SS ( Schutzstaffel, which means protection squadron) wore breeches rather than jodhpurs for historical and practical reasons.
In 1932, Professor Karl Diebitsch and graphic designer and SS member Walter heck designed a new black SS uniform. heinrich himmler, the head of the SS, wanted to distinguish it from hitler’s stormtroopers, the Sturmabteilung (SA), known as the brownshirts.
The SS uniforms were tailored to foster fear. As himmler put it: ‘I know there are many people who fall ill when they see this black uniform; we understand that and don’t expect that we will be loved by many people.’
It was designed to resemble the uniform of the Leibhusaren Brigade, the Prussian cavalry (hussar) brigade, which had served as the emperor’s personal guard, just as the SS had started as the Fuhrer’s official bodyguard.
The shirt remained brown as a nod to the SA, of which the SS was nominally a part. The 1932 dress uniform was a peaked cap with an eagle and swastika badge and hussar- style death’s head, black tie, black four-pocket jacket with an armband, black breeches, belt and cross brace and riding boots.
The breeches were not mandatory except on parade, but were routinely worn by cavalry, Panzer tank units and those in the artillery and supply who rode a horse.
Jodhpurs are full-length trews, while breeches stop just above the ankle. They tend to be more tapered at the bottom and, in the case of the SS uniform, have a touch-and- close fastening to ensure a close fit around the calf.
Riding garments are designed to allow flexibility in the hips and thighs, while the more narrow lower portion works well with riding boots and doesn’t get caught in stirrups.
Richard Hansen, St Ives, Cornwall. QUESTION What is a polliwog? FuRTheR to the earlier answer that detailed the alternate use of polliwog (a tadpole) for an initiate in the Crossing the Line (the equator) ceremony, another term for the novice was griffin.
Charles Darwin described his experience as a griffin when Crossing the Line on hMS Beagle on February 16, 1832.
he noted how he ‘was placed on a plank, which could be easily tilted up into a large bath of water. They then lathered my face and mouth with pitch and paint, and scraped some of it off with a piece of roughened iron hoop.
‘A signal being given, I was tilted head over heels into the water, where two men received me and ducked me. At last, glad enough, I escaped . . . The whole ship was a shower bath . . . not one person, even the Captain, got clear of being wet through.’
Beth Gayle, Porthmadog, Gwynedd.
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