A Senior Moment
Fayette News
Dear Windsor, Cornwall, and Cambridge HRH families,
I have applied on your website for the position of Senior Royal now that the Duke of Sussex and his wife have decided to step down from their official duties to the crown. I became a Senior when I turned 65, therefore, I have one year experience, although some days I feel like I have more experience than others.
Even though I live “across the pond”, I am one of the best Anglophiles. Here are my credentials:
- I know my English royal history well. I know who did what to whom and when, where, and why it happened, especially during your family’s Tudor reign. I live in a Tudor Revival home, therefore surrounded with reminders every day of the Tudor architecture and influences.
- My Ancestry.com profile has placed my relations very close to royal blood since the 1600s. When I say close, my people probably hung with yours as their minions.
- I am a card-carrying Oxfordian. There are people in your country that probably don’t know what that is, yet, here I am, an American and I am familiar with it. I mention this because I read that the Prince of Wales sympathizes with this theory as I am hoping for some brownie points of the authorship of Shakespeare.
- I’ve subscribed to “Majesty Magazine” for well over twenty years and have saved every issue because I am a pack-rat Because of this if there is something I am supposed to know but don’t remember reading (doubtful), I can refer to my back issues.
- My mother, a history teacher, told this story many times: when she was due to give birth to me, Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation was to be televised. She worried she might miss coronation day. She was able to see it. I came along five days later. Therefore, I feel I have a special relationship with the Queen since our families had celebrations in June, 1953.
- I awoke in the early morning of July 29, 1981 to see the Prince Charles and Diana’s wedding ceremony live on television. Mother and I were in London when Prince William was born on June 21, 1982 and again I awoke early for William and Catherine’s wedding. I’m respectful by writing Catherine and not Kate even spelling it correctly.
- When William’s wedding to Catherine Middleton on April 29, 2011 at Westminster Abbey was a topic many were interested in, I decided to have a little fun with this. A month before the wedding, I wrote on my Facebook page that I was “invited to the ceremony. My invitation and ticket to enter the cathedral came in the mail today.” As Royals, y’all know this wasn’t ludicrous because Will and Catherine did extend a few invitations to commoners for their upcoming nuptials. As a modern couple wishing to modernize the monarchy by having all kinds of people represented there, who better to invite than this Anglophile-know-it-all? It was un
Having been to Westminster Abbey, I remembered the layout. I wrote on Facebook that my ticket said I would be sitting in alcove “E”, row 17, and seat number 32. I remarked that I was “totally surprised to be one of the ‘regular/commoner’ guests who applied to be invited to the wedding.”
My friends knew how gaga I was over all y’all but still most knew it was a hoax. One social media friend was fooled. Excited, she wrote profusely on Facebook to make sure I memorized every detail of the wedding so that I could relay it to her when I came home.
See? I even have that impish streak, should you miss that comic relief in your family without Harry. Unlike Harry, I have respect for long lasting institutions and also as a Senior I have begun not to care what other people think.
I’d be honored if y’all chose me to be the newest Senior royal.
I know how to curtsy correctly but not sure I can give up saying “y’all”,
Lee St. John