The background
Just because you’ve married a prince, it doesn’t make you a princess – or so the former Kate Middleton, AKA the Duchess of Cambridge, has discovered. According to The Telegraph, the Queen has updated the Order of Precedence of the Royal Household: “The new rules of Court make it clear that the former Kate Middleton, when she is not accompanied by Prince William, must curtsy to the ‘blood princesses’, the Princess Royal, Princess Alexandra, and the daughters of the Duke of York, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.”
Arcane theory unlikely to happen in reality
“Why retain this fussy-sounding practice, with its great potential for embarrassment? Because it’s thought our modern, constitutional monarchy might wither away, or collapse into anarchy, if there was no bowing, curtseying and Order of Precedence,” wrote Peter McKay in The Daily Mail. But it seems the new rules are unlikely to see Kate curtseying in private. According to McKay, a Buckingham Palace source revealed: “When William is not present, Kate should curtsey to Beatrice and Eugenie. In theory. In practice, she doesn’t.”
New rules drag monarchy back to the sexist and feudal past
“Whilst Kate is being publicly celebrated for reinvigorating the monarchy, the new Order of Precedence will unfortunately serve to revive the whispering campaign against her on the basis of her non-aristocratic origins,” wrote Tom Sykes at The Daily Beast. Although the British Royal Family are attempting to present a more modern face to the world, the curtsy revelation “shows their people just how tightly the British monarchy still clings to some of its most anachronistic customs, how it still lionises birth and breeding over talent or usefulness and how it still imposes barely credible, highly sexist and feudal practices on its members”.
Zara Phillips: Nobody knows how to curtsey
Back in 2008, Zara Phillips (now Tindall) revealed she was always careful to curtsey to her grandmother even in private. And the daughter of Princess Anne complained that the art of the curtsey had disappeared: “There aren’t many people who know how it’s done. I know because I have grown up with it,” she said, reported The Telegraph.