DUKE'S CHANGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 102, 2 May 1935, Page 14

DUKE'S CHANGE.

ROYAL ETIQUETTE.

WEIGHT ADDED ABROAD.

UNIFORM TOO TIGHT !

(Special.—By Air Mail.)

LONDON, April 0.

The Duke of Gloucester boarded the train at Portsmouth on> his return from Australia this week wearing military undress uniform. When he stepped out of the train at Victoria he was in full dress tunic and busby. Why? That is what many people who saw pictures of the two events wondered. The change was an example of the endless thought that has to be given to the etiquette of Royal dress. The officers of H.M.S. Australia were in military undress uniform when the Duke said good-bye to them. So the Duke wore the same. On the landing stage he was informed that the King would greet him at Victoria. The Duke, therefore, being a soldier, put on full military uniform during the journey. The King, out of compliment to his soldier son, wore the full dress uniform of a general dismounted. The Prince of Wales did not put on his Guards uniform, but the dress of r.n admiral in the Navy, as that is the senior service.

For the same reason the Duke of York was in naval uniform. Only as the train was entering London did the Duke complete his change. His Hussar tunic, which fitted him perfectly when lie left London was found to be distinctly tight on his return. So the Duke kept his undress greatcoat on until ten minutes before greeting his father.

King Edward was extremely particular that every detail of dress should be correct. He would not receive a man wearing two buttons on his knee breeches if the fashion had changed to three buttons. A man wearing only one pair of black silk stockings would l)o turned back. It was decided in Queen Victoria's reign that silk stockings being semi-transparent were not quite modest. Two pairs must be worn. The most celebrated mistake was made by the Prince Consort. He arrived at a function wearing the ribbon of the Garter on the wrong shoulder. All the guests wearing the ribbon immediately changed theirs over, but the mistake never occurred again.

The most sensational departure from tradition in history occurred when Mahatnia Gandhi was received by the King at Buckingham Palace wearing a loin cloth and a blanket. Royal indulgence was granted to a Quaker who went to a levee without a sword. Officials sent him away, but later, when he hnd explained that the sword to him, signified war, and that it was against his conscience te> wear it, he was received.