THE ROYAL STYLE

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 30, 5 February 1927, Page 20

THE ROYAL STYLE

CHANGES IN THE KING'S TITLE.

Successive changes in the Royal title, ono of which' has just been, suggested by the Imperial Conference, are interesting as concentrating a large amount of our national history. When James VI., King of Scots, succeeded to the English throne in 1603, the title which passed to him from his predecessor was King of England, France, and Ireland. If tlie title of King of France recalled an unsuccessful past, the title of King of Ireland looked forward to a somewhat dubious future, says" the "Glasgow Herald." It had. been assumed- by Henry VIII., who preferred it to the description Lord of Ireland, with which his predecessors had been content. James, with a statesmanlike anxiety for the union of England and Scotland which was not combined with any tactical skill in his efforts to bring about the realisatioa of his project, conforred upon himself the new title of Great Britain. That style was very unpopular with his English subjects, who affected to fear a confusion with, the French province of Brittany, but he and M 3 descendants continued to use it, and familiarity with the name may have helped to smooth the long and difficult road to actual union. There was in the 17th century no Kingdom of Great Britain, for Engiand and Scotland- were separate kingdoms, with no constitutional bond of union except a recognition of the same sovereign as the monarch of each of them. For a few years, under Cromwell, there was an actual union; but the Commonwealth was described as the Commonwealth, not of Great Britain, but of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The name Great Britain, thus employed when it did not correspond to the facts and disregarded when it did, became the accurate, as well as the official, description after the union of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland in 1707. A few years later an addition to the Royal titles registered the fact of the succession of a new reigning House, for the King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland was also Elector of Hanover. No further change took place until the union with Ireland in 1801 necessitated an alteration in the royal style. George 111. became King of the United-Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and, with characteristic good sense, he seized the opportunity of divesting himself of the historical absurdity of

the description King of France, in spite of the fact that we were then at war with that country. The two alterations made in the royal style within living memory register the fact of the importance of the monarchy in relation to the Empire. When Parliament, under the leadership of Disraeli, conferred upon Queen Victoria the title of Empress of India, it took a step which could not be other than the beginning of a process, for India could not remain alone in the title of the Sovereign. The addition of the words "of the British Dominions beyond-the Seas" was made on tho accession of King Edward VII., and'the place of the Dominions in the British Commonwealth of Nations was thereby recognised. The further alteration now proposed is the result of the creation of the Irish Free State. For the last few years His Majesty has been in law, but not in fact, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The official style of King George remains as it was under the Eoyal Titles Act .of 1901, although the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland had ceased to exist. It is generally desirable that law should" coincide with fact, and the proposed new title, "King of Great Britain, Ireland, and the British. Dominions beyond tho Seas," will, doubtless; soon receive the necessary sanction of the Legislature.