TO MEET ROYALTY

Evening Star, Issue 19953, 24 August 1928, Page 1

TO MEET ROYALTY

I ‘ PAYMENT BANNED BY PRINCE 1 INVITATION SELLERS BLACKLISTED i‘ t ' Recently the Prince of Wales has 0 made it a rule in his social engage- . meats that ho must receive beforehand the names of persons who are to be y invited to meet him. ! Tho Duke of York since his m aril ago hal insisted on this rule being observed, 1 , and King George makes the same rc- , quirement. | Tho Prince has had deli nil e evidence - lately that certain well-to-do people , have paid to become his fellow guests. . .And he has now made it a rule that :1 in future, when he has reason for boil lieving that people havo paid money - for this purpose, ho will not meet them r or tho pepofc who received the money. s ; CUSTOM OF LONG STANDING. , In such cases as have occurred tho ’ money lias been paid to persons of high ® social position who frequently meet the Prince, but who arc not well oil. These c people would for a ‘‘consideration ’’ ar- ' range to scud well-to-do and socially e ambitious people an invitation to meet 0 the Prince. ! * This practice prevailed in the reign r of King Edward, who never objected to it. He took tho view that the praci' tice ben'-fited his friends, as it certainly a did—£lo,ooo was then what might al- ■" , most be called tbo market rate for an 6 ' invitation to meet the monarch at a d country house, and £20,600 was tho price for an invitation to meet _1 iio sovereign with Queen .Alexandra. King Edward stipulated, of course, that the persons asked to meet him in this way should be of good reputation and rca- .. sonahly good position and socially pro- • t sontable. (i | King George, however, neither as Prince of Wales nor as sovereign, has ever lent his countenance to this practice, Tho present Prince intends to follow his father’s example. In future any d person taking money in exchange for an n j invitation to meet tho Prince will -he y i blacklisted at Tori; Mouse, as well as o ! the ones who paid the money. e | ANOTHER “ BL.M-K LIST” RECALLED. j N) one, however, is likely to be " i blacklisted at York House for au offence that caused several persons to be blacklisted at Marlborough House in a for- ■ , mcr reign. The oflcnco was that of undue familiarity with the heir apparent. A well-known society woman—she is still alive—was a guest at SandringE ham. King Edward, then Prince of V AVides, had a large folding screen in 15 his writing room, on which he pasted i, autographed photographs of his different friends. It took him more than thirty years to cover the screen with photographs, one of the first of which was that of James Buchanan, President r . of tho United Stales, whom the Princo had met when he visited_ Am°rica alii most on the cvc of tho Civil War. io Tho woman in the incident was I- piqued because the Prince had not so asked her' for her photograph to put '■ on his screen, and alter dinner she wont > into the Prince’s writing room when he was not there and put her photos’ graph on the screen. That act ended her acquaintance with the Prince and Princess of Wales. The present Prince ol Wales probably would regard such an act as a joke. Ho can take quite good care of his “ dignity. In the ordinary course of hia life mi one is ever unduly familiar with him.