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State Procession At The State Opening Of Parliament
The State Opening of Parliament includes a State Procession, a formal display of the Sovereign, dignified by a sizeable entourage made up of Great Officers of State, members of the royal family and of the Royal Household. The State Procession is now confined to the interior of the Palace of Westminster, but in earlier centuries it followed an outdoor route to and from Westminster Abbey. The State Opening of Parliament is one of the few occasions when a State Procession is to be seen; the Coronation Procession is another. Historical background An account of Henry VII opening Parliament on 7 November 1485 includes a description of the processions which preceded it. By this time the pattern had become established whereby the Peers of the Realm would assemble at the Palace of Westminster (which was the King's principal residence). They would then go in procession on foot to nearby Westminster Abbey for Mass, prior to returning in procession to the Palace for the Opening of Pa ...
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State Opening Of Parliament (18129547086)
The State Opening of Parliament is a ceremonial event which formally marks the beginning of a session of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It includes a speech from the throne known as the King's (or Queen's) Speech. The event takes place in the House of Lords chamber on the first day of a new session, which is usually in May or June, and traditionally in November, but can occur at any time of year depending on the timing of General Elections and parliamentary session start dates. It takes place in front of both Houses of Parliament. The monarch, wearing the Imperial State Crown, reads a speech that has been prepared by his or her government outlining its plans for that parliamentary year. The most recent ceremony was held on 10 May 2022. Queen Elizabeth II opened every session of Parliament during her reign, except in 1959, 1963, and 2022. In 1959 and 1963, she was pregnant with Prince Andrew and Prince Edward respectively and those two sessions were opened by Lord ...
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Lords Spiritual
The Lords Spiritual are the bishops of the Church of England who serve in the House of Lords of the United Kingdom. 26 out of the 42 diocesan bishops and archbishops of the Church of England serve as Lords Spiritual (not counting retired archbishops who sit by right of a peerage). The Church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian, and the Anglican churches in Wales and Northern Ireland, which are no longer established churches, are not represented. The Lords Spiritual are distinct from the Lords Temporal, their secular counterparts who also sit in the House of Lords. Ranks and titles The Church of England comprises 42 dioceses, each led by a diocesan bishop. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, as Primate of All England and Primate of England, respectively, have oversight over their corresponding provinces. The occupants of the five "great sees"—Canterbury, York, London, Durham and Winchester—are always Lords of Parliament. Of the remaining 35 bishops, the 21 most senior ...
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Privilege Of Peerage
The privilege of peerage is the body of special privileges belonging to members of the British peerage. It is distinct from parliamentary privilege, which applies only to those peers serving in the House of Lords and the members of the House of Commons, while Parliament is in session and forty days before and after a parliamentary session. The privileges have been lost and eroded over time. Only three survived into the 20th century: the right to be tried by other peers of the realm instead of juries of commoners, freedom from arrest in civil (but not criminal) cases, and access to the Sovereign to advise him or her on matters of state. The right to be tried by other peers was abolished in 1948. Legal opinion considers the right of freedom from arrest as extremely limited in application, if at all. The remaining privilege is not exercised and was recommended for formal abolition in 1999, but has never been formally revoked. Peers also have several other rights not formally par ...
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Whitehall Palace
The Palace of Whitehall (also spelt White Hall) at Westminster was the main residence of the English monarchs from 1530 until 1698, when most of its structures, except notably Inigo Jones's Banqueting House of 1622, were destroyed by fire. Henry VIII moved the royal residence to White Hall after the old royal apartments at the nearby Palace of Westminster were themselves destroyed by fire. Although the Whitehall palace has not survived, the area where it was located is still called Whitehall and has remained a centre of government. White Hall was at one time the largest palace in Europe, with more than 1,500 rooms, overtaking the Vatican, before itself being overtaken by the expanding Palace of Versailles, which was to reach 2,400 rooms. The palace gives its name, Whitehall, to the street located on the site on which many of the current administrative buildings of the present-day British government are situated, and hence metonymically to the central government itself. At ...
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Blackfriars, London
Blackfriars is in central London, specifically the south-west corner of the City of London. Blackfriars Priory The name is first visible today in records of 1317 in many orthographies. Friar evolved from la, frater as french: frère has, meaning 'brother'. Black refers to the black cappa worn by Dominican Friars. They moved their 1220s-founded priory from just west of Holborn bridge at the top of Shoe Lane (modern Holborn Circus) a few hundred metres south to be between the tidal Thames and the west of Ludgate Hill, a modest rise, but the highest in the city proper, in about 1276. Edward I gave permission to rebuild London's city wall, against the Fleet brook and Ludgate Hill, north and west of their precinct. The site hosted great occasions of state, including meetings of Parliament and the Privy Council, state visits, such as of Emperor Charles V in 1522, then, seven years later, a divorce hearing of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII. The priory was by legal process di ...
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Bridewell Palace
Bridewell Palace in London was built as a residence of King Henry VIII and was one of his homes early in his reign for eight years. Given to the City of London Corporation by his son King Edward VI for use as an orphanage and place of correction for wayward women, Bridewell later became the first prison/poorhouse to have an appointed doctor. It was built on the banks of the Fleet River in the City of London between Fleet Street and the River Thames in an area today known as Bridewell Place, off New Bridge Street. By 1556 part of it had become a jail known as Bridewell Prison. It was reinvented with lodgings and was closed in 1855 and the buildings demolished in 1863–1864. The name "Bridewell" subsequently became a common name for a jail, used not only in England but in other cities colonised by Britain including Dublin, Chicago and New York. History Bridewell Palace The palace was built on the site of the medieval St Bride's Inn directly south of St Bride's Church ...
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Lords Temporal
The Lords Temporal are secular members of the House of Lords, the upper house of the British Parliament. These can be either life peers or hereditary peers, although the hereditary right to sit in the House of Lords was abolished for all but ninety-two peers during the 1999 reform of the House of Lords. The term is used to differentiate these members from the Lords Spiritual, who sit in the House as a consequence of being bishops in the Church of England. History Membership in the Lords Temporal was once an entitlement of all hereditary peers, other than those in the peerage of Ireland. Under the House of Lords Act 1999, the right to membership was restricted to 92 hereditary peers. Since 2020, none of them are female; most hereditary peerages can be inherited only by men. Further reform of the House of Lords is a perennially-discussed issue in British politics. However, no additional legislation on this issue has passed the House of Commons since 1999. The Wakeham ...
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Lord Chamberlain
The Lord Chamberlain of the Household is the most senior officer of the Royal Household of the United Kingdom, supervising the departments which support and provide advice to the Sovereign of the United Kingdom while also acting as the main channel of communication between the Sovereign and the House of Lords. The office organises all ceremonial activity such as garden parties, state visits, royal weddings, and the State Opening of Parliament. They also handle the Royal Mews and Royal Travel, as well as the ceremony around the awarding of honours. For over 230 years, the Lord Chamberlain had the power to decide which plays would be granted a licence for performance. From 1737 to 1968, this meant that the Lord Chamberlain had the capacity to censor theatre at his pleasure. The Lord Chamberlain is always sworn of the Privy Council, is usually a peer and before 1782 the post was of Cabinet rank. The position was a political one until 1924. The office dates from the Middle A ...
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Lord Great Chamberlain
The Lord Great Chamberlain of England is the sixth of the Great Officers of State, ranking beneath the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and above the Lord High Constable. The Lord Great Chamberlain has charge over the Palace of Westminster (though since the 1960s his personal authority has been limited to the royal apartments and Westminster Hall). The Lord Great Chamberlain also has a major part to play in royal coronations, having the right to dress the monarch on coronation day and to serve the monarch water before and after the coronation banquet, and also being involved in investing the monarch with the insignia of rule. On formal state occasions, he wears a distinctive scarlet court uniform and bears a gold key and a white staff as the insignia of his office. Officeholders The position is a hereditary one, held since 1780 in gross. At any one time, a single person actually exercises the office of Lord Great Chamberlain. The various individuals who hold fractions of the ...
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Lord High Constable Of England
The Lord High Constable of England is the seventh of the Great Officers of State, ranking beneath the Lord Great Chamberlain and above the Earl Marshal. This office is now called out of abeyance only for coronations. The Lord High Constable was originally the commander of the royal armies and the Master of the Horse. He was also, in conjunction with the Earl Marshal, president of the court of chivalry or court of honour. In feudal times, martial law was administered in the court of the Lord High Constable. The constableship was granted as a grand serjeanty with the Earldom of Hereford by the Empress Matilda to Miles of Gloucester, and was carried by his heiress to the Bohuns, earls of Hereford and Essex. They had a surviving male heir, and still have heirs male, but due to the power of the monarchy the constableship was irregularly given to the Staffords, Dukes of Buckingham; and on the attainder of Edward Stafford, the third Duke, in the reign of King Henry VIII, it became mer ...
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Cap Of Maintenance
Typical of British heraldry, a cap of maintenance, known in heraldic language as a ''chapeau gules turned up ermine'', is a ceremonial cap of crimson velvet lined with ermine, which is worn or carried by certain persons as a sign of nobility or special honour. It is worn with the high part to the fore, the tapering tail behind. It may substitute for the torse (a twisted roll of fabric) in the heraldic achievement of a person of special honour granted the privilege by the monarch. It thus appears in such cases on top of the helm and below the crest. It does not, however, feature in the present royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom, which shows the royal crest upon the royal crown, itself upon the royal helmet. Origins The origin of this symbol of dignity is obscure. One might speculate that the origin relates to the Old French verb ''maintenir'' – "to hold" or "to keep". A purpose of the cap was to keep a crown or coronet secure (and comfortable) on the head, thus its fu ...
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