Royal Flush During the war I met in Edinburgh a
velvet- clad youth who claimed with sobriety and elegance to be the rightful ruler of the United Kingdom and all lands thereto appertaining. Such an encounter was by no means out of the way in that strange and bomb-free city; and I'm rather pleased that Edinburgh should have been selected for the first International Congress for Monarchical Studies, to be held this week- end. No purple politics, says the chairman, who declares that the Congress meets only `to study monarchy in its historical and anthropological context and to discuss what it has to offer for the future.' The four themes to be discussed are: the validity of monarchy in the twentieth century; monarchy and the Jacobite movement; hereditary and elective monarchy; and the validity of monarchic and princely house orders. If Edin- burgh does not work some weird magic on the solemn deliberations, my name is Cromwell. The patron of the congress is the Countess of Errol, Hereditary Lord High Constable of Scotland (who played a peacemaking part in the last stage of the Stone of Destiny saga), and I see that her husband, Sir Ian Moncreiffe of that Ilk, Albany Herald, is among its vice-presidents. I'm glad to see that the Marquis and Marquesa dc Santa Maria de Silvela y del Castanar will be there, as
well as Serlorita Conchita-Viviana de Santa Maria de Silvela de la Viesca. and I hope the Tatter's emissary has her pencils sharpened.
There will be delegates not only as one would expect from the Company of the Crown of Stuart, the Monarchist League, and the Royal Stuart Society, but also from the National Society of Americans of Royal Descent, the
Order of Americans of Armorial Ancestry, and the Order of the Crown of Charlemagne (that last based in Hartford, Connecticut). I hope they all have themselves a right royal ball.
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