Princess Catherine and Vanity Fair

[Karl-G]

Princess Catherine and Prince William have now landed in Canada amidst great excitement. And the cover of this week's Newsweek Magazine, as created by Tina Brown, has stirred up a bit of controversy. On the cover is an image of a 50 year old Princess Diana, mother-in-law of Catherine, and the new Duchess of Cambridge in conversation. Some find the image tasteless, others pointless on a weekly news magazine, and others have found it an inspiration for parodies.

 

One of the better ones so far is a cover of Vanity Fair with King James II (one of William's predecessors) asking himself which of the two handsome young men standing in front of him (William and Harry in tight white polo pants) he prefers. James was married but apparently gay by preference.

 

Meanwhile, Catherine continues to be the fashion leader. She was photographed this morning boarding the plane in London for Canada wearing a dark blue dress by a French designer ( in tribute to all the French-speaking people in Quebec) and a blue blazer by Smythe Vests of Canada (showing she respected ultimate unity). When she got off the plane a few hours later, however, she was wearing a print dress by a Montreal designer (in honor of the great city she will visit on Sunday) and Manolo Blahnik shoes (in honor of the Spanish speaking citizens of Canada and the British shoemakers of London). [This is all explained by Tina Brown in an article on her Daily Beast webpage.] The calfskin for the shoes comes from cattle in the N.W. territories. [school children in Toronto, you are told when touring, speak 67 different languages and so do their teachers. If Kate intends to honor all of them, this is going to be a very busy visit!]

 

On the flight from London, Tina explains, the couple enjoyed a light lunch of pierogies (in honor of the Polish citizens of Ontario) and sushi ( as a tribute to all the Japanese people in Canada). This was washed down with a single glass apiece of LaBatt Lite, in honor of the national Canadian beverage. Meanwhile one of William's aides has leaked that William intends to wear red and white boxers throughout his visit as a tribute to the Canadian flag and Canada Day tomorrow.

[Guest Rich.]

Who the fuck is Princess Catherine? I thought we were sending HRH The Duchess of Cambridge.

 

Richard

[MsGuy]

LOL, cut us some slack, Richard. The niceties of Brit royal honorifics are a puzzlement to us Americans. So she's a duchess, not a princess, but also a "HRH", not a "her grace" because she's married to a prince of the blood royal? Feh. Makes my head hurt.

[Poolboy21409]

You are so correct. Technically, she is Princess William of Wales like Princess Michael of Kent. She is in her own right now the Duchess of Cambridge among other title but not a Princess. She is not technically a Princess that can use that title by herself. And as correctly pointed out she is a Your Royal Highness Duchess - A Royal Duchess -- not a Your Grace, a NOBLE Duchess or Duke. Are we ever going to get it right Duckie.

 

By the way, I am the illegitimate son of Phillip and Elizabeth - first son - and had I been legitimate, I would not have fucked up the first 30 years like Chuckie did.

[orbital sander]

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz...Huh, What..

;)

[Samai139]

Agree that the nicieties of British titles may be boring and tedious to most Americans, and posters here should be given some slack, but there is no excuse for US newspapers, US Magazines and US television news to refer to Catherine as "Princess". They should and I suspect do know better but are too sloppy and/or lazy to get it right.

BTW Catherine is not now Royal and never will be---her children, should she have them, will be, but not her. She will eventually be a Princess and perhaps a Queen and outrank her husband's Aunt, Princess Royal Anne, but in the royal pecking order she was born a commoner and that's the way the royals will always think of her.

I guess on this Fourth of July weekend, we should be glad we shed all this class nonsense long ago.

[+ Charlie]

Karl-G, I think you meant to refer to James I, not James II (James I was the grandfather of James II). James I was notorious for his attractive young male "favorites," the most notable being George Villiers, whom he created Duke of Buckingham. He gave Buckingham great political power, but unfortunately he was more sexy than competent.

[Guest Rich.]

the most notable being George Villiers

 

It made me smile when Heaven (then Europe's largest gay nightclub) opened on Villiers Street, way back in 1979.

 

Richard

[Karl-G]

James II

 

No, actually I meant James II.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2010021/Vanity-Fair-takes-swipe-Newsweek-spoof-Princess-Diana-cover.html

 

Perhaps all the Stuarts had a thing for boys. : - )

[+ Charlie]

Vanity Fair isn't very historically minded, or they wouldn't have confused the two Jameses. They also headline "James II at 310," but he would actually be 377 today. James II was something of a libertine, impregnating his first wife (a commoner) before he married her, and keeping several mistresses during his two marriages. It was his grandfather, James I, whose infatuations with attractive young men, despite his marriage and children, titillated the court and exasperated his ministers.

[+ purplekow]

So You meant James the VI of Scotland, Son of Mary Queen of Scots. GreatGrandson of Henry VII. I could look it up to check but I am relying of some very old synapses here so please correct me if I am wrong. James VI became James I of England and followed Elizabeth I daughter of Henry VIII. She had no children so James became king as Elizabeth had ordered the decapitation of his mother, her cousin Mary who kept gettting caught trying to overthrow the queen from her jail cell. Elizabeth became queen only after her half brother and half sister ruled and died without producing an heir. There was that slight issue of her legitimacy. All this for the sake of religion, which was only an issue because Henry VIII could not have a son with his brother's widow, Catherine of Aragon and so instead of just fucking anyone he wanted, which he did anyway. he had to marry someone to get a legitimate male heir as his daughter Mary, Bloody Mary as she was nicknames as a result of her ordering the deaths of many Protestant supports or Elizabeth, was just a woman. Irony has it that once he had a son, Edward was frail and died young so Henry had a male heir on the throne for a short time and female heirs for decades.

[Guest Rich.]

Yup PK, that's about it. Oh, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers tried to commit suicide earlier today. Tudors, huh?

 

Richard

[+ purplekow]

Never saw that show, was it any good? He is hot and apparently not cold which is a good thing in the end.

[Karl-G]

James II

 

No, Vanity Fair and I both definitely mean James II. James VI of Scotland did become James I of England, and he had a penchant for young men. But his grandson, James II, did also, and Vanity Fair chose to feature him. James II ruled from 1685-1688, but he lived until 1701, so this would be the 310th anniversary of his death, as the parody of Vanity Fair says.

 

James II (as well as James I, Edward II, Richard, and several other English kings) have been seen as gay by many writers and authorities. The creators of the parody, I suppose, could have chosen any of these kings. But they did choose James II, perhaps because his portraits lend themselves to caricature, and James II definitely is regarded as gay.

 

So the naming of James II is correct and plausible, not an error.

 

By the way, the last of the Stuarts was James' younger daughter Anne, who married a prince of Denmark and produced 17 individual children (no twins or multiple births). All of them died of childhood diseases before the age of 14 and before the death of their mother. Perhaps because of the constant pregnancies, or her husband (known as the dullest man in Europe), or problems with Louis XIV in France, Anne took to drink. She became an alcoholic and obsessive eater. She is known in history as "Brandy Annie" and was drunk before noon each day, according to court records. She was not very tall (still typical of Queen Mother, Princess Margaret, and the current queen), and when she died they had to build a special casket which was a perfect cube, because she was nearly as wide as she was high. She died on the second floor of a building, and they could find no way of carrying her downstairs, so they rolled her down the stairs and then picked her up.

 

As a side note, at a theater in London one evening, I nearly stepped on Princess Margaret and squashed her, because I didn't see her and she was so tiny. She probably qualified as a little person. Prince Philip and then Princess Diana have added very valuable height-enhancing DNA to the royal bloodline. William and Harry are both tall young men.

[+ Charlie]

"James II is definitely regarded as gay." I'd really like to know what the sources are for this claim, since I've never seen any reference to his interest in men (plenty of references for the others you mention). I suppose he may have had some sexual activity with males--those Restoration boys were pretty adventuresome, and he did spend a lot of his formative years in France--but that would hardly make him "gay."

[Karl-G]

An easy way to start is go to Google and type in "james II homosexual" and check out the many articles.

[+ Charlie]

I tried that and got no results at all. I tried other Google variations as well. The few things that came up turned out to be not about James II (even though they showed up that way on Google) at all, but about James I. Even a few snarky books--not exactly scholarship--about gay British monarchs didn't include him.

[MsGuy]

googling is an arcane art. "james II homosexual" brings up all kinds of references to gay English kings but the links to James the 2nd did not contain any references to his being gay that I could find (at least on the first two pages). All those links to a gay king James led to discussions of James I (IV).

----

Oops, Charlie beat me to it. That'll learn me to recheck the thread before Posting.

[+ Charlie]

Perhaps Karl-G and the Vanity Fair writers are on the bus with Sarah Palin.

[+ purplekow]

Google Gay English Kings and there is no mention of James II Edward II James I Richard III William Rufus but no James II

[Guest Bauer]

I guess on this Fourth of July weekend, we should be glad we shed all this class nonsense long ago.

Whatever. The happily married couple are on the cover my Vanity Fair. And it's an important issue, the 35th, since the bicentennial, the 1976 one which gave the greatest fireworks show ever.

[Guest Bauer]

Vanity Fair's July 2011 front cover's copy reading: "WILL and KATE'S NEW LIFE! THEIR U.S. ROAD TRIP! PLUS: HONEYMOONING, HOUSE-HUNTING, AND WHO TAKES OUT THE GARBAGE?"

 

I kid you not.

[Mark Gordon]

School children in Toronto, you are told when touring, speak 67 different languages and so do their teachers. If Kate intends to honor all of them, this is going to be a very busy visit.

 

Kate will not have to worry about this as the royal couple will not be visiting our multilingual city.