# We are the Queen!



## Tom (May 28, 2013)

Does anyone know why Western European monarchs refered to themselves in the plural? As an ignorant Yankee I'm not well versed in the (seemingly ridiculous and pointless) traditions of royalty.


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## Feo Takahari (May 28, 2013)

The idea seems to be that the Queen speaks not for herself, but for the entire country she lives to represent.


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## CupofJoe (May 28, 2013)

I think it has to do with their personification of the nation-state as King or Queen. They were the country, the people and the leader...
I'm fairly sure that the Roman Emperors were afflicted with the same ego...


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## A. E. Lowan (May 28, 2013)

I believe the Pope did (does?) it, as well.


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## Tom (May 28, 2013)

That makes sense...but can you imagine how hard it would be to get used to saying 'we' instead of 'I'!?

Try it for an hour. I dare ya.


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## Abbas-Al-Morim (May 28, 2013)

It's called the *pluralis maiestatis* and it denotes that the king is the land and the land is the king. The king speaks for all his subjects. It takes some getting used to but most kings had a rather large self-image and they felt very royal. So to emphasize their rank, they'd try their very best to say "we"!

EDIT: I also forgot to mention that some sources say the pluralis maiestatis was used because the king speaks for himself and for God (since he is the servant of God on Earth and represents him to the people). So we would then mean "I and God say..."


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## CupofJoe (May 29, 2013)

It would also make sense [in context] that the Monarch refers to themselves as "One" ["One wonders why...?"] when speaking personally to distinguish those comments from anything they say in their role as the head of state/religion etc.


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## Tom (May 29, 2013)

One wonders why, though. Doesn't one?


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## Graylorne (May 29, 2013)

In medieval times there wasn't something like national identity. Commoners saw no further than their own community, all the rest were foreigners.  

This was not so strange, as loyalty was strictly a *personal *thing between King and Duke, Duke and Baron, Baron and commoner, sworn with holy oaths and based on mutual obligations.

England for all practical purposes was the personal property of it's king, lend out in bits to his nobles. This had nothing to do with ego, it was the way things were.
If someone in those days said 'France' or 'England', they meant the king, not the country. Likewise 'York', 'Guyenne', was the Duke, not the duchy. If Henry V was at war with France, it was with France the king _in person_, not France the country as a whole. Medieval wars were always between persons.


Seen like that, We, King of England = England the man and all his followers = plural.


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## skip.knox (Jun 8, 2013)

Can anyone put a date to the use of the royal plural? I don't find it being used in, say, Carolingian times.


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## adampjr (Jun 8, 2013)

Examples here:
Majestic plural - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## skip.knox (Jun 9, 2013)

Thanks for the Wikipedia reference, but that article was too weak to be useful. The sub-title that says "Western usage" in fact only treats of England, and there all the citations are either missing or inadequate.  If Longchamp was indeed following papal usage, then we would want to know when the popes started doing it. And we would want to know if a similar practice was followed in Spain or German or France or Poland or Denmark or....

Also, the author's reference to grammatical factors (the T-V distinction) is just plain goofy. The tu-vous distinction is all in the singular.

In short, if anyone has further references on this matter of the "royal we" I should be glad to hear of them.


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## Graylorne (Jun 12, 2013)

I found a relevant discussion (from 2008!) here: Majestic Plural or the Royal "We" (pluralis majestatis) - WordReference Forums

It brings the origins of 'Royal We' further back than the popes.


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## skip.knox (Jun 12, 2013)

>I found a relevant discussion (from 2008!) here: Majestic Plural or the Royal "We" (pluralis majestatis) - WordReference Forums

That is a great reference!  I read the article on the Greek (I can't read Greek but you don't really need to for the article) and all the discussions. Especially toward the end, there's some excellent information. I'll summarize what I think is most significant.

1. There's clear evidence of the majestic plural in the Old Testament.
2. It seems very likely that use of the majestic plural by rulers came from Ptolemaic Egypt into the Eastern Roman Empire (documented in 4thc), and spread from there.

As an addendum, there's quite a bit of information indicating that the use of the plural to refer to oneself was not uncommon. Iin the thread Cicero and Homer are both mentioned. I have found that in many places we moderns draw much sharper lines, not just in language but in many places, than people in ancient or medieval times did. This tends to confuse and even distress my students, and I suspect it's one reason why people often ascribe clear rules and hierarchies to medieval practices that are entirely inappropriate.  OK, that's more of an aside now. I'd better stop.


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