SATURDAY'S royal wedding has a sense of proportion and an application of moderation given the straitened circum-stances of our country ("Preparations continue for Zara and Mike's big day in Edinburgh", The Herald, July 27).
We have the Queen renting the venue for the reception, just like other parents, the local minister conducting the ceremony and only 300 guests – consisting of friends and family – at the service.
While there can only be praise for honours and decorations deservedly won or awarded, thankfully on this occasion there should be an absence of royal breasts bedecked with medals, many of which are unearned and of doubtful origin.
It is a pity that William and Kate’s wedding in April, albeit dubbed a state occasion, did not follow a similar path instead of costing the UK economy a reported £5 billion. It would take the manufacture of a lot of commemorative tea-towels, porcelain plates, and trinkets to make up for that.
Ian W Thomson,
38 Kirkintilloch Road,
Lenzie.
the wedding of Princess Anne’s daughter Zara Phillips to Mike Tindall on Saturday will be only the second royal marriage to have been solemnised in Scotland since Queen Mary’s second marriage in 1567 in the Palace of Holyroodhouse. The previous such occasion was Anne’s second marriage in Crathie Parish Church in 1992.
Saturday’s event will also be the first royal marriage to have been solemnised in the Royal Burgh of Edinburgh, as the Burgh and Parish of the Canongate (including the parish church, Holyrood Abbey, the Palace and the Castle) did not become part of Edinburgh until 1856.
A royal birth in Scotland is, of course, long overdue with the last such being the birth of Princess Victoria Eugenie (a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and the grandmother of Juan Carlos, King of Spain since 1975) in Balmoral Castle in 1878. The Princess was often back at Balmoral – for example, to attend the dedication of the new Crathie Parish Church in 1895.
Indeed, prior to the centenary celebrations in 1995, I supplied the then parish minister with a copy of the appropriate Court Circular, which included the Order of Service, and suggested the Spanish royal family should be invited.
Dr Alexander S Waugh,
1 Pantoch Gardens,
Banchory,
Kincardineshire.
MIKE Tindall was introduced to his bride Zara (the Queen’s granddaughter) by her cousin Prince Harry. Tindall, captain of the England rugby team, says he knows Harry and his brother Prince William because “they are great England supporters.”
A little odd, surely, for the brothers who, as the sons of the Prince of Wales, bear that Principality’s nomenclature as their surname? William is perceived as a future “King of England” as well as (though the world nods) of Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Barbados, Tonga … and so on.
Is it not time the Windsors recognised that they should grasp the nettle and stop being English?
Neil Bowman,
Apartment 1,
19 Kinnear Road,
Inverleith, Edinburgh.
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