THE ROYAL ONE

Prince Phillip retires today. I'd like to say thank you for serving our country, our monarchy and our Queen so dutifully, and for so long. He's 96. I doubt I'll get to do that any other way, so this will have to do. Thank you, sir.

Naturally, the media is packed with a combination of gushing tributes, and reminders of some his gaffes. Yes, well: whatever serves as talking points I suppose. I still think on the whole, he is something of a quiet hero.

Meanwhile on social media, one account that I follow seemed to celebrate by talking about themselves with the third person pronoun 'one' instead of the first person 'I'. Perhaps in parody? Well, at least, almost...

"Like Prince Philip, I have made quite a few gaffes in my time when meeting important people, yet always found time to laugh at oneself."

Oneself? Unless you're Boromir... or directly related to Her Majesty, I'd like to propose that you and I are restricted from use of the royal 'one'. In fact, even Boromir was sort of royalty, so perhaps even he's okay simply walking into Mordor. Or not.

Anyway, it's an interesting thing this. The 'one' is an off-shoot from old kings using 'we' to indicate that everything they did was in accordance with God. The 'we' was literally the monarch and the deity.

"We" said Henry V "shall march on Agincourt" (I imagine) meaning not just him and his armies, but also him and the Lord.

"We are not amused," muttered Queen Victoria, indicating that, of course, the Almighty was just as Victorian as she was. I doubt that he was.

Over time, kings and queens gradually saw themselves as less entwined with the Divine and split the pronouns back into the first person. But not quite the common me, myself and I that the rest of us are so familiar with.  At least not yet anyway. One had to do.

Hence the Queen still refers to herself as 'one' - and God bless her for it. But for the rest of us? Probably best to genuflect our pronouns to where it's comfortable, without sounding like pompous obnoxiants.

You're okay though, Your Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh. You've done such a wonderful job helping the Queen know the power of 'we' while she stands as 'one', you can refer to yourself however you would like, sir. We salute you.