Royal Visit to the USA

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

It is my belief that this mixing of black and brown stems from Prince Philip. He took up carriage driving soon after his marriage to Her Majesty. The horses and carriages being then available to him. The vast majority of the Queen's horses are brown and the way of it is that brown horses have black (or very, very dark brown) manes and tails.

All competitors in carriage driving have livery colours for their grooms (1 sitting next to the driver and 2 hanging on at the back). If memory serves, there was some controversy at the time as to what livery colours Prince Philip could or should use. He couldn't use the Royal livery colours, so he had to opt for something else. Nor would it have been acceptable for him to use the Danish or the Greek Royal livery colours.

In the end the livery colours were chosen as Black and Brown - to match the horses. I have seen Prince Philip driving at the Championships at Sandringham, with his head groom and two hanging grooms wearing a mixture of brown and black. If I am remembering correctly all the browns were the same shade - not a mixture of tans and ox-blood and light and dark.

Regards

Chas

Actually, HRH Prince Phillip's carriages are painted in the older livery colours of murrey and black (the previous livery colours being lake and black and the present livery colours being more of a claret and black). Murrey is a sort of mulberry colour, which under certain light conditions appears to be almost brown. HM The Queen Mother favoured the older murrey on the sides of her Daimler cars during the whole of her lifetime.

Meaning no offense, but I somehow suspect that the wearing of black shoes and brown sporrans probably pre-dates Edinburgh's having taken up carriage driving.

[macwilkin]

No offense to the Prince, who is probably an excellent fellow, but this thread reminds me of why I don't much like posting here any more.

Me too, I don't get the attraction.
Although threads like this let me get a workout, exercising my withstraint.

And it is posts like these that are making me contemplate the same thing. Respect is a two-way street. It may not be your thing, but snarky comments are not necessary. If you don't like the thread, don't read it.

T.

[Paul]

And it is posts like these that are making me contemplate the same thing. Respect is a two-way street. It may not be your thing, but snarky comments are not necessary. If you don't like the thread, don't read it.

T.

Whilst I feel both of the members you quoted showed a great deal of restraint in their comments, I feel their views are important, especially if they are going to dilute them for the purpose of not offending anyone.
If people are jumping in saying "great", these guys should also be able to voice a belief that it isn't that big a deal to them.

[macwilkin]

It's not worth arguing about. I withdraw my comments.

T.

[HarborSpringsPiper]

Meaning no offense, but I somehow suspect that the wearing of black shoes and brown sporrans probably pre-dates Edinburgh's having taken up carriage driving.

We can see brown and black leather mixed in the MacLeay prints, so I don't think we need to suspect anything newer than that.