50th anniversary of the Investiture of the Prince of Wales

from the New York Times

I was 15 years old on July 1, 1969.  My mom and I were up early to watch the live coverage of  the Investiture of the Prince of Wales, which was televised on all three networks.  CBS News also had highlights program at 10 p.m., which we also watched.

The Investiture of the Prince of Wales is not an ancient tradition.  According to Philip Ziegler's official biography, King Edward VIII,  "there had been no formal investiture of a Prince of Wales for more than 300 years, but Empress Frederick had suggested that ceremony should be revived."   Empress Frederick (the Princess Royal, eldest child of Queen Victoria) died in August 1901, nearly 7 months after the death of Victoria, so she certainly did not have a role her great-nephew David's investiture in 1911.   

David Lloyd George, then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, saw the investiture as a "chance to gratify Welsh national pride and win political support."

Frances Donaldson's biography,  Edward VIII, pointed out that "legends tell of the investiture at Caernarvon Castle of Prince Charles  (afterwards King Charles I) in 1616, there existed no authentic record of an English prince having been formally invested in Wales."  Previous investitures had taken place at Westminster and in "various English towns."

It was Lloyd George, "the famous enemy of inherited privilege, who conceived the idea of transforming the ceremony into a Welsh pageant."

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November 1969 National Geographic

http://royalmusingsblogspotcom.blogspot.com/2008/11/national-geograhic-and-investiture-of.html