Godparents from within the family

In the Royal Family, it has long been the custom that royal infants are given godparents from within the family, often including an aged figure from an earlier generation. Thus the present Queen was given the Duke of Connaught as a godfather at her birth in 1926. He was her grandfather's uncle, the last surviving son of Queen Victoria, and when he was born in May 1850, he was christened Arthur. There is a famous Winterhalter portrait of his godfather, Arthur, Duke of Wellington, victor of Waterloo, inspecting him in the arms of his parents.

H.M. The Queen

The Queen was christened Elizabeth Alexandra Mary by the Archbishop of York, Cosmo Lang on 29th May, 1926. She wore the Royal Christening Robe, made of finest Honiton lace, and was christened at the Lily font in the Chapel at Buckingham Palace.

Her godparents were:

• George V (paternal grandfather)
• Queen Mary (grandmother)
• Princess Mary, Viscountess Lascelles (aunt)
• Field Marshal The Duke of Connaught (great - great uncle)
• The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne (maternal grandfather)
• Lady Elphinstone

These relationships within the Royal Family can lead to some delightful misunderstandings of character. Even before he was made godfather to Prince Ludwig of Hesse (a nephew of Prince Philip's) (born in 1931), the Duke of Connaught had examined the number of "greats" in his relationship to the infant's mother - he was her great-great-uncle - and complained: "My dear, you are making an ancestor of me!"

The Duke of Windsor was godfather to his nephew, the present Earl of Harewood, who edited Kobbé's Opera, and was Managing Director of English National Opera. The Duke mused on this in later life: "It's very odd about George and music. You know, his parents were quite normal - liked horses and dogs and the country".

Prince William

Prince William's godparents are:

• The exiled King Constantine of the Hellenes, who lives in London
• Lord Romsey (the grandson of the late Earl Mountbatten)
• Princess Alexandra (a stalwart member of the Royal Family, who has undertaken royal engagements since she was a teenager)
• The Duchess of Westminster (a member of the Wernher family)
• Lady Susan Hussey, almost certainly the closest of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting
• His father's spiritual mentor, Sir Laurens van der Post

Royal christenings are traditionally private occasions, very often taking place in the Music Room at Buckingham Palace. In recent years godparents have continued to be drawn from within the family circle.

Royal Christening Font

The silver-gilt christening font was made for the baptism of Queen Victoria's first child (the Princess Royal) in 1841. Known as the Lily font, it is still used for royal christenings today and is on display in the Jewel House at the Tower of London

© Historic Royal Palaces

Members of the Royal Family are frequently asked to be godparents to the children of their friends. The Queen has over twenty godchildren, all of whom are now grown up. If the Queen agrees to be your godmother, she will try to attend your christening and also your wedding. Of course, however respectable the baby's family might be, it is impossible to tell how he or she will turn out.

The Queen was godmother to the young Charles Spencer, whose father, Viscount Althorp (later 8th Earl Spencer) had been her equerry on the famous Commonwealth Tour of 1953/54. By the time he married in 1989, he was already something of a controversial figure, and the marriage of his sister, the Princess of Wales, was already in some disarray. Perhaps for this reason, the Queen was not present at his wedding. Nor could she attend the first wedding of her godson, Crown Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia in Spain in 1972, for political reasons, since General Franco was still in power there. Instead, she sent Princess Anne as a representative.

Prince Harry

Prince Harry's godparents are:

• The Duke of York (his uncle)
• Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones (daughter of Princess Margaret)
• Lady Vestey
• Bryan Organ, the portrait painter
• Mrs William Bartholomew (a former flat-mate of the Princess of Wales)
• Mr Gerald Ward (an old friend of Prince Charles)

Edward VII had the delightful idea of giving his godchildren cufflinks with his royal cypher on them. One such recipient was Edward James, of West Dean Park in Sussex. The last godchild of Queen Victoria lived until 1994. She was born as Lady Victoria Cavendish-Bentinck, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Portland, in 1890 and christened by the Dean of Windsor (Randall Davidson - later Archbishop of Canterbury) in the private chapel of Windsor Castle (site of the famous 1992 fire) on 3 May 1890. She was a cousin of the Queen Mother, and the Cavendish-Bentinck blood is cited as the true cause for their mutual longevity.

Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie

The Duke and Duchess of York have two daughters. Princess Beatrice's godparents are:

• Viscount Linley (Princess Margaret's son)
• Peter Palumbo (now Lord Palumbo)
• The former Duchess of Roxburghe (the Yorks got engaged while staying at Floors Castle)
• Mrs Harry Cottrell
• Mrs John Greenall

Princess Eugenie was given:

• James Ogilvy (son of Princess Alexandra)
• Captain Alastair Ross
• Mrs Ronald Ferguson (the Duchess's step-mother)
• Mrs Patrick Dodd-Noble
• Miss Louise (Lulu) Blacker

Queen Victoria was also godmother to the younger son of Prince and Princess Louis of Battenberg. She attended his christening in the drawing room of Frogmore House on 17 July 1900, and he later recalled that he had evidently knocked the old Queen's spectacles off her nose. He became Admiral of the Fleet the Earl Mountbatten of Burma.

Zara Phillips

Princess Anne's daughter, Zara, had amongst her godparents:

• Colonel Andrew Parker-Bowles
• Mrs Jackie Stewart, wife of the racing driver

There are times when a royal godparent holds a powerful influence over a child. Princess Elisabeth of Hesse (known as Ella) asked her grandmother, Queen Victoria, to influence her choice as godmother to her niece, Princess Alice, in 1885. She was chosen. Ella was by then Grand Duchess Serge of Russia. After the murder of Grand Duke Serge in Moscow in 1905, Ella took the veil and founded an order of nursing sisters, who would go out into the community and help the poor. In the Russian Revolution, Ella was thrown down a mine-shaft, and died with some of her relations. She was later made a saint in the Russian church and is one of the Twentieth Century Christian martyrs depicted above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey.

Her niece and god-daughter, Princess Alice, married Prince Andrew of Greece, and became the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. She later tried to emulate her godmother's ideas by founding a similar, though ultimately less successful, order of nursing sisters in Athens, something that had never been done in Greece before.

The first Royal Trip?

The Queen was godmother to Mark Palmer, the son of her lady-in-waiting, Henriette, who was widowed in 1941, and later known as Lady Abel Smith. Mark Palmer was born posthumously and became a baronet at birth, but his was not a conventional life. In the 1960s the painter, Michael Wishart, was hailing him as a leader of the "Peacock Revolution" and noting with delight that he wore yellow trousers, a green shirt and a red jacket. He has the distinction of being one of very few people who have called the Queen from a public telephone box - in order to apologise for being late for dinner. The Queen attended the wedding reception of his sister Antonia when she married Lord Christopher Thynne in June 1968. The reception was held at St James's Palace. As it happened, that day, the Queen had entertained the film actor, Dirk Bogarde, to one of those informal Buckingham Palace luncheons. She told him that she was looking forward to the occasion as she rather longed to see the Rolling Stones, who were to be guests. The reception became famous because the groom was later arrested at the airport, and some drugs were found in his camera-case. The rumour spread that the wedding cake had been laced with LSD, in which case as Dirk Bogarde pointed out, it could mean that the Queen took her first 'trip'. There is no evidence of any ill effects to Her Majesty on her return to the Palace!