#10 HUNTER BOOTS LTD

Without necessarily meaning to (and with the exceptions of Twinings tea and  Yardley soap) I've spent the past several weeks chronicling only those Royal Warrants appointed by HM the Queen. Prince Philip, her husband, and Prince Charles, her son, are also authorized to give warrants, but their contributions to the list are far fewer. This week I'm making a concerted effort to look at a warrant selected by Prince Philip. If we're going to talk about the Queen's teenage years, it's definitely time to introduce her husband. And her husband wears Hunter boots. Hunter Boot Ltd holds a Royal Warrant from Prince Philip (and from Queen Elizabeth) as “Suppliers of Waterproof Footwear.”

I admit I know very little about Philip, and I suspect most Americans are with me on this. Even Adam, who I've mentioned before is omniscient, could produce little information about him:

“What do I know about Prince Philip? Well...he's old. I didn't know until...I don't know—maybe five years ago—that they were even married. I thought maybe the real king had died and then she just took up with this guy.”

Right. To understand Philip you have to understand a little bit about Greek history. Philip's father was Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, and Andrew's older brother was King Constantine of Greece. In the early 1920s, Greece was at war with Turkey and lost, and that loss prompted a military coup that ousted the entire royal family from Greece. Prince Andrew, his wife Alice, and their five children (Philip was the youngest and the only boy) were exiled and barely made it out alive. Philip thus grew up all over Europe, in a series of schools and friends' homes and borrowed family apartments. But if he lost standing because of his father's exile from Greece, it didn't matter. He was great-great grandson of England's Queen Victoria and was related to the ruling king of England. Philip didn't grow up wealthy so much as around wealth. He had access to the finer things of life, but he couldn't exactly lay claim to them as his own. His family was broke in a way that only a royal family can be, e.g. broke but still living on a yacht on the French Riviera, broke but still attending the very best schools in England. Philip's parents also had a rocky relationship that eventually led to their separation. His mother was beset by mental illness that led her to seek out treatment by Sigmund Freud for a time. His sisters married German husbands and wound up a little too close for comfort to the Nazis during World War II. All of this should have left Philip a complete mess, but surprisingly, it didn't. He grew up affable, intelligent, and good-looking. His interest in sailing took him to the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth when he was 18. When his cousin, a thirteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth, came for a visit with her father the king, it was love at first sight.

At least that's what Gyles Brandreth writes in Philip and Elizabeth: Portrait of a Royal Marriage. Brandreth has a habit of speculating to the extreme, which results in passages like this in his book:

“'How do you do?'

He was standing over her, looking gently amused. He was tall and slim, blond and blue-eyed, and his dark blue naval uniform suited him. He was eighteen and achingly handsome...”

Brandreth imagines a dialogue for this, one of the first meetings of the future husband and wife, which ends with Philip holding out a tentative hand to lead Elizabeth off to a game of croquet. Brandreth then interrupts this daydream with the telling statement: “Well, dear reader, it might have been like that.”

I admit I got a little pulled in by Brandreth's description of how this relationship first took shape. It's sexy stuff, as any girl who's ever had a crush on an older guy can tell you (I have to be careful here, as Adam is a year younger than me). Still, we're talking about a princess who was only 13. Thirteen. She was just a kid. So in some ways while it's very sweet to imagine this early meeting and the crush that developed from it, it's also a little bit over the top.

What's not over the top? Rainwater over the top of my Hunter rain boots. These really are the Mercedes of waterproof footwear. Or maybe Jaguar is a more apt analogy. We had quite a bit of rain pass through due to Hurricane Isaac a few weeks ago, but it hardly put a dent in my days as I clipped straight through puddles on my walks to work. Each time I did, I noticed other commuters who were wearing flip flops or heels or just inferior rain boots sort of glare at me like I was showing off, like I thought I was better than them. Let's just be clear: I'm totally showing off.

After talking with my friend Krysten today, I feel justified in doing this. She told me, somewhat abruptly, that on a recent trip to Disney World (and while pregnant with her first baby) she started to take note of the mothers and children at the park. She noted that the moms who had only girls seemed to take an active interest in their appearance while the moms who had only boys had boyish haircuts, wore no makeup, and had really plain clothes. (The moms who had one of each gender were a mixed bag). I then awkwardly pointed out that I have two sons, and Krysten nodded. “I'm trying to warn you,” she said earnestly. “If you're not careful, you're going to look like a man in five years.”

My violet Hunter rain boots weren't cheap (they cost about $200), but they make me feel so feminine and pretty. It sounds like I should be clinging to them like grim death. Purchases like this one are keeping me from slipping across that fine line into Mom jeans and too-short hair and fleece pullovers. These boots might be my only hope. And yes, I'm still talking about boots recommended by a man.

 

Where to buy: Hunter boots are widely available in the United States and on the company's website.

Photo credit: Credit for the last two photos in this entry goes to Theo Cohen, who photographed the 2013 Coronation Festival at Buckingham Palace.