HM The King, with Dr Kadiatu Kanneh Mason (left) and Wigmore Hall director John Gilhooly (right), presenting Royal Philharmonic Society Honorary Membership to Master of the King’s Music, Judith Weir.
A keen-eyed visitor to St James’s Church in London’s Spanish Place might be able to pick out two stone crowns high up on the north side of the sanctuary. These are the relics of a visit which Edward VII and Queen Alexandra made to the church on February 8, 1908. They had come to the church to attend a Requiem celebrated in memory of the recently-assassinated King of Portugal, Don Carlos, and his Crown Prince, Manuel. Edward VII, dressed as a Portuguese colonel, thus became the first British monarch to attend a Catholic Mass in an official capacity since the reign of James II.
