Wikipedia is exceeding its own record of stupidity

[M.Sjostrom]

I had had an impression that not even Elizabeth
Stuart, Queen of Bohemia (the Winter Queen), had been
known as princess, but as Lady Elizabeth.

And that the princess thing -as used honorific for
royal kids, contrary to real or titular rulers of some
territories- consequently came to use in Britain only
in 1600s or so.

The Harrison mention seemingly from 1577 seems to
support my this understanding.
As "younger sons of kings" are not princes in that
period language.



By the way, the honorifics "infanta", "infante" in
Iberian peninsula however was afaik in attested use
already several centuries earlier, say in 1200s at
latest.




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[Leticia Cluff]

On Sun, 6 Jan 2008 11:44:26 -0800 (PST), "M.Sjostrom" <[email protected]>
wrote:

I had had an impression that not even Elizabeth
Stuart, Queen of Bohemia (the Winter Queen), had been
known as princess, but as Lady Elizabeth.

And that the princess thing -as used honorific for
royal kids, contrary to real or titular rulers of some
territories- consequently came to use in Britain only
in 1600s or so.

The Harrison mention seemingly from 1577 seems to
support my this understanding.
As "younger sons of kings" are not princes in that
period language.

So the expression "the princes in the tower" would not have been used
by any contemporaries of Richard III?

When Harrison in 1577 says that the title of prince peculiarly belongs
to the king's eldest son, perhaps it is because he felt the need to
emphasize this original usage against a looser application of the term
that was becoming current in his day. Otherwise he would only have
been stating the obvious. I suspect he is being prescriptive rather
than descriptive here.

Tish