Royalty and Poking Sticks

Of all the indignities the flesh is heir to, being poked in the upper thigh by a minor member of the British Royal Family with a stick especially fashioned for the purpose is – of course – one of the most bewildering for those not familiar with some of the strange customs and institutions that have – over the centuries – built up around that family.

As everyone knows on the day of their birth every member of the royal family, no matter how distantly related to the current ruling monarch, is presented with their own ceremonial Commoner Upper-Thigh Poking Stick (except for the Duchess of Argyll, of course, for the obvious royal protocol reasons).

Then from as early an age as possible – which for some royals can often mean the late teens – they are taught the duties and responsibilities that lie behind the use of the thigh-poking stick and the protocol about when and – most importantly – where it is necessary for them to poke commoners in the upper thigh with the stick.

The tradition itself dates back to medieval times when one of the royal ancestors – historians mostly tend to agree it was Edward II – found himself almost within touching distance of some commoner or other and did not want to besmirch the royal body by actually coming into contact with this unsavoury person. Legend had it that some quick-thinking courtier found a small branch that had fallen from a nearby tree and ceremoniously handed it to the king in order that he could poke the commoner in the thigh as recognition for whatever service it was that the commoner had performed for his – or as some historians argue, her - majesty.

Consequently, as royal protocol invariably demands the tradition of poking commoners on the thigh with a stick has continued right up to the present day without anyone really knowing why, except that it is a ‘tradition’ and therefore inviolable.