A. M. HONEYMAN (Folklore, Spring 1974) asks about Royalty kneeling at prayer. I am not at all sure that his premise is correct, for not only do I have a personal recollection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother kneeling at the annual service of the Friends of St Paul's, but examination of other newspaper reports of the marriage of H.R.H. Princess Anne and Captain Phillips shows clear evidence of the couple kneeling at certain times during the service. Thus The Times report referred to kneeling stools being used by the couple, and the Guardian to Captain Phillips and his wife being 'kept kneeling for a long time' while prayers were said. The Daily Telegraph also mentioned that the couple knelt.' For the general background of kneeling in the Christian churches, reference may be made to the article 'G6nuflexion' in the Dictionnaire d'Archdologie Chretienne et de Liturgie (1924). From this and other sources, notably a similar article in the (old) Catholic Encyclopaedia it is clear that standing for prayer was at least as common as kneeling in the early Church, regardless of the rank of the person concerned, a fact reflected in some of the liturgies of the Nonconformist churches in England today, in the Church of Scotland, with which the sovereign has a special relationship, and indeed in some of the newer experimental services of the Church of England itself. Thus in Canterbury Cathedral on Easter Day, 1974, although the 1662 service was used, Holy Communion was taken standing at the mid-morning Eucharist.2 If, with this background in mind, we turn to the posture at prayer adopted by temporal rulers throughout history, no clear difference can, I think, be discerned in respect of such postures between rulers and ruled, at least in Western Christendom. Thus, according to Eusebius, the Emperor Constantine 'would seclude himself daily at a stated hour in the innermost chambers of his palace; and there, in solitary converse with his God, would kneel in humble supplication, and entreat the blessings of which he