More than five years ago Bertie and I went to The Charterhouse. B was impossible on the tube, wriggling and squirming, and not very well behaved in the grounds of the C. He was a puppy.
After running around in the gardens we repaired to a restaurant with outside tables and he was a bit of a pest. The General (you don’t get promoted to that rank without having attitude) rebuked B with a sharp rap on his nose. He was most surprised, is probably still psychologically scarred and was a bit scared of the General. They made up subsequently when the General took Candy and Floss for a walk with us in Windsor Park. Yes, you can be a General, a commander, and call your dogs Candy and Floss. It was the first and, to date, his last physical chastisement.
There are fewer Peculiars these days and more Royal Peculiars. RPs are not part of their diocese and take their marching orders from the monarch. They are exempt from diocesan jurisdiction. Until the beginning of the last century more than a third of church livings were in the gift of lords of the manor and patrons – they were called advowsons. You knew this happened because you have read Austen, Trollope and Wodehouse but I bet you didn’t know they were called advowsons.
What churches are Royal Peculiars? Westminster Abbey, the Chapel Royal and Queen’s Chapel (both St James’s Palace), the Chapel at Hampton Court, both chapels at the Tower of London, the Savoy Chapel (well placed for a post-prayer snort), the Temple Church and St George’s Windsor Castle. There are a few others but I have listed the ones at which I have been in the congregation.
Unfortunately the monarch does not choose the next Archbishop of Canterbury. He will officially select the single candidate presented to him by the Crown Nominations Commission. While so many of our procedures have roots a thousand years old the CNC was invented in 1974. It is every bit as hopeless as the process for selecting a leader of the Conservative Party as it is called – temporarily more of a wake.
If you would like to know how the College of Cardinals choose a Pope you could read AI Overview but much better read Conclave by Robert Harris.