As the bicentennial celebration of Oktoberfest draws to its close, the Radical Royalist informs us here of this festival's royal origins in a horse race held to celebrate the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig (later King Ludwig I) and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. That such festivity should have originated in a royalist and quite Catholic milieu is no surprise to me, for I've observed over the years that more traditional peoples simply know to have a better time.And so, stein in hand, I conclude this merry season with a few toasts. First, to the man who would be King of Bavaria, Duke Franz.
HRH The Duke of Bavaria is incidentally claimant to the thrones of England and Scotland in the Jacobite succession, though he does not actively put forth that claim. Thus, I put my stein down for a moment in order to drain a dram of whisky to the king over the water.Next I raise my stein to another illustrious royal resident of Bavaria, who even represented Bavaria in the European Parliament for a time, HI&RH The Crown Prince of Austria and Hungary, Dr. Otto von Habsburg.
And last but by no means least, I toast to Bavaria's greatest native son, our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI.
After all that toasting, I shall return in a moment with a somewhat sobring thought.
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