After the death of Queen Elizabeth II, I believe that everyone is very curious about how much inheritance the rich queen will leave to King Charles, in addition to wealth, real estate, jewelry and other things that ordinary people can imagine, there is also an unimaginable "family heirloom" that is, "swan". The Queen of England used to be the monarch with the most swans in the world.
According to the British royal family's "Bona vacantia" rules, all unmarked, noisy swans in open water belong to the British king. The British royal family has also set up a series of swan-related positions, including The Queen's Swan Marker, Swan Upper (aka Swan Marker) and Royal Swan Warden.
According to the foreign media "Metropolis" (Metro), this can be traced back to the English tradition centuries ago, in 1230, King Henry III of England issued a rule to attribute part of the swans on the Thames to the royal family. This is not a personal proclivity of the past, but because in medieval Europe, swans were recognized as aristocratic poultry, just as lions, tigers, and leopards were to the Saudi royal family. And the ownership of swans even applies to dead birds, which means that taxidermists must obtain royal permission before making specimens.
Katy Barnett, a law professor at the University of Melbourne, writes in her research book, Guilty Pigs: The Weird and Wonderful History of Animal Law, that in medieval times, owning swans was a social status symbol – only royalty and the extremely wealthy could keep them.
In fact, at first the fate of these swans was very sad, they were a classic delicacy on the tongue of the aristocracy. In 1249, Henry III issued a number of decrees designating swans as royal delicacies on royal festivals. In 1251, in preparation for that year's Christmas dinner, the royal family requisitioned a total of 125 swans in Yorkshire, which is the "largest swan banquet" in historical records. It was also during this period that royal authorization was required for the raising of swans.
At the same time, English monarchs added the title "Seigneur of the Swans" to their titles, and in 1361, the royal family established the official position of "Royal Swannerd". The duties of the Swan Master are: to supervise and manage the swans of the royal family, as well as the waters of the Thames and other territories of the King.
In 1482, Edward IV passed the first legal ordinance relating to swans, An Act Concerning Swans. The bill stipulates that "Yeoman (which can be understood as middle-class farmers), sharecroppers (lower middle class without land or little land), and people with poor reputations are prohibited from raising swans." In addition, those who are deprived of the ownership of swans must hand over their swans to the royal family. The purpose of this law was to protect the royal and aristocratic rights to the ownership and consumption of swans, thereby strengthening the hierarchy of society.
In 1592, the Imperial Family further revised the Swan Law this time, which detailed the various special conditions that swans may encounter:
1. Swans in public waters without owners belong to the monarch. If you want to keep your own swans, you can label them with royal authorization.
2. If a private swan runs from the family pond into the Thames, the goose owner has only one chance to hunt the swan.
3. If a swan couple is owned by different people, then the swan couple's baby is shared by both families.
After the 19th century, people finally realized the importance of protecting swans, and the British royal family turned to the role of "protecting swans". When Elizabeth II took the throne, the third week of July was designated as the "Swan Upping" week. Swan markers will register the number of swans on the Thames within 5 days, not only to put ankle bracelets on the swans, but also to give them a health examination, including height, weight, goose beak length, etc., and if they find weak and sickly swans, they must be sent to the hospital in time for treatment.
Despite her long-standing association with swans, the late Queen did not attend the annual "Counting Goose Ceremony" for the first time until July 20, 2009, at the age of 83, which brought back attention to the "goose mouth census" that had been dormant for centuries. In 2017, a 5-year-old girl from Petersfield wrote a letter to the Queen in which she asked her to send her a swan, and the royal family also seriously wrote a reply letter to the little girl and clarified "the statement that the Queen owns all swans in the UK".
According to the Petersfield Post, the letter reads: "The Queen thanks you for your letter... Her Majesty has carefully read the letter about pet swans, but allow me to explain a little: it is a common misconception that the Queen owns all the swans in the UK. In fact, Her Majesty owns only warty swans and exercises her ownership of swans only in certain areas of the Thames." Interestingly, the letter made everyone aware of a cold knowledge: only those quiet, elegant mute swans (warty swans) belonged to the royal family.
When the royal family released the timetable for the goose mouth census last year, David Barber, the queen's head of swans, said that in addition to protecting swans, swan markers would continue to focus on the education of primary school-age children, "so several primary schools will join the swan marking campaign on the river, where they will learn about the biology of warty swans, the impact of pollution and the royal connection with swans."
