Kissing of the Queen’s hand must be delicately executed, by taking the monarch’s right hand lightly and offering “no more than a touch of the lips”, according to The Royal Encyclopedia.
The short ceremony, during which it is customary to kneel, occurs at Buckingham Palace when a member of the Privy Council formally takes up his or her appointment.
“The new appointee kneels on a footstool in front of the Queen, who proffers her right hand, palm downwards with fingers lightly closed,” the reference book on royalty reveals.
“The new Privy Counsellor or minister will extend his or her right hand, palm upwards, and, taking the Queen’s hand lightly, will kiss it with no more than a touch of the lips.”
Former cabinet minister and left-wing campaigner Tony Benn once revealed in his diaries how he used to kiss his own thumb instead of the Queen’s hand, by holding it out across the back of her hand. “I always put my thumb out and kissed my thumb,” he said.
John Prescott said the convention required you to “hop from one chair to another and brush your lips lightly across her hand”.
Former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott told BBC One’s Sunday Politics show that he had objected to kneeling in front of the Queen and kissing her hand when he became a Privy Counsellor.
“I didn’t want to do that. I thought that was a stupid arrangement. I still think it should go, but you don’t do that, you hop, get into hoping, you hop from one chair to another and brush your lips lightly across her hand,” he said.
He said he was told if he refused he would not get the same information as the prime minister, adding: “That’s quite wrong. You can’t refuse a member who’s elected simply because of some royal prerogative.”
Kissing hands with the monarch used to be a sign of devout loyalty. Queen Victoria once said of prime minister Benjamin Disraeli: “He is full of poetry, romance and chivalry. When he knelt down to kiss my hand, he said ‘In loving loyalty and faith’.”
She also wrote about her coronation: “When my good Lord Melbourne knelt down and kissed my hand, he pressed my hand and I grasped his with all my heart.”
In 2007, the actor Mickey Rooney surprised onlookers by taking the Queen’s hand during a garden party at the British Embassy in Washington and planting a large kiss on her white gloved hand.
A new prime minister is described as “kissing hands” on appointment but does not do so at the time, only later in Council.
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