Paul Johnson

As Tom Paine wrote, ‘Every nickname is a title’

A recent movie suggests that the Duke of Edinburgh’s nickname for the Queen is ‘Cabbage’.

A recent movie suggests that the Duke of Edinburgh’s nickname for the Queen is ‘Cabbage’. His experience dates back to the day when this delicious vegetable was overboiled into tastelessness. But now that most people cook it very lightly and so preserve its fine flavour and crispiness, the term is one of endearment, as (no doubt) he intends. The nickname is originally French, ‘mon petit chou’, and I know at least one other wife who is called cabbage by her spouse, though as an alternative to ‘Old Bag’. Royal nicknames are not as common as you might think. Edward VII was ‘Tum Tum’ (not to his face). The Prince Regent was ‘Prinny’, which let him off lightly considering how awful he was. His brother Clarence was ‘Billy’, his brother Gloucester ‘Slice’; why I know not. Charles II was ‘Old Rowley’, after a famous stallion, profuse begetter of foals and possessor of a formidable member when mounting. William II was ‘Rufus’ (red-head), Edward I ‘Longshanks’. Richard I, ‘Lion Heart’, is one of our most popular kings solely because of his nickname. Odd that Henry V, greatest of our mediaeval kings, had no sobriquet, and odder still that the monster Henry VIII never acquired a hate-name, like Ivan the Terrible or Abdul the Damned.

The etymology of nicknames is obscure, but I’m sure the Devil (Old Nick) comes into it, as does the old word ‘eke’, also. A nickname is thus an old form of aka, ‘also known as’. They abound in close families, like the Cecils and Mitfords, or in old-style clubs like White’s and Brooks’s. So the early years of the 19th century, the golden age of the clubs, was also replete with agnomens and monikers. Thus, ‘Bear’ Ellice had been with the Hudson’s Bay Company and had shot a polar bear (so he said).

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