Her Royal Highness Takes a Seat

About this drawing

Put a princess on a throne and she sits in the one piece of furniture that has always meant more than furniture. Kings and gods appear on grand seats in the art of ancient Egypt, so the idea has been around for thousands of years.

Height does much of the work. Thrones usually stand on a raised platform, which puts the ruler above everyone in the room. Visitors had to look up, and often bow, before they said a word. A throne was basically a stage set with one very important actor.

Some thrones are celebrities in their own right. London's Westminster Abbey still keeps a medieval oak coronation chair, carved up by centuries of visitors and used by English and British monarchs for generations. Across the Channel, Versailles had a silver throne that Louis XIV later melted down to help pay for his wars.

Americans never had a throne, which was very much the point. The country's founders wanted a president who would serve a limited term, not sit in a seat passed down through a family. Yet English still borrows the idea constantly. We talk about the heir to the throne, and a sports team can knock a champion off of it. It is a lot of meaning for one chair.

• princesses
• thrones
• royalty
• palaces