Cheering for the blue-bloods
Switzerland has played host on numerous occasions to royals such as Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Victoria, Sisi and many others – and these illustrious personages have left their stories and their mark.
Michael van Orsouw
Michael van Orsouw has a PhD in history and is a performance poet and author. He regularly publishes historical books.
Website: geschichte-texte.ch
The democratic Swiss gave these well-known aristocrats a frenzied welcome when they travelled to Switzerland under false names. When the English queen arrived at Lucerne train station, a huge crowd of onlookers was waiting to greet her with enthusiastic cheering and applause. The Lucerne city police even had to hold the public back, to stop people getting too close to the Queen. When Victoria later went on an excursion to the Rigi, 200 to 300 people sang ‘God Save the Queen’ in her honour in Kaltbad, and gun salutes shattered the silence of the mountains.
TV report on Queen Elizabeth II’s state visit to Switzerland in 1980 (in French). YouTube / RTS
And vice versa, the touring royals have had no problems with Switzerland and the Swiss people. Although the incognito act didn’t last, the queens and kings, empresses and emperors have obviously felt very comfortable between Basel and Chiasso, even if the reasons for their trips to Switzerland were as different as the royals themselves. Some of them came to Switzerland because they wanted to meet the great minds of Europe who lived and worked in our country at the time. Others have come here to relax or to be left in peace – like Queen Victoria, who visited many of the sights in central Switzerland, went for walks and painted watercolours of the landscape.
And others wanted to meet with other powerful figures on neutral ground in Switzerland or, like Kaiser Wilhelm II, they came on state visits. Or they were on the run and sought quiet exile, like the man who would later become Emperor Napoleon III of France. Sometimes it was quite simply a shopping trip, a jaunt to buy expensive Swiss watches or Swiss weapons.
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