Talk:Princely state

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[edit] Re:Post Independence

I'm changing the "accession" section. Where it said that the princes were deposed peacefully, it is incorrect. The titles were allowed to be retained, inter alia to enable the privy purses to be paid. The titles were abolished along with the privy purse. VivekM 23:09, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

It is stated:

After independence, the (Hindu) Maharana of Udaipur displaced the Nizam of Hyderabad as the most senior prince in India, and the style Highness was extended to all rulers entitled to 9-gun salutes.

This i wholly incorrect. Even after independence, Nizam was drawing the highest privy purse among the Indian rulers followed by Maharaja of Mysore.

Rajachandra (talk) 18:31, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Princely state vs Principality

Perhaps the opening paragraphs could make more precise the reasons for two such apparent synonyms. --Wetman 23:01, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• I'ld love to, but as far as I know there is no linguistic logic involved, just clear traditions, a bit like there is no reason to keep calling British comital peers Earl (which doesn't even really correspond to the Norse Jarl) and all their continental counterparts Count, nor to call a ruling native prince in the Dutch East Indies Regent, but the colonial masters seem to have found it satisfactory thus to hint indirectlty that these are in the end 'only' dark-skinned, usually 'heathen' natives, not quite the equals of their own inter-married European nobility without saying so (and defeat the purpose of officially recognizing native titles as part of indirect rule) Fastifex 12:34, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

  The princely states were known by that name (and were never officially called 'principalities') but I don't know if this usage was informed by any intention to differentiate status. As the fief of a duke is a duchy, so the domain of a Rajah is a 'Rajya' or state, hence princely state, possibly. But you never know. The Maharajas were also held to 'rule' and the word 'reign' was never used, and this usage was apparently deliberate.

  Their 'ruling' reality did however give them status ahead of the peers (thus, 'duchy' rather than 'dukedom'). Any tiny state in treaty relations with the Crown outranked the Dukes of the realm in the warrant of precendence. Their place, as affirmed at the coronation of Edward VII, was 'after the foreign ambassadors and before the peers'. So the 'dark heathen' attitude was not really such a touchstone of behavior. ImpuMozhi 16:16, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Irrelevant general histories

This is not an article to give detailed histories of principalities. Dates when territories became principalities or when they disappeared, and the immediate circumstances are relevant to this subject, of course. --Wetman 01:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Kipling's "the man who would be king" has an account of native states in it. Don't know if that helps with anything. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.196.63.33 (talk) 00:49, 2 May 2008 (UTC)