Origin
By the 17th century, all local rulers in Italy adopted the style Highness, that was once used by kings and emperors only. According to Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie, the style of Royal Highness was created on the insistence of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, Cardinal-Infante of Spain, a younger son of King Philip III of Spain. The Archduke was travelling through Italy on his way to the Low Countries and, upon meeting Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy, refused to address him as Highness unless the Duke addressed him as Royal Highness. Thus, the first use of the style Royal Highness was recorded in 1633. Gaston, Duke of Orléans, younger son of King Henry IV of France, encountered the style in Brussels and assumed it himself. His children later used the style, considering it their prerogative as grandchildren of France.
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Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“In the woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily the origin of the stained glass window, with which Gothic cathedrals are adorned, in the colors of the western sky seen through the bare and crossing branches of the forest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The real, then, is that which, sooner or later, information and reasoning would finally result in, and which is therefore independent of the vagaries of me and you. Thus, the very origin of the conception of reality shows that this conception essentially involves the notion of a COMMUNITY, without definite limits, and capable of a definite increase of knowledge.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)