Salutations!

[desperance]

Because I've been reading so much Patrick O'Brian, where ships are constantly firing off salutes to the flag or the governor or an allied fortress - and get quite huffy if their salutes are not returned promptly and appropriately, why aren't you firing back, you bastards? - I did some idle research. As you do.

So, a question for you: without googling or wiki'ing or any other variety of looking it up, what is the maximum number of guns fired in a royal salute, and why is it that number of guns? Make it up, by all means, but I want reasons...

Comments

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

21 guns max, I think but as to why... I haven't a clue. Must go google it and see if I'm right.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

I was wrong, it's 41

[ogre-san.livejournal.com]

Twenty-one. Because that's the most cannons you can converge on the target without too much collateral damage. Especially if you're aiming at the royalty in question.

Yes, I made that up.

[dqg-neal.livejournal.com]

I don't recall the details out of hand, but I remember reading a codified set of rules that British Navy had about such things.

21 being the specific number honor a nation. And all salutes are in odd numbers due to one of the multitude of seasman supersitions.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

The number of rounds fired in a Royal Gun Salute depends on the place and occasion. The basic salute is 21 rounds. In Hyde Park and Green Park an extra 20 rounds are added because they are a Royal Park, so Royal saluites there get 41 guns. (Courtesy of google.)

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

I'd have said 21 with the full certainty it was wrong, but I couldn't come up with a good story as to why. :)

[silly-swordsman.livejournal.com]

21 (and I say that as a foreigner, without looking it up).

As for why, it's to keep people on their toes. While a salute for lesser dignitaries or occasions might have three, ten, or a dozen guns, a royal salute obviously needs to be more impressive. So people will expect more than three, definitely, and may well hang on for twelve, just in case, once ten has been fired. The thirteenth will make many jump, and then conclude that it'll be a double-tenner and relax after twenty.

That's when you surprise everybody by firing the twenty-first. Shaken, people will pull themselves together, determined not to be caught out again, and brace themselves for three (for a double dozen) or four (for a quarter century) more.

And that's when the smugly smiling Royal surprises everybody again by acknowledging the end of the ceremony, just when they were busy conting down the seconds to the next round.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Um. Twenty-one. 'Cause if you fire more than that, um, it's . . . um. Too. . . too expensive. There we go. Twenty-one charges of gunpowder cost exactly as much as . . . something or other that you're not supposed to cost more than.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Thank you; that's very lovely.

Actually of course any number of foreigners do this too, but not so much with our sense of tradition behind it; and apparently not with our sense of cumulative number, which is why 21 is not enough...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hee. Parsimony is highly appropriate to the question; naval captains were only allowed a strictly limited quantity of gunpowder and shot. Which is why wealthy captains used to buy in their own, at their own expense.

Not twenty-one, though. Not by a country mile.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

This is good; and I will excuse your googling, 'cos it's also wrong. *smirks*

friendsfriends surfed

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

I did not know the answer, but now I do.

I just finished The Ionian Mission a second time, I needed to take a break after reading all of them to that point straight through, but the break needs to be shorter than two years (which was the last break) or I'll feel like I need to start all over again.

I find the rank insignia and flag placement info very interesting, myself.

Although, now reading on gun salutes, 62 at the Tower of London (the basic 21, plus a further 20 because the Tower is a Royal Palace and Fortress, plus another 21 'for the City of London')

or 124: whenever the Duke of Edinburgh's birthday (62 rounds) coincides with the Saturday designated as the Queen's official birthday (also 62 rounds)

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

http://www.royalparks.org.uk/tourists/gun_salutes.cfm
Well, I figured the Royal Parks people would know, but if you know more, do tell...

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

It's currently 30: 16 for each of the Commonwealth Realms + 14 for the British Overseas Territories.
Back in the days when the sun never set royal salutes were to be avoided simply because they went on for so long. On one unfortunate occasion an elderly member of the royal family actually died of old age before the salute in his honour had been completed. More recently, of course, the problem was that no-one could ever be certain exactly which countries were still under British rule and there were frequent embarrassing moments when the incorrect number of guns was fired.

[dedbutdrmng.livejournal.com]

Is it a constantly changing number based on X x A?

X being the glasses of alcohol consumed in the last hour by the Captain and A being the amount of favour he wishes to curry with the Admiralty?

[silly-swordsman.livejournal.com]

Actually of course any number of foreigners do this too, but not so much with our sense of tradition behind it

Nobody does things with as much sense of tradition as the British.

The father of a friend used to be a yeoman warder at the Tower, and a few years ago invited me in to see the ceremony of the keys from the inside, as it were. After the whole thing was properly and appropriately locked, we had tea in the little house he and his wife had inside the walls. I don't think I've ever felt as snugly safe.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Will do. I'm just waiting for other people to have a turn...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Oh lor', that is so cool!

Also, hang on to thoughts of the Tower. They are ... not inappropriate.

Re: friendsfriends surfed

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yup. That's the number I have too: 124, on very particular Saturdays. I suppose at this point I should go find out when the next relevant Saturday occurs, but, y'know. I have a book to revise...

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

On that occasion, because of the death, they then had to fire a whole new salute in honour of the deceased. Sadly, since they hadn't expected it to occur right then (if it had occurred after the initial salute had finished, they would have been permitted to fold it into the following day's salute), they didn't actually have enough charges to hand.

The result being, the salute was incomplete, and the following day, they had to do a triple salute: the first salute, the added one for the deceased, and then the one they'd have done anyway that day.

(It was at about this time that Britain decided it was time to stop colonisng new territories.)

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

A royal birthday or coronation (or the Queen's official birthday) receives a 62-gun salute at the Tower of London. Since the salutes are cumulative, a royal's birthday or coronation falling on the Queen's official birthday receives a 124-gun salute.

Actually, that isn't true because officially, only 42 of the rounds in that case would come from guns, the remaining 82 rounds would come from a chamber, or carriage-less gun.

It dates back to some time around the coronation of King William IV.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Actually, that isn't true because officially, only 42 of the rounds in that case would come from guns, the remaining 82 rounds would come from a chamber, or carriage-less gun.

Now that bit I didn't know. Why that?

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

I may be wrong, but in terms of official parlance, a gun is a large weapon that is mounted on a carriage. A chamber is fixed in place and can't be moved.

The Tower of London had twenty-one guns and 41 chambers, I presume most of the guns aimed toward the river would have been chambers rather than guns.

Of course, not being a gun person, to me if you can put a round into it, pull the trigger, so to speak, and have it go BOOM, it is a gun.

[pennski.livejournal.com]

76! To match the trombones!

[silly-swordsman.livejournal.com]

they didn't actually have enough charges to hand.

I have to admire the resourcefulness of the artillery commander, even though his quickly thought-out solution was declared unsatisfactory. Still, not only did the deceased get a proper salute, one day delayed, but also a squad of Royal Marines shouting "BAM!" in unison.

[pogodragon.livejournal.com]

21 because they were instituted at the time of Henry VIII and the one used to drown out the protests of the crowd at the execution of Anne Boleyn used one round for each digit that she had (10 toes and 11 fingers)

I may have slightly made that up.

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

'Notice therefore being given that upon such a day, the Prince himself, or his High Admiral of the Kingdoms, or some General of a present fleet, intendeth to visit any of his chief ships before they go out to sea' [then follows two pages of instructions on the requisite ceremonies] 'And thus having been entertained, and fully informed by the Captain in all his demands, he is in the like manner to be waited upon at his departure, as he was at his coming it. And having returned into his barge, after the trumpets have sounded a loath-to-depart, and that the barge is fallen off a fit and fair berth and distance from the ship, he is to have his farewell given him with so many guns as the ship is able to give; provided that they be always of an odd number.' - Nathaniel Butler, A Dialogicall Discourse Concerninge Marine Affaires, completed c. 1643

[esmeraldus-neo.livejournal.com]

Ignoring that someone has already corrected to 41...

I say 21, because I'm an American, and AFAIK we get a max of 21.

As to why:

If you fire more than that, your ship might roll over, you know, like a mill wheel, BOOM! splash BOOM! splash BOOM! splash...

...and that would look silly, and everyone would be damp all the time, and your cannon would probably fall off on the fifth or sixth rotation if you weren't careful.