Posted on 08/17/2012 1:17:13 PM PDT by mom4kittys
His title is Duke of Cambridge, but Prince William was a real-life knight in shining armor for a pair of teenage sisters in England. William, 30, was working his day job as a search-and-rescue pilot in the Royal Air Force (RAF) Thursday afternoon when a call came in that a 16-year-old girl had been swept out to sea off the coast of Silver Bay in Anglesey.
From Crib to Captain: Prince William Through the Years
The girl, who has not been identified, and her 13-year-old sister had been body-boarding in the water when they were caught on a riptide, according to the BBC. As the girl tried to help her younger sister, she also became distressed.
While the younger sister was able to be pulled safely to shore by onlookers, the 16-year-old remained stranded in the water.
Less than 38 seconds after receiving a distress call, an RAF rescue helicopter captained by Prince William came to her rescue.
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With the aid of two surfers waving and pointing to the area where the girl was stranded, William swooped the helicopter down to the waters while his winchman, Master Aircrew Harry Harrison, pulled the older sister out of the water.
"When I got to her, the elder girl was clearly exhausted and was going under the water for what was the very last time," Harrison told the BBC. "We never know what we'll face when we're called out, this was one rescue where we truly did arrive in the nick of time and managed to save two young lives."
Both sisters were taken to a nearby hospital as a precautionary measure but were said to have suffered from only the shock and cold of the water.
(Excerpt) Read more at gma.yahoo.com ...
Fair enough. I just wish he was more pleasant and for sure not on the Global Warming bandwagon.
I think Charles will make an excellent king.
Wow. Interesting.
Touchy, aren't we?
I'm not up on the particulars of royalty lingo. But as I understand it a monarch's reign is dated from accession, as in, "The King is dead, long live the King."
Not from the coronation. Otherwise during the period between accession and coronation the country would be without a king.
Not to upset you more, but the official version is that Richard II abdicated in favor of Henry IV.
Parliament also decided that James II abdicated by fleeing the country, leaving the throne vacant.
Probably not what really happened, in either case, but it is the de jure position.
AFAIK, there is absolutely nothing legally to prevent the present Queen from abdicating tomorrow. So English (interesting choice of adjective) monarchs not "stepping down" is nothing more than a rather long-standing family tradition.
OK. I think Charles is pleasant enough, but I agree with you about the environmental wacko and Islamic twaddle that he’s swallowed. It is my belief that while the British conquered a vast empire, they were ultimately consumed by its foreign cultures and philosophies. Charles is a poster child for the malady, but it is a widespread affliction that is consuming once-Great Britain.
Yeah, but Prince Charles isn’t even worthy to clean Aragorn’s boots.
Diana was actually quite twisted.
I read about her destructive interactions with her sons after she kicked the bucket. Not sure the media creation - the queen of hearts - would have reacted normally to adult sons. She did not interact with them normally when they were little.
The royals’ personalities are a media creation for public consumption.
Don’t bring in facts. The dunces worship the media creation that Wills is adorable, smart and all-wise. Just like nutso Dianah was the “queen of hearts.”
She may have been neurotic and who wouldn’t be after everything the royal family and Charles put her through?
She had to live in a fishbowl and expected to keep a stiff upper lip while Charles was cheating on her, She probably treated her sons as friends due to the isolation.
Yes, she was neurotic but she was also lonely and scarred. I still say she was a good person.
You are wrong. The examples you cite are ancient and exceptional - Richard II didn’t “abdicate” - he was captured, forced to sign a document, and then...killed. Does that sound like “stepping down”?
James II, who lived through a bloody civil war that resulted in the regicide of his father, fled England to save his own and his newborn son’s life in the wake of a violent uprising. That hardly constitutes “stepping down”.
The norm for England since the 11th century has been inheritance based on primogeniture upon the death of the monarch. Monarchs do not “step down”. It is not a job. The Queen will not abdicate, and when she dies, her eldest son, if he is still living, will become the king.
Well, no. Nobody was going to kill Jim or the baby. In fact Jim was captured while fleeing (by fiishermen, not soldiers under the command of William), and William later very carefully allowed him to escape, not wanting to create a martyr as with his father.
The baby had left the day before with his mother.
The Glorious Revolution was also not particularly violent, with under 100 dead on both sides. The major reason being that a great many Englishmen, often to their dishonor, switched sides. Including his two daughters. Not knowing whom among his remaining followers to trust, Jim lost his nerve and ran away, even though his remaining army still outnumbered the opposition.
I think you may both be missing the most important point about the succession, which is that it’s determined by Act of Parliament (the Act of Settlement), not by the wishes or whim of any particular monarch.
Not missing anything. My only point is that the Queen can abdicate if she so chooses, not that I think it likely.
Her successor, of course, is determined by law, not by her personal preference.
It began as a violent uprising. There was no way to know exactly how it would turn out. And fleeing the country, can hardly be called “stepping down”.
And, in fact, no English monarch has ever done anything like “stepping down”. There were some killed, some forced to abdicate and then promptly killed, and one that fled. Even the one minute Edw VIII was obliged to reside outside of England after he renounced the throne. So there is no historical precedent in England of a monarch giving up their throne to an heir and then pottering around the garden or taking up golf like a retired CEO. Again, it’s not a job.
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