As we end the year at Spink, it is with great pleasure that we have opened our doors to a royal visit. HRH Princess Helen of Romania was the guest of honour at the book launch of Peter Galloway's The Royal Victorian Order. Peter Galloway, or to give him his correct designation, the Reverend Professor Peter Galloway OBE is Chaplain of the Queen's Chapel of the Savoy. The chapel was built as part of a charitable foundation under the terms of the will of King Henry VII in the early sixteenth century. On 11 May 1937 King George VI commanded that it should be the Chapel of the Royal Victorian Order. The Royal Victorian Order was founded by Queen Victoria in 1896. It is part of the state honours system, but is given at the discretion of the Sovereign and not on the advice of the Prime Minister.

Appointments to the Order can be seen in a section of the New Year and Birthday Honours Lists, and are also made on other occasions throughout the year. The Order is used to recognise a wide variety of service to the Sovereign and the Royal Family. His Majesty King Michael I of Romania - Princess Helen's father - is the senior Grand Knight of the order and was rep-resented at the book launch by his daughter. As coincidence would have it, the book stand that was used at the event for those giving speeches originally belonged to Queen Mary and when Princess Helen asked about the stand, she mentioned that Queen Mary had been her godmother.

Peter Galloway was appointed Chaplain of The Queen's Chapel of the Savoy and the Royal Victorian Order by The Queen in February 2008. He is Visiting Professor in Politics and History at Brunel University, was appointed OBE in 1996, and awarded the degree of DLitt (Doctor of Letters from Brunel University in 2009. 

Peter's other publications includeOrder of the British Empire (1996),The Most Illustrious Order (1999), Companions of Honour (2002), The Order of the Bath (2006),The Order of the Thistle (2009), andExalted, Eminent and Imperial: Honours of the British Raj (2014). All these titles are availableon the spinkbooks.com website, in our London Showroom or by emailing: [email protected] or phoning: +44 (0)20 7563 4046.