A bit of a blow for Cadbury, I'll warrant.

When you get right down to it, it’s very difficult to know what members of the Royal Family really feel about things. It seems to me that the higher position they hold on the royal pyramid, the less scope that they have to show partiality. So I don’t actually know if His Majesty the King really doesn’t like chocolate. But obtaining a set of Queen Victoria Boer War chocolate tins has made me do a little bit of light research about the connection between the royal family and chocolate. What do you know, I found out that King Charles has withdrawn the Royal Warrant from Cadbury’s chocolate, and if I’m correct this is the first time they haven’t had one for over 170 years.

Queen Victoria first granted the Royal Warrant in 1854. We can be pretty certain that she was a bit of a fan from the way that Cadbury’s were her first port of call when she wanted to send a present of the finest British chocolate to soldiers fighting in the Boer War and it was in the course of finding out more about this that I discovered that Cadbury have lost their royal warrant.

The Royal household doesn’t go into details about why companies lose their warrant, but since 2010 Cadbury’s have been owned by US based Mondelez International. It’s believed that the King faced calls to withdraw warrants from companies still operating in Russia, as does Mondelez. Has it made a material difference to Cadbury’s? I’m sure that they would have rather kept it, given the choice, but I doubt it will have made much of a difference in terms of cold, hard cash. All it means is a certain loss of caché, no invitation to warrant holder shindigs and having to remove the crown logo from packaging.

I am coming to the point now. I’ve looked into royal warrants of appointment and would like to ask you this. Which monarch do you think was the first in the UK to grant a royal warrant? Yes, go through all the usual suspects – Victoria – Georges IV and III – Elizabeth I. Answer – Henry II in 1155.

Sort of.

I say sort of because, like a depressingly large number of quiz ‘facts’, the answer isn’t quite as simple as that. In 1155 Henry II gave a Royal charter to the Weavers’ Company in London. Royal charters were the predecessors to Royal Warrants of Appointment. But that doesn’t mean it was actually the first, it means that it was the first we have documentary evidence for, which is not quite the same thing. In the 1400s the Royal Warrant of Appointment replaced the royal charter, but I have been unable to find out who actually received the first. William Caxton was an early recipient, receiving the warrant from Edward IV in 1476. But was he the actual first? I don’t know.

It’s interesting to see who can grant warrants too. The only Royal Warrants out there at the moment were granted by King Chrles and Queen Camilla. However, from the end of this year, I believe, the Prince and Princess of Wales will also be able to do so. Should King Charles predecease Queen Camilla, then she would continue to issue warrants.

There you go.