Dealing with Court Heralds

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A General Guide to Dealing With Court Heralds

And, How to Get Your Business on the Roster

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the personal opinion of Lord Dafydd Caerfyrddin and are NOT the “official” position of the An Tir College of Heralds.

Recently, I had an experience that made me realize that I should write an article to help the populace of An Tir understand how to deal with those of us who run Courts for The Royals (this includes Principality and Baronial Courts). This is intended only to explain the process and educate the populace as to what happens behind the scenes.

Courts take a lot of planning and preparation. Usually, in the hour before Court is when it all begins. The Herald and The Royals are deep in preparation, deciding what order all of the business will occur in and making sure that all the necessary materials are at hand. It is best not to try to get your court business on the roster during this time. Most of the time, an announcement will go out a couple of hours before court that the Herald is taking court business. If you want to get on the roster, please seek us out during that time.

Requesting time in court is not a guarantee that you will be called up. Though we all do our best to accommodate everyone, there may be time constraints or other orders of business that take precedence. Please don’t take offense or blame the Herald if you didn’t get called. Realize that we will do our best to get you on the roster, but court is always a very busy time and all court business is at the directive of those officiating.

When requesting time in court, please inform the Herald what your announcement, presentation, or other business is. We won’t tell anyone other than The Royals what is going on. If we don’t know what your business is, chances are that The Royals will do one of two things: ask us to find you and get the correct information OR not include your business because they don’t know what it is. The Royals and the Herald arrange court by interspersing presentations, announcements and awards, so if we don’t know what your business is, it is difficult to arrange things as needed.

If you have been informed that you will be on the court roster, please stay for court. It tends to irritate everyone involved if you have requested to have time in court and you are not there when you are called. It is hard enough to keep everything running smoothly, without having to rearrange the order because someone is not there when they are called. I would love to inform everyone what order they are going to be called in, but that just isn’t always feasible.

Immediately after court is NOT a good time to approach the Herald to get on the roster for the next court (especially if it was a long court). Realize that we have been busy for at least 2 hours prior to court and may not have had the opportunity to eat, sit down, use the biffy or whatever for quite some time. Try to give us a chance to catch our breath for a little while, before we start working again.

These words are offered to help us all get through these busy times with the least amount of stress to everyone.

In Humble Service to the Crown,

Lord Dafydd Caerfyrddin

Royal Herald to Their Majesties

Uther and Angharad, An Tir

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