Is Bowing Or Curtsying To Queen Elizabeth Necessary? What Happens If You Refuse?

Longtime royal family fans would know that bowing or curtsying is the proper way to greet Queen Elizabeth II and other royals like Prince Charles, Prince William and Prince Harry. However, a few are wondering if a bow or curtsy is necessary at all or what happens when one doesn’t do it when meeting royalty, especially Her Majesty.

Most royal family fans on the forum Quora believe that nothing will happen to the person who doesn’t feel like bowing or curtsying to Queen Elizabeth. “Nothing, absolutely nothing. Not everybody bows when presented to Her Majesty, the sky doesn’t fall in, I promise,” Quora user Pete Stollery wrote.

To support his answer, Stollery even posted a quote taken from the royal family’s website. “There are no obligatory codes of behaviour when meeting The Queen or a member of the Royal Family, but many people wish to observe the traditional forms,” it reads.

Another Quora user suggested that there’s actually only one instance where one is required to specifically bow down before Her Majesty. And that is when one is about to receive a knighthood.

“About the only time you are actually required to bow before the queen is when receiving a knighthood,” Alec Cawley wrote on the Q&A site. “If you refused, you would possibly not get your knighthood.”

Meanwhile, things are a bit lively at The Student Room site when one asked if it might be illegal if one refuses to curtsy to Queen Elizabeth II. While most agree that it’s not illegal and nothing would happen for the refusal, one user bucked the trend and even suggested that it might even land one in jail.

“Yes, you will be arrested, Public Order Act 1986,” a user who calls him or herself 122025278 wrote on The Student Room. “Harassment, alarm or distress — (1) A person is guilty of an offence if he: (a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behavior within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby.”

“You going out of your way to not curtsy is intentional, it is insulting and could easily be construed as such and there is no doubt it would offend a good few members of the public present,” the user further explained. “I would be extremely surprised if you were not arrested.”

But perhaps the words of a palace insider who knows royal protocol would carry more weight when it comes to these matters. Dickie Arbiter, the Queen’s former press secretary, actually wrote in a memoir that bowing and curtsying are “not necessarily right for modern times,” according to Telegraph.

For Arbiter, it’s totally up to the person to bow or curtsy. “Bowing or curtsying when in the presence of a member of the Royal family? Not necessary. Not unless one chooses to,” he wrote in the book titled “On Duty With The Queen.”