Royal Victorian Order
The Royal Victorian Order is a house order which was instituted on 21st April 1896 by command of Queen Victoria, the year before her Diamond Jubilee, to enable her to acknowledge and recognise personal service to The Sovereign. Her Majesty wanted an order which was entirely in her control and the Prime Minister of the day, Lord Salisbury, saw the advantage of this, stipulating that no government expense should be involved. Appointment to the Order remains at the sole discretion of the Sovereign and, as such, is held in particularly high esteem.
The Order is given to the monarch's family and household, and to ambassadors. The Order is also conferred on foreigners, and it is often awarded by the sovereign during official tours overseas. (It used to be said that it easier to pick up a GCVO for accompanying a visiting head of state than if you had served the British Sovereign for a number of years...) The first foreigners to receive the Order were the Prefect of Alpes Maritimes and the Mayor of Nice, during Queen Victoria's visit to the south of France in 1896. After 1931, when the Statute of Westminster came into being and the Dominions of the British Empire started to become independent states, equal in status to Britain, the Royal Victorian Order remained an honour open to all the monarch's realms; thus, as with the monarch who conferred it, the Order ceased to be purely British.
The statutes of the Order were revised on 28th May 1936 by HM King Edward VIII (one of the few changes he made) to allow ladies to be admitted in order that his mother, HM Queen Mary, could be appointed the first Dame Grand Cross. This, however, was King Edward's only appointment.
HM King George VI made a number of appointments - to his surviving aunts and great-aunts - but is most noted for appointing his wife, Queen Elizabeth as the first Grand Master - a post she held until she passed away in 2002 - and selecting the Chapel of the Savoy to be the Chapel of the Order. He also conferred the Grand Cross on two of his physicians in person when they, in turn, were on their sickbeds. Strangely enough, he didn't appoint his two daughters to the Order. Elizabeth, the present Queen, went straight to the Garter (presumably as Heir and in lieu of an investiture as Princess of Wales in her own right*) and Margaret was appointed to the Royal Victorian Order by her sister ahead of the Coronation in 1953.
There are the usual classes, but prior to 1984, the grades of Lieutenant and Member were classified as Member (fourth class) and Member (fifth class), respectively, both with the post-nominals MVO. On 31st December of that year, Queen Elizabeth II declared that those in the grade of Member (fourth class) would henceforth be Lieutenants with the post-nominals LVO. (The class of Officer with the post-nominals OVO had been considered unsuitable.)
Most royal spouses, as seen below, are awarded the Order after a number of years of service. The Duchess of Cornwall received hers in 2012 after 7 years and the Duchess of Cambridge in 2019 after 8 years. Surprisingly, Diana, Princess of Wales was never awarded the Order even though she was married to the Prince of Wales for 15 years and had been given the Queen's Family Order the same year they got married, in 1981.
The Royal Victorian Order remains the highest order given to HRH Prince Michael of Kent. He was made Knight Commander in 1992 and elevated to Grand Cross in 2003. There was the curious case of HRH the Prince Andrew, Duke of York and HRH the Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, who were both made Commander of the Order (Andrew in 1979 and Edward in 1989) and then Knight Commander in 2003. They were both made a Knight of the Garter in 2006 before being advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order in 2011. HRH Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex was effectively knighted by his Grandmother in 2015 when he was made Knight Commander in the same month as he left the Army after 10 years' service, including two tours in Afghanistan. Prince Charles, however, is not a member of the Order and it is his sister, HRH The Princess Royal, who is currently the Grand Master, having taken over from HM The Queen Mother.
This may seem a lot but The Queen is very frugal about awards and the costs involved. In earlier times more would have had the Royal Victorian Order, especially men, and more would have had it sooner.
* The matter of a Princess of Wales in her own right, now that following the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 effectively does away with the concept of Heir Presumptive for the eldest child of a sovereign if a daughter - which Her Majesty was to her father HM King George VI - as she will not be replaced by any subsequent son of the sovereign, has not been clarified. Since the first three on the List of the Order of Succession, the next three generations in line to the Throne - Charles, William and George - are all male, the matter will not arise, unless Prince George's eldest child is a girl or Prince George predeceases his father and has a daughter as his eldest child or has no children and Princess Charlotte becomes the direct heir. (I'm sure there are other possible scenarios.
In typical style, until the matter arises, the point will not be discussed.
The Queen herself, equally pragmatic, enjoyed the service in 1983 and commended its brevity.
Surprisingly, the last Order of Chivalry and last appointment of any award to The late Prince Philip, for whom royal mourning finishes today, was, surprisingly, was the Royal Victorian Order when he was awarded the Knight Grand Cross on 20th November 2017 to mark his and The Queen's 70th Wedding Anniversary. As we will see below, this is equally surprising for the fact that he was appointed to this Order 10 years after he had been awarded the Royal Victorian Chain instead of working his way up from the ranks, so to speak. For just over three years, HRH would have been entitled to be the only person to be able to wear four Grand Cross Stars by appointment (as opposed to the monarch who is Sovereign of all Orders). These were namely: Garter, Thistle, Royal Victorian Order and Order of the British Empire. At that point, the previous holder of the record was Prince Philip's uncle, Earl Mountbatten of Burma. Lord Louis might, if he'd had space, have worn all five (being somewhat of a magpie as far as orders were concerned) - Garter, Bath, Star of India, Indian Empire and Royal Victorian Order, having been the last Viceroy of India, even though the country's Independence may have made that somewhat out of place.
Royal Victorian Chain
The Chain was first recorded as a new decoration in August 1902, when it was reported that Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, was received in private audience to be awarded the Royal Victorian Chain following the Coronation of the King two days earlier. The first recipients included the King's son, George, Prince of Wales (later George V) and the King's brother, HRH the Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught. He also awarded it to royal visitors and other family members attending his Coronation that year.
HRH the Princess Margaret shows here, in succession, that the Bow of the Chain is not worn by women with the Riband of the Order as they would clash. She subsequently found that the Bow proved especially cumbersome with not only the Royal Family Orders of her sister, father and grandfather, but also the Bow of the Order of the Crown of India as one of the last recipients alongside her elder sister two months before the country's independence in 1947. Princess Margaret solved the situation by wearing the man's Chain, not only a more practical usage but a less unsightly one. It was, after all, very dear to her heart as she was awarded the Royal Victorian Chain at Balmoral in August 1990 to celebrate her 60th Birthday and was therefore a personal gift from The Queen.
Whilst there is no evidence that that great doyen (if not collector) of orders and decorations, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, had put in a bid for the Royal Victorian Chain, he might well have received it on his 80th Birthday which would have occured the year after his murder. He would not have been oblivious to the fact that it was the only honour that he lacked and that his physical frame could have borne! We will never know...