It is deemed the ultimate act of loyalty and servitude to the monarch — to stoop to lay a small kiss on their hand.
Thought to be an ancient act to show fidelity, it is one Rishi Sunak will carry out when he becomes the UK’s third prime minister of the year.
The newly elected Conservative Party leader will be King Charles III’s second PM in his six-week reign, following hot on the heels of the short-lived tenure of Liz Truss.
But Mr Sunak will be the first political leader of the country that the King has exchanged the so-called “kissing hands” ritual with as the revolving door in 10 Downing Street continues.
What is “kissing hands”?
The formal audience between Mr Sunak and the King will likely be described in the Court Circular — the official record of royal engagements — as “kissing hands”.
The new prime minister kissing the monarch’s hand is designed to show loyalty from the politician when setting up a new government in the king or queen’s name.
But there have been conflicting accounts of whether there is actually a physical kiss that takes place in the modern age.
Some say just a mere meeting between King and PM, with Charles and Mr Sunak expected to convene at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday (October 25), is enough to qualify as “kissing hands”.
But other reports have suggested a physical kiss will happen, with some saying it occurs at a later session of the Privy Council — a meeting of the monarch’s close advisers and cabinet ministers.
According to the Royal Encyclopaedia, at Privy Council, the new appointee "kneels on a footstool in front of the [monarch], who proffers [their] right hand, palm downwards with fingers lightly closed”.
The new Privy Counsellor or minister will then “extend his or her right hand, palm upwards and, taking the [King's] hand lightly, will kiss it with no more than a touch of the lips".
Former Tory education secretary Baroness Morgan recalled how on being sworn in as a Privy Counsellor she “forgot to breathe… as I was so close to my monarch”.
Recalling her experience with the late Queen, she said: “However experienced in life you are, that ceremony of kneeling and kissing your monarch’s hand is probably the most agonising kiss you will ever make in your lifetime.”
Are Prime Ministers still required to kiss the King’s hand?
In his autobiography, My Life, Our Times, former Labour leader Gordon Brown said there was no kiss but instead only a handshake between him and the Queen in 2007.
However, his predecessor Tony Blair said that, 10 years prior, he was told by a Buckingham Palace official to “brush them [the Queen’s hands] gently with your lips”.
Mr Blair recalls in his own memoirs, A Journey, of how he tripped on a piece of carpet on his way to greet the Queen, turning the kissing of hands into “not so much [a] brushing, as enveloping them”.
Since then, prime ministers have not been explicitly about whether a physical act was carried out in the private meeting.
Liz Truss became the first of the 15 PMs during Queen Elizabeth’s 70 year reign not to have the ceremony take place in London.
Due to the late sovereign's ailing health, Ms Truss travelled to Balmoral Castle in Scotland to officially be asked to establish a new government on September 6.
It was the Queen’s final public act, with the 96-year-old dying two days later.
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