plus some of the barons, and a few of the others who came to
run the country later on
in chronological order (some of
these do not get mentioned in the blog, but I have included them anyway; names that are on the
blog are listed by blog-date)
And you will notice that there is no King Arthur on this
list, nor Queen Guinièvre (unless you count Lady Godiva on March 15), nor any of their royal line or dynasty. And why not?
Because they have never existed, except in the need of European Christianity to
replace the religion of the Celtic world with their own mythologies; achieved, over a period of many centuries, through the writing of both courtly
romances and pseudo-history, and through them the reduction of the Celtic gods and goddesses
to human status. See my page on Celtic Mythology at TheBibleNet
The First Anglo-Saxon (-Jute-and-Fresian)
Epoch (with some occasional Danish inter-regna)
Where to start? I am following the order, and using the bios,
of the official English royal website, and it starts with
Offa (son of Thingfrith, son of Eanulf), born circa 730,
died July 29 796, bio here - though he obviously wasn't the first king, of Mercia, let
alone any other part of England, because "he obtained the throne of Mercia
in 757, after the murder of his cousin, King Aethelbald, by Beornraed". Aethelbald's bio here, and clearly he wasn't the first either. This is
the Offa who built the dyke that defines to this day the border of England and
Cymru, and in whose time St Alban's Abbey was founded and the first Viking
raids took place. Apparently he was a good friend of Charlemagne
Ecgfrith, son of Offa, reigned for
less than six months and little is known of him; what there is can be found here
Egbert (Ecgberht) born circa 769;
died 839: ruled Wessex from 802;
conquered Mercia around 827, which gave him control of all of England south of
the Humber; added Northumberland and
North Cymry in 829, north Wales in 839; given the title Bretwalda (“ruler of the
British” in Anglo-Saxon); buried in Winchester; bio here
Aethelwulf born 795;
crowned 839; died 858: King of Wessex, son of Egbert (his mum was
named Redburh, though elsewhere she is called Osburh), and father
of Alfred the Great; spent most of his life doing
religion and fighting off the Vikings; bio here
Aethelbald born circa 831; died 860; second son
of Aethelwulf and Redburh; crowned at
Kingston-upon-Thames in 1588, after forcing his father to abdicate on his
return from pilgrimage to Rome, though he ruled in effect from 856; buried at
Sherborne Abbey in Dorset; bio here
Aethelbert born circa 834;
crowned 860; died 866; brother of Æthelbald; likewise crowned
at Kingston-upon-Thames and buried at Sherborne; bio here
Aethelred I born circa 837;
crowned 866; died 871: brother of Aethelbald and Aethelbert; ruled at the
time when the Danes were establishing the kingdom of Yorvik and moving
south; with his other brother Alfred, he fought them
off at Reading, Ashdown, Basing and Meretun, at the last of which battles Aethelred was killed; he is
buried at Witchampton in Dorset; bio here
Alfred the Great born circa
849; crowned 871; died 899: the fourth of the brothers to rule from Wessex, he
was initially defeated by the Vikings, retreating to what is now Wedmore near
Gleistonbury, where he signed the Danelaw that
divided England into north and south forever afterwards: Saxon south, Viking
north; he also established a permanent army and a very embryonic Royal Navy, as
well as incipiting the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles; he is buried in Winchester;
bio here
Edward (The Elder) born circa
871; formally crowned on June 8 900, though he had taken power at his father's
death in 899; died 924; son of Alfred, he retook
southeast England and the Midlands from the Danes (breaching the Danelaw in the
process!), and then united the kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia. Recognised as
"father and lord" by the Scottish King Constantine II, he was killed
in a battle against the “Welsh” near Chester and buried in Winchester; bio
here
Athelstan, son of Edward
the Elder: born circa 895; ascended to the throne July 17 924 but
only crowned on September 4 925; died 939, unmarried and childless: the Battle
of Brunanburh in 937 made him effectively King of all Britain. He is
buried in Malmesbury in Wiltshire; bio here
Edmund I born circa
922, half-bother of Athelastan; ascended to the
throne October 27 939, aged 18; coronation November 29 of the same year, and
all of these have been at Kingston-upon-Thames; died 946, stabbed by a robber
in his royal hall at Pucklechurch near Bath when
he was only 25; his two sons, Eadwig and Edgar, were too young
to become kings (but see below), so another of his half-brothers, Eadred, took the throne;
bio here
Eadred or Edred; born circa 923,
the son of Edward the Elder by his third
marriage to Eadgifu; crowned August 16 946; expelled
the last Scandinavian King of York, Eric Bloodaxe (bio here), in
954; died on November 23 955 of a stomach condition, still in his early 30s,
unmarried and without an heir, at Frome in Somerset, and is buried in
Winchester; bio here
Eadwig or Edwy;
born circa 940, the eldest son of Edmund I, and still only 16
when he was crowned at Kingston-upon-Thames on January 26 956. Legend has it
that his coronation had to be delayed to allow Bishop Dunstan to prise Eadwig from his bed,
and from between the arms of his “strumpet” and the strumpets’ mother. Perhaps
unimpressed by the interruption, Eadwig had Dunstan exiled to France. Eadwig died in Gloucester when he was just
20, on October 1 959, the circumstances of his death are not recorded; bio here
Edgar born circa
943, the youngest son of Edmund I, and did he arrange his elder
brother’s death? He definitely recalled Dunstan, and installed
him as Archbishop of Canterbury and chief counsellor. Crowned in Bath on
May 11 973, he met the other six kings of Britain in Chester, who rowed him
across across the River Dee as a gesture of homage; died July 8 975
Edgar is on the blog by Shakespearian allusion on March 15, July 16 and October 22, and under his
own name on March 15. The statue of
him is in Devonshire Square, by the Bishop's Gate in London; his bio here
Edward the Martyr born circa
963, crowned August 975, the: Eldest son of Edgar, and just twelve
when he was crowned. As Edgar with brother Aedwig, so Edward with his half-brother
Aethelred: Edward was murdered on March
18 978 at Corfe Castle,
and Aethelred readily took the throne; bio here
Aethelred II (the
Unready) born circa 968; ready to be crowned in April 978; less
ready however to take on the Danes, whence his nickname; mind you, he was only ten,
and it was his mum who did the dirty work, or failed to. He fled to Normandy in
1013 when Sweyn Forkbeard, King of the
Danes, invaded England in an act of revenge for the St Brice’s Day
massacre of England’s Danish inhabitants, and... but hold on that for a
moment...(Nov 13)
Sweyn
"Forkbeard" Haraldsson; born circa 960; king of Denmark from 986; crowned
King of England on Christmas Day 1013, he made his capital at Gainsborough in
Lincolnshire, but died just 5 weeks later; bio here
Aethelred II (this time slightly
more ready) (Part 2) reigned for a second time between 1014 and 1016,
returning after Sweyn’s death, and spent the next two
years at war with Sweyn’s son Knut (Canute, see below);
died on April 23 1016, in London; bio here
Edmund II ironside born circa 990,
son of Aethelred II, and still fighting Knut; he was chosen
as king by the good folk of London, and crowned at Old St Paul's Cathedral on April
25 1016, but The Witan (the King’s Council), went for Knut; picking up The
Danelaw, and after he lost the Battle of Assandun, he made a pact with Knut to divide the
kingdom between them, Edmund keeping Wessex, Knut getting
everything else; and a sub-clause that, if one died, the other would take the
lot. Mysteriously Edmund died only weeks later; bio here
Knut (Canute) the Dane born circa 995
in Denmark; ascended November 30 1016, crowned at St Pauls in January 1017; king
of all England, but he divided it into four earldoms: East Anglia, Mercia,
Northumbria and Wessex; very successful in almost everything he did, his only
known failure was that pointless attempt to turn back the tide; of life not
just the ocean, dying on November 12 1035; bio here
Harold I "Harefoot", born circa
1016; ascended to the throne on November 12 1035, and crowned in Oxford in
1037: known as "Harefoot" in recognition
of his speed and skill as a hunter; he illegitimate son of Knut and a woman named Elfigfu; he stole the throne
while half-brother Harthaknut (Harthacanute), the rightful
heir, was in Denmark fighting to protect his Danish kingdom, and himself
officially regenting his absence. He died in Oxford on March 17 1040 three just
weeks before Harthacanute came back with
his army, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. But only briefly: Harthacanute had his body dug
up, beheaded, and thrown into the Thames; what was recoverable by his London
followers was re-buried at St. Clement Danes in London; bio here
Harthaknut (Harthacanute) born circa
1018; the son of Knut the Dane and Emma
of Normandy, his return to England with a fleet of sixty-two warships
probably explains why he was so quickly accepted as king: acceptance on March
17 1040, coronation at Canterbury Cathedral in June of the same year. At his mother’s
request he brought his half-brother Edward, Emma’s son from her
first marriage to Aethelred the Unready, back from exile
in Normandy - more on him in the next paragraph. Harthacanute died, aged just
24, while toasting the health of the bride at a family wedding. He was the last
Danish king to rule England, dying unmarried and childless on June 8 1042; bio here
Edward Æthelredson of Wessex (St Edward the
Confessor), born circa 1004 at Islip; crowned April 3 1043 at
Winchester cathedral; the aforementioned son of Aethelred and Emma, he was king in
name but not in practice, leaving the day-to-day to Earl
Godwin and his son Harold while focusing entirely on the
rebuilding of Westminster Abbey; and so pleased was God with his work, he gave
him early entry into paradise just eight days after it was completed, on
January 5 1066; Edward can be found on Oct 13; his bio here
Harold II (Godwinson) 1066: Elected
king by the Witan, despite having no royal bloodline; except that he did have a
royal bloodline, the Norman one, through his mother. Who said so? Why, Duke Guillaume
de Normandie, of course, who claimed that Edward
Æthelredson (his second cousin biologically) had promised the throne to
him. Harold defeated an invading Norwegian army at the Battle
of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire, then marched south to confront Guillaume in Sussex. The Battle of Hastings,
for which see Oct 14; his bio here
The end of the epoch of the Anglo-Saxon kings.
*
The Norman-Plantagenet Epoch
Guillaume de Normandie,
William I, “the Conqueror” (born September 1028); aka “the
Bastard” because he was
the illegitimate son of Robert I of Normandy (Robert the Devil) and a woman named Arlette, and
only got his title by means irrelevant to this account. Not much liked by his
subjects in England either, he began the “Domesday Survey” in 1085, mostly as a
tax ledger to fund his army back in France. Crowned at Westminster Abbey on
what was not then Christmas Day, but was December 25 1066, he died at the siege
of Nantes on September 9 1087, and is buried at Caen; bio here
He cannot be found on March 15; he can be found on April 29, for the
“Great Survey” that would become the Domesday Book; Aug 10; invaded Aengland on Sept
28; Battle of Hastings on Oct 14;
crowned on Dec 25; and referenced
with reference to Magna Carta on June 15. Not to be confused with William the Lion, William I of Scotland,
who can be found on March
15
William Rufus (William II) born 1056, son of William I and Matilda
of Flanders; crowned September 26, 1087; not much more popular than his
dad, and even more cruel, he did at least complete the Domesday Book, for which
historians will be eternally grateful, though no one else. The Rufus Stone in
the New Forest marks the spot where a stray arrow handed the throne to his
absolutely innocent brother Henry (it was Walter Tyrrell what done it,
your ‘onner) on August 2, 1100; bio here; he can be found on April 29 and Sept 1, and re Magna Carta on June 15; also on Dec 1. Not
to be confused with William I of Scotland, who can be found on March 15 and the Scots
and Cymru list.
Henry Beauclerc (Henry I) born September 1068, he was William and Matilda's fourth son, well
educated to the point that he established a zoo at Woodstock near Oxenford to
study animals, and was nicknamed “The Lion of Justice”, the second part because
of the quality of the laws that he introduced, the first part because of the
cruelty of the punishments if you broke them. Crowned on August 6, 1100, his
two sons were drowned in the White Ship, so his daughter Matilda, married to Geoffrey
Plantagenet, was made his successor when he died of food poisoning in
Rouen on December 11 1135; but the Witan wasn’t having a woman on the throne,
and gave the crown on Henry’s death to Stephen, one of William
I‘s
grandsons; bio here; you can find Henry on Dec 1, and re Magna Carta on June 15
Stephen of Blois, where he was
born in 1097, son of another Stephen, Count of Blois, and Adela, William I's daughter; "His Weakness" rather more than
“His Majesty”, he was crowned on December 26 1135 and did nothing but fight a
civil war until his death in 1154. Partly because he usurped the throne from Matilda, partle because
this was the time of the rise of the barons, though it would take eighty years
before they got to Runnymede; constant raids from Cymry and Strathclyde,
pillaging of towns and extortions of money by both. Then what historians simply
call "The Anarchy", and it lasted a full decade, Matilda coming in from
France à la Cordelia and not just the equivalents of Cornwall and Albany to
repel her. Sheer bedlam, resolved by the Treaty of Westminster which assured
that Matilda’s son Henry succeeded; bio here; Stephen is on Dec 1, and Magna
Carta on June 15; also mentioned re Mary Becket on Dec 29
Mathilda Plantagenet (Empress Maud) born February 7 1102,
"reigned" 1135 - 1154; died September 10 1167; though she was
never crowned and is generally left out of the lists of English monarchs,
including the official royal website that I am using for most of these bios;
she can however be found here, and on the blog on Dec 1; her first husband was Geoffrey
Plantagenet, the Count of Anjou and founder of the Plantagenet dynasty,
as below; her second Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor
Henry
Plantagenet, Henry of Anjou, Henry FitzEmpres, Henry Curtmantle (Short
Mantle) (Henry II): The Norman connection key
here, through Matilda his mother even more than through his grandfather Henry
Beauclerc (Henry I): born at Le Mans on March 5
1133, crowned on December 19 1154, by the end of his reign they could have
talked about the English conquest of Normandy rather than t’other way around,
and it would stay that way for the next several centuries, with Franchois the
language of the Court and the courts in England, and its culture among the
rulers too, as anyone from the bourgeoisie who has savoir faire and that
certain je ne sais quoi can tell you to this day. For the Anglo-Saxon peasants
who had none of these, Henry introduced family names, insisting that each family choose its trade,
and stay in it; whence the number of people to this day named Baker or Cooper
or Smith. Also the jury system, and a tax on knights that was called “scutage”.
What gets remembered though is none of this, but rather Thomas Becket: mentioned on April 24, May
30, June
24, murdered on Dec 29. Henry died at Chinon Castle in Anjou on July 6 1189,
leaving two sons to rule England after him, Richard I and John
Lackland, and how that came about, rather than firstborn Henry (he died young),
or second-born Geoffrey (ask mum, Eleanor
of Acquitaine, and third son Richard about that: oh
dear, family squabbles that end in civil wars and fratricide; click here for Geoffrey's bio); Henry's bio here; on the blog on Dec 1 and Sept 8, Magna Carta on June 15, a mention on May 30, and also see Marie de France on Jan 13; also a mention on Oct 22 with her below↓
Eleanor
of Aquitaine, which should be written and
pronounced as Aliénor d'Aquitaine, with the accents at the beginning of both names, in the Langue d’Oui
(d’Oïl officially, but the difference is all about how they say “yes”); in the
Langue d’Oc she is written and pronounced Aliénor d'Aquitània, with the accents at the end of both names (mentions on Jan 13 and Sept 8;
she is listed among the Supra Idesses on April 17, but her main entry is on April 1
Richard Plantagenet, (Richard 1) born
September 8 1157, at Beaumont Palace in Oxford, like most of his siblings, so
clearly Matilda's presence there had made an important town of it, and no wonder the
Jews opened Yeshivot there, and eventually a university grew up; crowned at
Westminster Abbey on September 2 1189, which by pure coincidence just happens
to be the date of the worst pogrom against the Jews in English history, before
or since; he ruled for the next ten years, or just the next ten days, as far as
his presence in Aengland goes, dying on April 6 1199, in France obviously, and
for anything else you want to know about a man who should be nicknamed “Esprit de Yuch” rather than “Coeur de Lion” see May 30, July
14,
Sept 8, and re Magna
Carta on June 15; World
Homophobes Day is on Sept
21
John Lackland born December 24, 1166,
again at Beaumont Palace in Oxford; Henry II’s fourth son,
crowned on May 27 1199, and the adjectives I have found in the history books to
describe him include short, fat, cruel, self-indulgent, selfish, avaricious,
punitive and jealous (of big brother Richard); but not a
single compliment has yet turned up. Excommunicated by Pope Innocent III, compelled by
the barons to sign Magna Carta, the other oft-repeated descriptor is “the worst
English king”; died on October 18 1216, leaving behind various legitimate and
illegitimate children, one of them his successor Henry
III; bio here, and you can
find him on April
24,
turned into a mince pie on Jan 6, re Magna Carta on June
15, and on his death-date, Oct 19
Robert fitz
Walter, the leader of
the Runnymede barons, can be found on June
15, with a full list of the barons and the other witnesses; ditto here; or otherwise here for his leadership of the English
“Brotherhood of Assassins”, which tells you what the real purpose of Magna
Carta was! Power!
Henry Winchester (Henry III) born on
October 1 1207, back in traditional royal Winchester now, not Oxford, and
mothered by Isabella of Angouleme, John's second wife; king at nine, and
crowned twice, the first time at Gloucester on October 28 1216, the second at
Westminster Abbey on and May 17 1220; brainwashed by priests, dominated by his
French family, taken prisoner during the Barons’ Rebellion, and forced by Simon de Montfort to establish a
Parliament. But he also rebuilt Westminster Abbey, and encouraged Gothic style
architecture across the realm; died at Westminster, which from now on will be
England's capital, and buried in the abbey, on November 16 1272; bio here; he too can be
found in connection with Magna Carta on June 15 and mentioned on Jan 13
Edward Longshanks (Edward 1) (born June 17 1239, the son of Henry
III and Eleanor of Provence; crowned August
19 1274; died July 7 1307): formed the Model Parliament in 1295, ensuring that
not only the barons got power, but also the knights, the clergy, others of the
nobility (though still not a House of Commoners); conquered Cymry and renamed
it Wales (from Anglo-Saxon Wal-ès meaning “foreigner”, “outcast” or
“unwelcome”), making it the first home colony of Greater England; still
singular, but after hammering the Scots and bringing the Coronation Stone from
Scone to Westminster, plural wasn’t far away (don't say that if William Wallace can hear you, or
John de Balliol either for that
matter); Éireland will take rather longer to lose its initial "É". From this
time the heir to the throne will always be the Prince of Wales first, thereby
confirming the conquest. Many of the Village Crosses of England owe their
history to Edward Longshanks: when his first
wife Eleanor died he pilgrimaged her body from Grantham to
London, erecting a cross at every stopping-point. Bio here; he too can be
found, re Magna Carta on June
15,
baa baaing the black sheep on March 15, and also
as Doctor Foster on the same date
Edward Caernarfon (Edward II), born April 25
1284, and named for his birthplace, he was the son of Edward
I
and Eleanor of Provence; crowned February 25 1308; compelled by reason of
state to marry Isabella, the daughter of
Philip IV of France, and he even fathered an heir with her:
but gay, which mattered then - Piers Gaveston the most famous
of his lovers, Hugh le Depenser the one that
cost him his life and not just his throne; all that after he had lost national
support by losing the Battle of
Bannockburn (Robert Bruce is on the Scots and Cymru page), which
mattered even more. His theoretical wife, Isabella, the Louve de France (that’s she-wolf
in Middle Aenglisch) went off with her lover Roger de Mortimer, and had her
sycophants depose him, then incarcerate him in Berkeley Castle, where they
showed him what they thought of his gayness by shoving a red-hot poker up his
rectum (or did they? several Mortimer-related websites challenge this). Worth
visiting Gloucester Cathedral to see his tomb, put up by his son-and-heir Edward
III.
Bio here; the official
date of his "abdication" can be found on Jan 20. World Homophobes Day is on Sept 21
Edward Windsor (Edward III) born November 13
1312 at Windsor Castle; crowned January 29 1327; died June 21 1377 at what was
then called Sheen Palace, but was renamed Richmount by Henry Tudor, and is now
mispronounced as Richmond. Like all these kings, all he ever did was fight wars
of conquest, or of defense against other would-be conquerors. Scotland and
France as usual, incipiting the Hundred Years War, with Creçy and Poitiers the
ones that gave his son Edward of Woodstock the nickname "The
Black Prince", and himself a reputation feared around Europe. Couldn't do
much with swords though when the Black Death struck; bio here; mentioned on Jan 13
Richard of Bordeaux (Richard II), born January 6
1367, in Bordeaux, the son of Edward of Woodstock and Joan
of Kent; crowned July 16, 1377; the fourth of the seven gay monarchs (did I fail to mention
that William Rufus and Richard
I
were both gay? click here for the other three); but in his case definitely
bisexual. Son of the Black Prince, king at ten, object of the Peasants Revolt
(see June 15), devastated by
the death of his beloved wife Anne of Bohemia (their story here), he basically
went nuts, was not helped by being married for political reasons to Isabella, the nine year
old daughter of the even more clinically insane Charles VI of France (click here); after which
deposition was inevitable, though it could just as well be called a coup.
Imprisoned in Pontefract Castle, he probably died by being left to starve, on February
14 1400; bio here;
mentioned on Jan 13
Henry Bolingbroke (Henry IV) born April 4 1366 at Bolingbroke
Castle in Lincolnshire, whence the name; the son of John
of Ghent (mispronounced and mis-spelled in Aenglish as Gaunt),
who was himself Edward III’s third son, so Henry
did have a distant but valid claim to the throne as Richard
II
left no children; his mother was Blanche of Lancaster, whence the
title Henry of Lancaster. Exiled by Richard, he returned to undertake the latter's deposition
(as noted above, effectively a coup); Parliament gave him their official vote,
so ancestry became irrelevant. Cymry did not, however, Owain Glyn Dŵr (Owen Glendower in Aenglish) naming himself Prince
of Wales and warring to break the English sovereignty. Then the Percy family joined in, seeing an impending
vacuum that they could easily fill in. And did, when Henry died of leprosy on March 20 1413: York v
Lancaster for the next several decades. Bio here; he can be found
on Jan 13 and Aug 10
Henry Monmouth senior (Henry V) son of the above (his mum was Mary de Bohun, for whom click here), and once again a prince named for his
birthplace, the event taking place at the castle there on August 9 1387,
according to the royal website, but December 16 1386 according to other
accounts, and September 16 1386 by still others: on the blog on Sept 16. Crowned on April 9 1413, famed for Agincourt (see
Oct 25), less well-known for Rouen, for which see that royal bio, here. Named King of France, he died of dysentery on campaign, before his
coronation, at Vincennes on August 31 1422. As to his reputation, the same old
same old: do kings do nothing else but fight to get power and wealth and land,
and then fight to keep it? If so, what, can somebody please tell me, is the
point of monarchy, and why don’t we get rid of it?
Henry Monmouth junior (Henry VI), born December 6 1421 at Windsor Castle; crowned
November 6 1429; deposed March 4 1461; restored October 3 1470. Only six months old when
daddy died, and then Charles VI of France also
died, so he was heir to both lands. Gradually lost the whole of France - only
Calais stayed English, and that only until Queen Mary's time. Suffered
from the same mental illness as several of his predecessors, and clearly it was
in the family gene, probably on the maternal side. Richard
of York was made Protector of the Realm to regent for him, though in truth it
was his French wife, Margaret of Anjou, who is on the Mediaevals page of “Woman-Blindness” and under April 15, who made all
the significant decisions; between them they set the roses at war. Battles at
St Albans in 1455 gave power to York, with Edward IV, Richard’s eldest, on the
throne from 1461; but he got his sanity and his throne back briefly in 1470.
Didn’t last. Son Edward was killed at
the Battle of Tewkesbury on the day before Henry was murdered in
the Tower of London. And answering my rant at the end of the previous
paragraph, this king did do something useful, albeit very minorly at the time:
he (probably his wife in this too, as it happens; she really was a most
remarkable woman) established a proper school for the first time ever in this
country, now known as Eton College, and also King’s College in Cambridge.
Rather less minorly in the centuries that followed. Bio here
Edward Plantagenet senior (Edward IV), born April 28 1442 in Rouen; son of the Richard
of York in the previous paragraph (his mum was Cecily
Neville); crowned June 28 1461; deposed
October 3 1470; restored May 21 1471; died April 9, 1483: another of the
not-very-nices, he had his brother George, Duke of
Clarence "murdered on a charge of treason" - which way of
phrasing it in the history books does leave me asking some very basic
questions. But this was also the age of William
Caxton and the printing
press, right there in Westminster (see March 8) and it was Edward's brother-in-law Anthony Widvill Rivers, remembered as Anthony Woodville, who gave Caxton his first book; that's on Nov 18. Two of Edward's sons became famous as "the princes in the Tower"
(two views on that saga: here and here), one of them
technically succeeding him as Edward V; bio here
Edward Plantagenet junior (Edward V) born November 4
1470, so thirteen years old when he took the throne (1483 minus 13 = 1470; you
can work out for yourself why his mum, Elizabeth Woodville, had sought
sanctuary in Westminster Abbey, and gave birth to him there), and lasted just
two months (recorded in most history books as the shortest ever, but actually Lady
Jane Grey-Dudley beat that, at just nine days: see below). One of the two
“Princes in the Tower” (see the links in the paragraph above for the two
versions of this), he and his brother Richard, locked up and
murdered, so it is said, by uncle Richard, Duke of
Gloucester, in September 1483, claiming they were illegitimate - and
given the number of mistresses their dad, EP senior, had, he may well have been right - so that he could
take the throne. such bio as there is, and lots of portraits, here
In most accounts of
English history, Matilda and Lady
Jane Grey are left out, despite their having been announced as the
next monarch, and the excuse given is that they were never crowned. Edward
V
was never crowned, but he gets on the list; centuries later Edward
VIII too was never actually crowned, and he too gets on the list.
Woman-Blindness!
Richard Plantagenet (Richard III): younger brother
of Edward IV, born October 2 1452 at Fotheringhay Castle in
Northampton-shire; crowned July 6 1483; killed in Bosworth Field on Aug 22 1485; Richard the
non-hunchback, despite what Shakespeare fictionalised and the nonsense surrounding that body in a
Leicester car park. Was it he rather than brother Edward who got rid of George
Clarence? Quite possibly. Did he invent the illegitimacy of the
Princes? Quite probably. Did he Erdogan all his other opponents and rivals? He sure did.
His defeat at Bosworth Field brought the Wars of the Roses to an end, and the
Angevin-Plantagenet dynasty as well. Bio here; on the blog on March 15, May 30, June 24 and Oct 2. Bosworth Field is on Aug 22; Shakespeare’s version is on Nov 5
*
The Tudor-Stuart Epoch
Henry Owen Edmund
Tudor of Pembroke (Henry VII) born fatherless in January 28, 1457
(dad, who was the Earl of Richmount, not Richmond, had died; it wasn't a
miraculous conception); lived most of his early life in political asylum in
France; overthrew his very distant cousin Richard III at Bosworth
Field and was crowned on October 30 1485, despite the illegitimacy of his line; Henry Richmond in some history books, because of
his dad, he was born at Pembroke Castle in Wales, and took his made-up title
from there; but he changed Sheen on the Thames to Richmount when he made that
his home and built himself a palace, dying there on April 21 1509. Clever man,
though you need to read about his mother if you want to see where he got it
from, and also to understand why her grandson Henry VIII did some of the things he did; his bio here, and on the blog on May 16;
also Goosey Gander on March
15
By the way, that’s Henry’s wife Elizabeth of York, married less for her looks than
for her wise politics, who has appeared as the queen on virtually every pack of playing
cards since they were invented, during Henry’s reign.
Henry senior can be found on May 16
The royaly website that
I have been using throughout this essay has this para, extremely relevant in
the light of history to follow, especially that of Mary Queen of Scots and her son James' claim to the English throne:
"Henry succeeded in
crushing the independence of the nobility by means of a policy of forced loans
and fines. His chancellor, Cardinal Morton, was made responsible for the
collection of these fines, and they were enforced by the privy councillors
Empson and Dudley. Henry married his son Arthur to Catharine of Aragón,
daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragón and Isabella of Castile, his daughter
Margaret to James IV of Scotland, and his youngest daughter Mary to Louis XII
of France. After Arthur died in 1502, an agreement was reached by which
Catharine married Arthur's brother Henry (later Henry VIII)."
And speaking of Arthur:
Arthur Tudor (born
September 20 1486; died April 2 1502): Catharine of Aragon’s first husband, on Dec
16 (I wonder what name he would have used had he lived to take the throne)
Henry Tudor junior (my soubriquet; Henry VIII really) born June 28 1491, at
Greenwich Palace, which surprises me because I thought it was he who built it;
apparently he only extended it (click here); crowned June
24, 1509; died January 28 1547, at Whitehall Palace. The only history of him
that you will find, anywhere, sticks to six wives, and blames sonlessness on
the Reformation, or vice versa (as opposed to virtue versa). Nothing else, or
maybe syphillis and tennis debts. Why? Because the history curriculum is
controlled by the Church of England and its political representatives the Tory
Party, neither of whom wish to acknowledge Henry as the key
changemaker in British economic and political and religious life, the
opening of the doors to the non-aristocracy, the creation of a merchant and a
middle class, the creation of a navy for international trade, the start of
education, of medicine, and even of early science. Fundamental, radical change,
without which... but you can read much more on this in various parts of the
blog, and even more in Prashker’s London.
Bio here, but it's wife-stuff, and gets the Reformation completely
wrong. You can find the most important (though still third-rate) monarch this
country has ever had, as king of Éireland on April 24; limewashing the church walls on June 24,
dramatised by Shakespeare on June 29, ransacking the monasteries on Sept 1, welcoming the Jews back to England on Sept 30, stealing
stones from Barking Abbey on Oct 14, and with Catherine of Aragon on May 23 (she is on Dec 16); also mentioned on March 15 and 21, April 16, and
Sept 5
Edward Tudor (Edward VI), born October 12
1537 at Hampton Court, the son of Henry VIII with Jane
Seymour (see April 16); crowned, aged nine,
and with Edward Seymour, the Duke of Somerset, as his
Protector, on February 19 1547; tuberculoid, he died just six years later, on
July 6 1553 at Greenwich Palace. Thomas Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer belongs to this
time (see March 21)
But Seymour got rather too big for his boots, and made too many mistakes, so he was overthrown in 1549 by one John
Dudley... a fact I only mention because his daughter-in-law was...
Lady Jane Grey-Dudley (Queen Jane), born sometime in 1537, raised first in the
family home in Leicester, then fostered to Jane
Seymour's other brother Thomas Seymour, who had
just married Henry VIII's widow, Katherine Parr: his plan was to marry Lady
Jane to King Edward (who his brother, as above, was
serving as Lord Protector), but he also had Princess Elizabeth living
with him, because Katherine Parr was her step-mother; until he got
caught by his wife in Bess' bedroom and she was removed to
Hatfield: the best laid plans of mice and men messed up right from the outset.
Somerset was ousted in
1549, and replaced by the Earl of Warwick, who then added Northumberland to his titles;
when Edward died, and his will excluded both Mary and Elizabeth from the
succession (probably Northumberland forged it), he
nominated Lady Jane, the daughter of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, but more
importantly a grand-daughter of Henry VII through her
mother, Lady Frances, the daughter of the first Mary
Tudor, Henry VIII's youngest
sister who had married Louis XII of France. In
the meanwhile Jane, still just
sixteen, was married to Guildford Dudley, the son of the man who overthrew Edward Seymour, and the brother
of ... but that's for later.
Jane baulked at the
idea of being chosen as the next monarch, and not surprisingly: the other Mary
Tudor staged a coup, and Jane lasted just nine
days from announcement (July 10 1553), via not yet crowned but conveniently
lodged in the Tower of London awaiting said event, to deposition (July 19), and then
beheading, on Tower Green, on February 12 1554. Guildford was beheaded
immediately before her; his brother, Robert, was locked up in the cell next
door to his childhood best friend, Princess Elizabeth. As I said above, more on
that later.
The BritRoyals
website that I have been linking throughout does not include her; her bio can
be found here; her full tale is on the blog on July 19, she is absent but asterisked on Dec 1, and she gets a mention on April 17
Mary Tudor (“Bloody Mary”) born February 18
1516 at Greenwich Palace; daughter of Henry junior and Catherine of Aragon. Took the throne
by coup on July 19 1553, and tried
by brutal force to re-impose Catholicism on a now Protestant country. The three
blind mice Hugh Latimer (Bishop of Worcester), Nicholas Ridley (Archbishop of London) and Thomas Cranmer (Archbishop of
Canterbury) were all burnt to a steak (the stake itself was on Broad Street in
Oxenford, marked to this day by a bronze cross; see March 15 and 21 and here for that. Mary died
on November 17 1558 at St James Palace; her bio here, and her mention among the Supra Idesses
on April 17
Elizabeth Tudor (Elizabeth
I),
born September 7 1533 at Greenwich Palace; Henry junior’s daughter with Anne
Boleyn (see June 1), crowned on January
15 1559, and one of the ghastliest monarchs this country has ever had: two
hundred and fifty years of fresco art whitewashed into oblivion at her
instruction; more torture of her opponents, and not only Catholics, than all
the other monarchs of England combined; and a penchant for going to the
theatres for the afternoon performances rather than the evenings, because that
was when the bear-baiting and the cock-fighting took place. She set up spy and
informer netwoks on an international scale that even the KGB couldn’t match,
and made the country rich by sponsoring pirates who went out and ransacked and
then sank Spanish and Portuguese vessels. Alas, like her father, this is not
the way her history gets told by those who have a vested interest in
grandifying her (and who therefore follow her example and whitewash the
unwanted). And yes, there was a Golden Age of culture, but it only began after
the defeat of the Armada, when all her ghastlinesses were finally and fully in
place. She died on March 24 1603 at Richmond Palace; her bio here; she can be
found on Jan 30, Feb
28, March 15, April and 24, May 16 and 28, Nov 5 and 11, Dec 1, and
especially June 24 for the whitewash.
James Charles Stuart (James VI of Scotland,
James I of England) born June 19 1566 at Edinburgh Castle, the son of Mary
Queen of Scots and the vile, disgusting Lord Darnley;
crowned as James VI of Scotland at Stirling Castle on July 29, 1567; and
as James
I of England at Westminster Abbey on July 25 1603. The next on our
list of gay monarchs (click here), he was fascinated by witchcraft, and wrote the
book that prompted Shakespeare to re-invent the
rather splendid Macbeth as a monster (see
Aug 15 and the Scots
list). The Authorised Mis-Translation of the Bible carries his name, and the
transformation of Guy
Faux into a Gunpowder Plotter likewise (see Nov 5). The Mayflower Pilgrims, like all
these, can be found on the blog, in their case on Sept 16 and 20. he died on March 27 1625; his bio here; in addition to
the above, he can be found on May 28 and
March 15
Charles Stuart (Charles I) born November 19
1600, at Dunfermline Palace in Scotland, his parents were James
I/VI and Anne
of Denmark; crowned on February 2 1626. Machomania, as we have seen,
was the predominant madness of most of the early kings. Megalomania in several
as well. Exactly what Charles Stuart’s form of
madness was depends on which school of pseudo-psychology you adhere to, but he
is recorded in the annals as suffering from "a belief that he ruled by
Divine Right”. Tried for treason by the House of Commons in the midst of a
pointless civil war, he was beheaded (on Jan 30 1649), rather like the church gargoyles and
grotesques which his equally machomaniacal, megalomaniacal and
divinely-inspired successor would smash in the years that followed; his bio here; he also gets a
mention, on May 16, for the
disgraceful act of declaring Richmond Common royal hunting land, and building
an eight-mile wall around it.
*
The Republican Commonwealth,
1649 - 1653:
Not that anyone has ever heard of him, but the
"head" of the first Parliament after the 1649 revolution, known as
the Rump Parliament), was the Speaker, William Lenthall.
Oliver Cromwell (“Old Noll”, “Old Ironsides”) led the army in the civil war, and was one of the fifty-nine
signatories of the death warrant for King Charles and became Chairman of the Council
of State, the original version of today's Cabinet. He dissolved that in April
1653 and ruled as "Lord Protector of the Commonwealth" from December
of that year until his death in 1658 - so not so much "divine right"
as "god-surrogate". For where to find him on the blog, see the GER page.
His successor, Richard Cromwell, ruled from 1658 until 1659, same title as his dad, but rather less macho he was forced
to resign after just nine months.
For a pro-history of the Commonwealth, click here; for an anti-history, click here
- no? both blank? you mean you can't find a single website that is willing to
form a judgement on its successes and/or failures (besides this one I mean). I wonder why! For any one of
dozens of non-committal and neutral accounts, just use your search engine.
Charles Francis James Douglas Stuart
(Charles II, "The Merry Monarch") born May 29 1630 at St. James Palace, son of Charles I and the splendid
(but hated because she was a Catholic) Henrietta
Maria of France, who brought Inigo Jones to complete the fabulous Queen's House in
Greenwich, introduced the masque into England, and persuaded her husband to
bring Van Dyck to do some
paintings.
As to her eldest
son, Charles II, "satyriasis" is the official name for
his condition. Thirteen mistresses whose names have been retained by the annals
(Lucy
Locket and Kitty Fisher can be found on March 15), but that was probably just one
weekend of partying. Lots of sons, but no heir. Had it not been for Pepys coming round to tell him, he would
probably have gone blissfully unaware of either the Great Plague or the Great
Fire, though apparently he did know that Christopher Wren was rebuilding St Paul’s and
several other churches. For the info, Charles was crowned
twice, as English king on April 23 1661, as Scottish king, at Scone, on January
1 1651 - so much for the United Kingdom! He died - converted to Catholicism but
prevented by Parliament from obliging his subjects to do the same - at Whitehall
Palace on February 6 1685, and the list of his many important achievements can
be found here, though I will
mention the reopening of the theatres, and the establishment of both the Royal
Society for the Study of Science and the Opening of the Greeenwich Observatory,
for the simple pleasure of typing such a sentence.
May 29 is on the blog
as his date of restoration; but here as his birthday - it is correct on both
counts. He also gets a mention on the Africa page: 1672: for chartering the Royal African Company,
which would dominate the slave trade to North America for the next half century;
his giving of the land-grant for what would become Pennsylvania is on March 1
James Stuart, James II (of England, James
VII of Scotland) born October 14
1633 at St. James Palace; crowned April 23 1685; Charles
I’s
other surviving son, and a convert to Catholicism long before his coronation or
his elder brother's conversion; though he did formally agree to keep to grandpa
James I’s coronation commitment, that he would practice
his Catholicism in private, but bring his family, his country, up as
Protestant. That lasted about the length of three Masses and a box of communion
wafers; the persecution of Protestant clergy becoming so vicious, and
exacerbated by the “Bloody Assizes” of Judge Jeffreys and James’ response to the
Monmouth Uprising, that Parliament
simply told him to give up the crown, and brought William of Orange across the North
Sea to replace him. James abdicated, fleeing from England on December
11 1688, and died in exile in Saint-Germain-en-Laye on September 6 1701; his
bio here, and a mention
on March 15
*
The Second Anglo-Saxon (-Jute-and-Fresian)
Epoch
William of Orange (William III) (born November 14 1650 in the Netherlands),
and the always-forgotten but atually more important Mary II (born April 30
1662 at St James Palace) -
it
was she who was offered the succession even before her father abdicated, but
she insisted on her husband ruling in partnership, which Parliament then agreed;
partly because he was a committed Protestant, like his wife, partly because his
grandfather was Charles I, his mum being Princess
Mary, Charles I's daughter; and Mary was a committed
Protestant too, trained by her mum, James II's first wife Anne
Hyde. So Parliament got rid of the Catholic part of the royal family, but
kept the Protestant part: clever politics!
And for the same reason, what an interesting date to choose
for their arrival. November 5th 1688, in a fleet of nearly five hundred ships,
just in case anyone disagreed with the decision of Parliament to invite them. James was still on the
throne after all, and expected loyalty; but the Navy took the Oranges’ side, as
did most of his army, and his other daughter, future queen Anne, was at the
dockside in Torbay to welcome her sister home and lead her in triumph into
London for what is now called “The Glorious Revolution” - they were crowned on
April 11 1689. James, by the way, tried to make a comback-from-exile, via
Ireland, the year after their coronation, but was defeated at the Battle of the
Boyne and became thereafter a permanent guest of Roi Louis
XIV.
Mary produced three stillborn children, and died of smallpox on
December 28 1694. William ruled alone until March 8, 1702;
their joint bios here; you can find
him enstatued on Dec 4
Anne Stuart (“Anna Gloria”), born February 6
1665 at St. James Palace, crowned April 23 1702; “Our Lady of the Miscarriages”
might be a more apposite sobriquet: seventeen
pregnancies but only one child, William, and he died of smallpox before he reached his teens. Her
husband was Prince George of Denmark and
Norway, which re-established the ancient German connection that had ended with
the arrival of the Normans, and which is still in place today despite George
V
renaming the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family as Windsor.
The other key persona in Anne’s life was Sarah
Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (click here), ancestress of
a later Prime Minister. Sarah’s other half led
the army in another of the stupid wars of power, this one of “Spanish Succession”.
The main event of significance in Anne’s life was the
official formation of the Disunited Kingdom of Greater England and its Home
Colonies, formally known as “the United Kingdom of Great Britain” after the
signing of the official “Union of England and Scotland” in 1707. Why is it that
the kings spend their lives making pointless wars, while the queens spend their
lives making schools (Margaret
Beaufort), hospitals (Bess), culture (Victoria), and political
harmonies (Anne, Elizabeth II), and yet we
still continue to put kings on the thrones, rather than queens? She died at
Kensington Palace on August 1 1714; her bio here
Georg Ludwig Hanover (Georg Ludwig in German, but
for some reason the English Frenchified it as George
Louis), George
I of Britain and Hanover his official title, born May 28 1660, crowned October 20
1714: still in the family (he was a great-grandson of James
I)
though it shouldn’t have been him, but rather his mum, Sophia, James I’s only
daughter, mothered by Elizabeth (Stuart) of Bohemia, but now getting
old and not remotely interested in giving up Hanover for London; she died
anyway, a few weeks before Anne, and so it was
her son who had the best claim, and was happy to make it, though he was fifty-four
and spoke scarcely a word of English. Better anyway to have the titles, the
money, and the kudos, spend most of the year in Hanover, just popping over when
ceremony required it, and leave the ruling to those who did speak English; so
he created the position of Prime Minister and First Lord of the Admiralty, and
gave it to Robert
Walpole. He wasn’t even around when James II’s son James Stuart tried and failed
to coup himself into power with his Jacobite supporters. Though he was around
to benefit from the scandal of the South Sea Bubble. He died in
Hanover on June 11 1727; bio here
Georg August Hanover (Georg August in German, George Augustus in English, not
obvious why the differentiation) George II of Britain and Hanover; born in Hanover on October 30 1683;
crowned on October 11 1727, and like his father he wisely left the running of
the country to Robert
Walpole (his daughter Amelia can be found
with Walpole junior on May 16) - the royal powers had been
radically Richmond Commoned by Parliament during Queen
Anne's reign so he couldn't do much anyway. The one exception, and I only
mention it because of its date, was the Battle of Dettingen, which took place on June 27th 1743, one of
many in the War
of the Austrian Succession; George took an English
army to fight there for the Hanoverian side of his family. Two years later,
when the Jacobites made a second attempt to get the throne back, this time for "Bonnie Prince
Charlie", he stayed home and let the military do its own leadership at Culloden Moor. For the
information, the Bonnie Prince spent the rest of his life eating moules in
France, until even that proved too much for him and he became an alcoholic
(click here).
George II died at
Kensington Palace on October 25 1760; his bio here; he can be found living in a shoe
on March 15, and as noted above, conferring the Rangership of Richmond
Common on Robert Walpole junior, on May
16, after establishing Downing Street as PM Robert Walpole senior's office on Dec 4
Wilhelmina Charlotte Caroline of
Brandenburg-Ansbach, Queen Caroline, George
II's beloved wife and queen, can be found giving poet Richard Savage fifty pounds on Jan 16
George William Frederick Hanover, George
III (“The Mad King George”)
born
June 4 1738 at Norfolk House in St. James Square, itself an interesting venue
to follow-up (click here); crowned on
September 2 1761, and officially reigned until 1820, but for the last nine
years he was too far gone even to know that he was now completely blind, and George
IV
regented for him (another of his sixteen children would become William
IV).
His father was Frederick, Prince of Wales and
therefore heir to the throne, but he died at the age of only forty-four, and so
it was the son who took the throne next, English-speaking, which made a
pleasant change (none of the Normans or Plantagenets did, nor did the earlier
Hanoverians). But he was also yet one more of the throne-lunies, in his case a
blood-condition called porphyria which turns the urine purple and the brain
potty. There was never an era of culture before on the scale of George
III’s Britain, though this was also the epoch of the "Boston Tea Party" and the
French Revolution, so as much war as there was poetry; his bio here; see March 15 for Georgie
Porgie and the Grand Old Duke of York
George William Frederick Hanover (yes, the same name as his father)
George IV, “The First Gentleman of Europe”, born August 12
1762 at St. James Palace; regent from 1811 to 1820; crowned July 19 1821: Loved
art and architecture, but loved (and secretly married) a Catholic woman named Maria Anne
Fitzherbert even more. Tut-tut! They made him marry Caroline of Brunswick-Lüneburg, who he detested
so much he wouldn't even let her attend the coronation, though he managed to
father a daughter with her, who sadly died aged just twenty. Caroline died just
months after the coronation, claiming on her death-bed that she had been
poisoned. When George died, at Windsor Castle on June 26
1830, his brother William succeeded; bio here, and blogged on March 15 and Dec 4
William
Henry FitzClarence, William IV, “The Sailor King” 1830 - 1837: George
IV’s younger brother, born
on August 21 1765 at Buckingham Palace, he spent his early years between the
Navy and the bed of an Irish actress sometimes named Dorothea Jordan and
sometimes Dorothea Francis, and sometimes Dorothea Phillips, with whom he
parented ten children.* Tut-tut again! To be king - he was crowned on September
8 1831 - he had to have a royal wife, and she had to be German because he would
also be king of Hanover, so Adelaide of Saxe-Coburg was contracted, and they
produced two infant mortalities, which was why Victoria, daughter of the youngest of
those four brothers, inherited. The epoch of Wilberforce and the abolition of
slavery in the colonies; also of the passing of the Reform Act in 1832; William died at Windsor
Castle on June 20 1837; bio here
* This portrait of her, ”Mrs. Jordan in the Character of
Hippolyta, painting by John Hoppner, 1791” bears a quite remarkable
similarity to a Vigée-Lebrun of the same period - see April 16 for
the latter
Alexandrina Victoria Hanover, Queen
Victoria born May 24, 1819
at Kensington Palace; her father was Edward Duke of Kent, the youngest
brother of Kings George and William, and dead when
she was barely one year old; her mother was Victoria of
Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Crowned on June 28 1838 she is generally acclaimed as one of
the great monarchs, though she actually did remarkably little her entire life
except, first, adore her cousin-husband Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha while he was
alive, and then, second, mourn him without a moment’s break when he was dead. Albert was the great
achiever, of which introducing the Xmas Tree to England was probably not as
significant as the Great Exhibition
of 1851, whose residue can be found littering the streets of South Kensington
to this day: the V&A, the Science Museum, the Royal Geographic, the Natural
History, Imperial College, the Royal Albert Hall - have I missed several?
The reason for her
acclamation is also the reason why I am mulling over placing her on the GER page: the conquest of India, and the expansion of that apalling evil the
British Empire to almost global scale. Several instances on the blog, including
one particularly ghastly incident in China (see Jan 11). When is the world going to learn that power, of any kind, in the family,
the school, the institution, anywhere, is the principal failing of the human
race and needs to be prevented? The power of empires far worse than any of the
others.
And one more reason for
thinking of GERring her. Her parentage, her marriage, and then those of her nine children,
forty grand-children, and thirty-seven great-grandchildren, the need to find
royals in order to keep power within the family. Until eventually the entire
monarchalism of Europe was encousined. Until the banns of World War One were
published.
She died at Osborne House on 22 January 1901; her bio here; find her celebrating
the wedding of her eldest daughter, the Princess Royal, to Prince
Frederick of Prussia,
on March 15; also on April 17 and May 1
Albert Edward Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (Edward
VII, “Bertie”); born November 9 1841, son of Queen Victoria and Prince
Albert; crowned August 9, 1902. Freud wrote somewhere that men are driven by four aspirations, to
fame, power, wealth and sex, and clearly, as we have seen, being a member of
the aristocracy gives you the means to enjoy all four. Edward’s horse won the
Derby in 1909, his yacht several regattas, and his wife even allowed one of his
mistresses to come to his deathbed to say goodbye. The rest of his life-story
can be found in the Encyclopaedia of Oblivion (or try here), and he is
amongst the top three in the list of arguments in favour of abolishing the
monarchy. He died where he was born, at Buckingham Palace, on May 6 1910, and
frankly if he had never set foot outside the world would have been entirely the
same place.
Emilie Charlotte Le Breton (Lillie Langtry) can be
found as a latter-day Lucy Lockett on March 15, as herself on Oct 13
George Frederick Ernest Albert
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (the family name
was changed to Windsor in 1917), George V, born June 3 1865 at Marlborough House; the
second son of Edward VII and Alexandra
of Denmark, he was a Navy man who didn’t expect to become king, but
elder brother Albert Victor died of
pneumonia in 1892, and the following year he married the fiancée, Princess
Mary of Teck. Probably the worst twenty years to be king in the entirety
of human history, it started with the First World War and the Russian
Revolution, and ended with the rise of Fascism; and along the way he had the
indignity of being forced to give Éireland back to its own people. Oh, yes, and
his elder son's involvement with Wallis Simpson! He died at
Sandringham on January 20 1936; bio here
Edward Albert
Christian George Andrew Patrick David Windsor
(Edward VIII but known at home as David), born June 23
1894 at White Lodge in Richmond, son of the above; never crowned though
technically he ascended to the throne on the day of his dad's death, and so
technically he ruled for ten months and twenty-one days, before abdicating on December
11 1936. Why? Wallis Simpson; slightly more detail about him on the GER page, or try here; but another
piece of excellent reasoning behind the case for getting rid of the monarchy; and
see Dec 11
Bessie Wallis
Warfield (then Wallis Warfield Spencer without the Bessie, then Wallis Simpson, later still "the Duchess of Windsor") (born
June 19 1896; died April 24 1986): the reason for the abdication on Dec 11 - but does she go on the GER page? Or
is she, without even being aware of the fact, one of the very best things to
happen to Britain in the first half of the 20th century. Seriously. Had it not
been for her, Edward would have remained king, and under his influence - boy did he go on trying, even after he abdicated - Britain would have
supported and joined Hitler
Albert Frederick Arthur George Windsor
(George VI), younger brother of the abdicated Edward, born at
Sandringham on December 14 1895, crowned on May 12 1937, married Elizabeth
Bowes-Lyon and had two daughters with her, Elizabeth and Margaret, died where he
was born on February 6 1952; empty bio here; and I
guess I will eventually have to get get around to hunting for something worth
writing about him. Mentioned on Dec 11
Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor (Elizabeth
II, “Lilibet”), born April 21 1926;
crowned June 2, 1953 and for
all my negatives about so many of her predecessors, I have to admit my
admiration for a princess who didn’t hide from the WW2 bombing in Buck Pal like
her parents, but served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women’s
branch of the Army, and trained like any conscript as a driver and a mechanic;
and then, when war ended, went out anonymously with sister Margaret to celebrate among
the crowds. And for the rest of her life, a simple motto, the one that all
monarchs should follow if there must be monarchs: I am merely a figurehead, the
check and balance that protects the people against corrupt and/or
megalomaniacal politicians; I do not take sides or involve myself on any issue,
and you will never know my opinion about anything (except horses and corgi
dogs, she did make an exception for both of those); she died at Balmoral on
September 8 2022; bio here
Charles Philip Arthur George Windsor
(Charles III)
detail and comments pending; mentioned with Lady Di
and Camilla
Parker-Bowles on March 15
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