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Pedants' corner

Elizabeth the second

26 replies

MrsFin · 13/10/2021 21:53

I'm hoping someone on this board can educate me.

Why do we say "Elizabeth the Second" or "Charles the Bald" etc?

Why not "The Second Elizabeth", or "The Bald Charles"?

What's the grammatical reason (if there is one) for saying it the way we do?

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unnumber · 14/10/2021 02:58

Elizabeth the Second [Queen of that name]
Charles the Bald [King of that name, as opposed to the Hairy one]

So it's not quite the same as the Second Elizabeth etc.

Would also have been expressed in Latin originally and then in language modelled on Latin, so retaining archaic word order.

Jane the Accountant [as opposed to Jane the lawyer]
And Bob the Builder work similarly too, though, don't they. A

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NiceGerbil · 14/10/2021 03:04

Elizabeth I
Elizabeth II

Etc.

Easy way to count etc the monarchs.

Popes are the same.

And sometimes Americans.

Also the name is the most important and which one a detail.

Putting the second as the first thing would have a different... Effect?

It would feel more that the first Elizabeth is the main one. This is the second Elizabeth makes you think of the first.

Elizabeth II puts the one being referred to as main thing.

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unnumber · 14/10/2021 03:07

I always think of you as a fellow insomniac @NiceGerbil.

As well as being a Nice Gerbil, obviously ...

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Pallisers · 14/10/2021 03:22

I think a lot of those Charles the Bald/Ethelred the Unready/John Lackland modifiers were added by later historians rather than people at the time. I don't think people went around saying "how is King Charles the Bald" well I think I read that somewhere.

I always thought being James the first and sixth was quite cool.

I live in the US and the use of John Smith I and John Smith Jr, and John Smith III was quite baffling to me. We had a CEO who was John Smith Jr. and if you left off the Jr. in a document he'd say "why are you talking about my father?" Mind you if I was a therapist, I'd say he had a lot of daddy/needing approbation from older male figures (including the dead previous CEOS in portraits in his office) which probably explains why his son went so off the rails. it is hard having a father who really wants to be a son ... anyway I digress :)

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NiceGerbil · 14/10/2021 03:24

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SenecaFallsRedux · 14/10/2021 13:46

It's actually short for "the second of that name." And, of course, she is not the second in Scotland, but the first of that name, so Queen Elizabeth (no numeral is used if the monarch is the only one of that name).

As for Americans, yes indeed. One of the players for the University of Georgia football team is named Stetson Bennett IV. Football jerseys have the player's last name on them. His says "Bennett IV"

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SinoohXaenaHide · 14/10/2021 13:50

There was also "Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother" at one time. Name first then clarification of which one is meant is totally "normal" and reasonable though.

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MrsFin · 14/10/2021 18:04

Bob the builder describes his job though, so not quite the same thing.
It should be Bob, the builder, did a good job on my conservatory.

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MrsFin · 14/10/2021 18:06

Ditto "the Queen Mother", although why isn't it "the Queen's Mother"?

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Cardboardeaux · 14/10/2021 18:11

@MrsFin

Ditto "the Queen Mother", although why isn't it "the Queen's Mother"?

Because she was queen herself as a result of being married to George VI.

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JaninaDuszejko · 14/10/2021 18:11

I always thought being James the first and sixth was quite cool.

And then there was James VII and II.

I thought this thread was going to be about how Elizabeth should be II and I because she's Scotland's first Queen Elizabeth. There are no ER II postboxes in Scotland because they were bombed in the 50s, they have the Scottish crown insignia instead.

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SickAndTiredAgain · 14/10/2021 18:13

@MrsFin

Ditto "the Queen Mother", although why isn't it "the Queen's Mother"?

Because she gets the title from being a queen, and the mother of the current monarch. Had Elizabeth been a boy, the queen mother would still have been the queen mother, not the king mother. It wasn’t unique to The Queen Mother but she was one of the few to use it as an official styling, for others it was just a descriptor.

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CiaoForDiNiaoSaur · 14/10/2021 18:15

@MrsFin

Ditto "the Queen Mother", although why isn't it "the Queen's Mother"?

And she'd still be the "Queen Mother" if she was the King's Mother. Which confused me so much when I saw The Man In The Iron Mask as a young teen

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Viviennemary · 14/10/2021 18:21

There was a thread recently saying she should be Elizabeth II of England but Elizabeth I of Scotland. I agree.

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mawbroon · 14/10/2021 18:23

She was only called The Queen Mother because both of them were called Elizabeth, is my understanding of it.

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SickAndTiredAgain · 14/10/2021 18:36

@mawbroon

She was only called The Queen Mother because both of them were called Elizabeth, is my understanding of it.

That might be why it was used as an official title, I’m not sure, but as a general phrase it’s not unique to her.

There are also king fathers, although obviously rarer because it requires an abdication. Again it’s not often used as a title but there was a king of Cambodia who I believe was known as The King Father after he abdicated and his son took the throne.

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PlanDeRaccordement · 14/10/2021 18:38

@MrsFin

I'm hoping someone on this board can educate me.

Why do we say "Elizabeth the Second" or "Charles the Bald" etc?

Why not "The Second Elizabeth", or "The Bald Charles"?

What's the grammatical reason (if there is one) for saying it the way we do?

Because your ruling class for past thousand years has been of French ancestry. The adjective goes after the noun, just like in French.

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Mochudubh · 14/10/2021 18:55

@JaninaDuszejko

I always thought being James the first and sixth was quite cool.

And then there was James VII and II.

I thought this thread was going to be about how Elizabeth should be II and I because she's Scotland's first Queen Elizabeth. There are no ER II postboxes in Scotland because they were bombed in the 50s, they have the Scottish crown insignia instead.

Wow! I didn't know that and I've lived in Scotland for almost all my life and l'm a History graduate 😲.

Just been reading about it
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillar_Box_War
Fascinating.

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EdithWeston · 14/10/2021 19:10

Had Elizabeth been a boy, the queen mother would still have been the queen mother, not the king mother. It wasn’t unique to The Queen Mother but she was one of the few to use it as an official styling, for others it was just a descriptor

Not really.

She needed a separate title because otherwise there would have been two Queen Elizabeth's concurrently (regnant and dowager). Those circumstances do not apply where the next monarch is male, or when the next monarch is female but has a different name (always, or choice of regnant name)l. Queen Mary, for example, was never Queen Mother, because neither new queen within her lifetime (consort of her son, regnant granddaughter) shared her first name

So she could have been the Dowager Queen, but apparently she didn't like that, so chose the Queen Mother (a less frequently used title, but one with precedent).

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MrsFin · 14/10/2021 19:49

Because she was queen herself as a result of being married to George VI

That's why she was also Queen Elizabeth. She was the Queen Mother because she was the mother of the queen, not because she was a queen herself.

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MrsFin · 14/10/2021 19:52

Because your ruling class for past thousand years has been of French ancestry. The adjective goes after the noun, just like in French

Numbers don't. Eg Le Premier Ministre.

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SickAndTiredAgain · 14/10/2021 20:24

@EdithWeston That’s what I meant, had Elizabeth been a boy, The Queen Mother would still have been queen mother, but obviously wouldn’t have had the need to use it officially.
Queen Mary, the wife of Charles I, was referred to as Mary the Queen Mother in the book of common prayer when her son Charles II was king after the restoration. The Queen Mary you mention to was referred to in the same way, until the death of her son when it switched to referring to Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Queen Mary.

She was the Queen Mother because she was the mother of the queen, not because she was a queen herself. @MrsFin queen mother is used for the widow of a king, who is also the mother of his successor.

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MrsFin · 14/10/2021 22:36

Well I've learned something re the QM, but still don't get the Elizabeth the Second thing. I suspect it's simply because we write it an Elizabeth II

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PlanDeRaccordement · 15/10/2021 10:40

@MrsFin

Because your ruling class for past thousand years has been of French ancestry. The adjective goes after the noun, just like in French

Numbers don't. Eg Le Premier Ministre.

Premier isn’t a number, it simply means “first”. For royalty, the numbers do come after the name. Ie Louis XIV or as spoken, “Louis Quatorze”

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SenecaFallsRedux · 15/10/2021 14:59

That's why she was also Queen Elizabeth. She was the Queen Mother because she was the mother of the queen, not because she was a queen herself.

But to be Queen Mother, the holder of the title has to be both the mother of the monarch and to have been a queen herself (as in the example of the mother of Charles II mentioned above).

So for example, if Diana, Princess of Wales had lived and was living when William became king, she would not be Queen Mother, never having been a queen. But William could give her a title that referenced her being the mother of the king; one precedent for this was Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, who had never been queen, but who was referred to as "My Lady, the King's Mother." Although I think the more likely scenario is that William would have restored her HRH and made her a princess of the UK, and she would have been HRH Princess Diana.

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