I’ve always been crap with history but!

[Snap8TheCat]

How could I not have realised we had another king between Edward VII and Edward VIII?

So it goes Edward, George, Edward, George?

I blame the fact that none of them use their bloody real names! How confusing.

Genuinely thought Edward VII was Edward VIII and George VI father. I know nothing!

I always think of George V in relation to his cousin tsar Nicholas. They looked almost identical and it always made me sad that George had the opportunity to save Nicholas and his whole family (including the famous Anastasia) but was advised against it by politicians so they were all killed.

Once again Horrible Histories has a song about the three Cousins Iamahppy

Just out of interest, maybe even ignorance but why was Prince Harry named Harry pretty much straight away from birth? As mentioned it’s actually Henry, Prince Henry.

I have come across people who use different first names to what they were born with. I know nick names can stick

I think it was just Charles' and Diana's preference that Prince Henry would be called Harry. I think they announced it when they announced his name. It's a very old standard nickname for Henry.

George V is also credited with "reinventing" the Royal Family under the name of Windsor.

The name was Saxe Coburg Gotha. Victoria had been German, and had married a German. Edward V married a Dane. George V married another German - Mary of Teck.

During this period of upheaval and conflict in Europe and no doubt with an eye on the PR implications of the German connection, George picked an innocuous English-sounding new family name - Windsor.

According to recently-discovered sources, it is George, and not the Goverment of the time, who refused sanctuary to the Tsar and his family.

Nice.

Matilda being ursurped by cousin Stephen is a side plot in The Pillars of the Earth, which is a very large book or a 2010 miniseries with Ian McShane and Rufus Sewell and Eddie Redmayne and a number of other people you'll recognise.

Mary of Teck was of German descent but she was born and brought up in England.

Everyone definitely needs to familiarise themselves with the Horrible Histories Kings and Queens song.

George, George, George, George, Will, Victoria, Edward, George, Edward, George 6, and Queen Liz 2 completes the mix

King's Speech on 4 right now!

I always get Mary queen of Scots confused with princess Mary, daughter of Henry 8th and Katherine of Aragon... readers I have a history degree... too many Mary's....

That Mary was also queen for a bit, married Philip from Spain, sometimes called Bloody Mary because she had a lot of people killed.
(actually I don't know if it was really lot)

Mary had at least 280 people burnt at the stake in 5 years according to Wiki (elsewhere it says at least 300). Some sources say Henry VIII was responsible for 72,000 executions.

Mary and Philip were too genetically related in my view - Philip was descended from not one but two of Catherine of Aragon's sisters.

Sounds like a perfectly reasonable rate of executions then!

I've never quite understood why Elizabeth 1 didn't marry and have children. Anyone enlighten me?

One concern she had was that she would be giving power to a man who might try to control her and usurp her authority. I also think she was afraid of the dangers of chilldbirth.

I think there are a number of reasons, not least it was unclear how a queen could be married and yet not obey her husband, making him defacto king. Mary's grandmother Isabella basically did this in Spain because she ran some kingdoms and her husband others, but it was unprecedented in England.

Add to that the very high risk of death in childbirth - her most obvious successor was Mary, Queen of Scots, which she specifically wanted to avoid.

And then I think she also suspected that the Tudors were doomed not to produce healthy offspring. Henry VIII had relatively few children given how much shagging he did. Mary I was unable to carry a healthy pregnancy, Edward died young. Anne Boleyn had also struggled to conceive with him, Jane Seymour died and none of the subsequent wives bore him any further children. So she could marry and risk destabilising the country by creating a pseudo-king and then the odds of producing an heir without either her or the heir or both dying in the process didn't seem great.

Elizabeth didn’t really have a very good experience of marriage in her life - her mother and a stepmother killed by her father when she was three, two of her stepmothers dying from childbirth, another divorced. Not surprising she wasn’t keen, especially after seeing how her sister Mary was treated by her husband, Phillip of Spain.

Also, not being married could be a political advantage, the possibility of marriage with the King of France’s younger brother was useful if she wanted to keep France on side.

She herself is on record: "I will have one mistress here, and no master."

George V a d Queen Mary were solid and much loved. But terrible parents. I've always thought Queen Mary was misunderstood, and not as formidable as is made out. Her extrovert mother embarrassed her so she shut down.
George Vl sounds like a lovely man and made a better king than his brother would ever have been. The abdication was a blessing for this country.

Was it Queen Mary who was the kleptomaniac?

Yup I'd missed a George out in my head - I thought it went Victoria, edward, George who was king in world war one (cheers blackadder), dodgy Edward and then Elizabeth.

Might have got dubious Edward and George in the wrong order....

This thread has inspired me to take on a Wikipedia journey - some of the early rulers of England sound fascinating and I've put in a request for a couple of books for christmas.

So, giving that our current queen is the longest reigning ruler, what we be known as to future historians? We've already had Elizabethan. New Elizabethans?

Churchill posited the New Elizabethans when she ascended the throne. It didn't really catch on.

There's a really good series on C4 about the Windsors. Warts and all. Interesting.

Also a documentary about Wallis Simpson on C5 the other night: apparently she did not want to marry Edward 8 at all but he was so persistent she couldn't shake him off!