What do you immediately think of when you think of each English/British/UK monarch (post Norman Conquest edition)?

And why not?

William I - bastard, Tower of London, fucking Viking basically
William II - red-headed bastard, shot in the back
Henry I - got nothin' really
Stephen - lost the throne to his mom or sump'n?
Matilda - doesn't really count imo
Henry II - priest-killer, time immemorial dude, big cheese
Richard I - spent 10 days in England, didn't like Muslims much, over-hyped by subsequent toadies
John - fucked the Pope and the Barons off so can't have been all bad, over-maligned by subsequent toadies, possible thumb-sucker?
Henry III - was king for a long time for a dude I remember nothing about
Edward I - didn't like Scottishes or Welsh, probably a right bastard
Edward II - ouch
Edward III - was king for a long time for a dude I remember nothing about
Richard II - deposed? Peasant's Revolt? Geoff Chaucer in the area? fiik tbh
Henry IV - Shakespeare, possibly hung out with fat unfunny dude named after cigars
Henry V - Agincourt, Shakespeare, probably a right bastard
Henry VI - Wars of the Roses dude so probly not wholly popular
Edward IV - fuck knows, might well have died in his teens
Edward V - unless it was this guy
Richard III - Peter Sellers-sounding mf, fitted up by Tudor propagandists or something probably
Henry VII - Possibly Welsh
Henry VIII - really really fucked off the Pope, liked food, birds
Edward VI - died before poppage achieved
Lady Jane Grey - yeah right, get tae fuck
Mary I - didn't like Prods, got a cocktail named after her tho which is more than most of these fuckers managed
Elizabeth I - hunh hunh hunh "virgin", big ruffs, flowering of English Literature, kinda over-thunk about
James I - Possibly Scottishes, hated witches, cigs, fireworks
Charles I - dick, got what was coming to him
INTERMISSION
Charles II - total player, more sense than to act like his old man
James II - dick, didn't get enough of what was coming to him
William III & Mary II - helped to start the UK off on the road to world domination by shutting up and doing what they was told
Anne - may have liked cake?
George I - couldn't speak English and why the fuck would he want to?
George II - a really, really, really, really, really boring bastard
George III - mentalist, gave away the USA so that hamburgers wd be exotic 200 years later
George IV - serial shagger and piss artist
William IV - something to do with farms
Victoria - serial shagger and piss artist
Edward VII - serial shagger and piss artist
George V - bugger Bognor
Edward VIII - lol no Yanks allowed in the monarchy kthx
George VI - god knows tbh
Elizabeth II - ain't no human being iirc

who are these guys again

forgetting thatcher?

I have a typewriter that has the Royal Warrant with 'George VI, deceased' on it. How the hell does a dead guy use a typewriter?

must be that new history syllabus i've heard so much about

Damn, there have been some Georges lately.

William I - Terrible way to die - had it coming for what he did to the North.
William II - Died in a hunting accident, eh? Oops.
Henry I - Tinchebray, Saxon blood
Stephen - Anarchy
Matilda - Stubborn
Henry II - Most badass Plantagenet, really: Kicked ass, thumbed his nose at the King of France, even better than his grandpa w/regard to the law, shitty sons and amazing (to me, not so much to him) wife
Richard I - Fully committed to the bullshit of his times, not a bad lyricst, cost his kingdom a huge fortune
John - Sad, sad John. Dad's favorite but "Lackland" and a bit of scheming dick and never as popular as his brothers.
Henry III - Stability and good governance aren't very sexy. Magna Carta. (I know it was extorted from John but Hank re-affirmed it, too.)
Edward I - Psychokiller
Edward II - What a way to die!
Edward III - Honni soit qui mal y pense
Richard II - Brave to have ventured into the middle of a jacquerie. Not too bright politically.
Henry IV - Usurper...
Henry V - Vous pouvez m'appeler Hal
Henry VI - Nutty as a fruitcake.
Edward IV - One of my favorites
Edward V - Precursor to Hoffa.
Richard III - Good dude who bungled it all.
Henry VII - Good choice of wife
Henry VIII - Tennis enthusiast, also liked money, flattery and getting his way.
Edward VI - All those dead wives and you end up with this loser?
Mary I - Her piety revolts me.
Elizabeth I - Clever-ass lady
James I - Scots bungler, bible traslator authorizer, possible buggerer
Charles I - "I go from an a corrupt to an incorruptible state..." Nice earrings.
Charles II - Oak leaves, oranges and sexytime jokes in your theater. Deathbed conversion, lol!
James II - Man of principle and little brains
William III & Mary II - Finally, an end to the Dutch wars. Purcell.
Anne - Sarah Churchill, Act of Union, Go Dolphin!
George I - Smug little boche. Perhaps the dreariest Court ever.
George II - Last to lead his troops in battle.
George III - Well meaning Farmer George. I pity him.
George IV - Douchetastic!
William IV - Something to do w/the Navy
Victoria - I love me some Prince Albert!
Edward VII - Knew all the better whores and restaurants. Uncle of Europe. Not a bad king.
George V - Trouser cuffs (disapproved). Nice hotel. Parliament Act. Looked a lot like his cousin.
Edward VIII - You, your horrid wife and the Oswalds living in Paris - the very worst kind of Englishes. How did you do that w/your eyebrow?
George VI - Decent bloke. Maybe you shouldn't smoke so much, though.
Elizabeth II - Mechanic. Corgis. Wtf are you wearing?! "My husband and I..."

Stupid question from a non Britisher, but what is a "piss artist"?

Toper

Sot

Lush

Okay, I kind of assumer it was along those lines, but I wondered if there was a more specific meaning.

William the Conqueror - 1066 and all that
William II - red
Henry I - ?
Stephen - the anarchy
Empress Matilda - she was fighting with stephen or something
Henry II - elanor of acquitane
Richard Lionheart - crusades, saladin
John - robin hood
Henry III - westminster
Edward I - one of these was gay
Edward II - one of these was gay
Edward III - one of these was gay
Richard II - he was a baby or something like that
Henry IV - one of these wore a flap on his head
Henry V - one of these wore a flap on his head
Henry VI - one of these wore a flap on his head
Edward IV - ?
Edward V - ??
Richard III - shakespeare
Henry VII - 1st tudor
Henry VIII - reformation
Edward VI - he was a little shit
Lady Jane Grey - killed
Mary I - she burned people and i've seen her grave
Elizabeth I - sir francis drake and shakespeare
James I - Jamestown
Charles I - puritans not fans
Charles II - hudson bay co
James II - wait, hudson bay co?
William III/Mary II - ?
Anne - portrait in red dress
George I - big fuckoff parted in the middle hair
George II - georgia
George III - american revolution
George IV - fat
William IV - victoria's uncle
Victoria - i used to be so crazy about her. i immediately think of the lytton strachey bio
Edward VII - didn't he just kind of hang around drinking bourbon and sodas at balmoral
George V - house of windsor, but really nothing
Edward VIII - wallis simpson
George VI - churchill
Elizabeth II - coronation day images

its obvious what my weak point is

its english history lol

I think you can put "should've been dethroned and murdered" next to all these losers

you brits and yr silly monarchy

well most of "us" "were" brits at the time. or had some other monarch to live under somewhere else. should we do the kings of hungary next or something?

as far as dethroning and murdering goes i'm not a big fan of cromwell either

drinking bourbon and sodas at balmoral

lol at bourbon

"should've been dethroned and murdered"

Ah, so you're a Bolingbroke supporter?

lol

haha ok brandy?!

Yeah, the idea of a Royal drinking bourbon in Scotland just cracked me up.

lol

Meanwhile, a Frenchman in Paris is drinking a lovely little Shiraz from l'Australie.

in the Presidents one I'm lol Britishes, here I'm lol Scottishes. History classes in Scottish schools are pretty much William Wallace William Wallace William Wallace William Wallace oh apparently there was a war or two in the 20th century William Wallace William Wallace William Wallace William Wallace.

love this wikidetail from of the death of William II, though:

William was found the next day by a group of local peasants, lying dead in the woods with an arrow wound to his chest. William's body was abandoned by the nobles at the place where he fell, because the law and order of the kingdom died with the king, and they had to flee to their English or Norman estates to secure their interests.

that's incredible.

that reads like a Monty Python skit.

"oy the king's dead!"
"wot?"
"I said THE KING IS DEAD!"

*look at each other*

*run off*

ollie ollie oxen free!!

If I recall correctly, his brother, Henry also ran to 'secure' the royal treasury at Winchester immediately. There's always been some suspicion that, because William the Conqueror had divided his inheritance amongst his two eldest sons, the eldest, Robert getting Normandy and William getting England and because Robert was away on the Frist Crusade, that Henry had William killed to get a part of the inheritance. He later defeated Robert and imprisoned him, ending up with all his father's lands.

Other than starting off as a possibly fratricidal usurper, he's considered to be amongst the better Kings.

because the law and order of the kingdom died with the king

This isn't as odd as it sounds. Remember that, after his death, England was thrown into anarchy for almost 30 unhappy years.

i had a dream that i was graded on this^ and that i made a D-

i took a summer class on the american revolution my first year of college, and we spent a lot of it watching one of those multi-part documentaries (the kind where they play an instrumental version of "yankee doodle" in every scene). at the end of the last episode they had this animal house/american graffiti style rundown of what became of all the major players, and said something like "george iii suffered from dementia and died a raving lunatic." the whole class burst into applause and hooting.

don't mess with the u.s., i guess.

Yeah, self-righteous, tax avoiding, Indian plunderers kick ass!

Not a monarch but anyway:

Oliver Cromwell - knobhead

Also:

King Arthur - should have gone to IKEA Avalon for more practical kitchen furniture

wow michael white really just dropped an earthshattering truthbomb there....~makes u think~

don't forget cromwell's kid -- the william henry harrison of british leaders, right?

a lot of these comments would make a good fall song.

William I - probably peculiar franco-norse warlord, v enterprising kidnapper and domesday booker
William II - dead rufus
Henry I - not a clue, think everything was still a mess
Stephen - funny face
Matilda - never sure if she counts
Henry II - boring?
Richard I - celebrity king for whom the word 'gallivant' is custom made, got kidnapped lol
John - magna carta, low rep, some tax shenanigans and curious restructuring
Henry III -
Edward I - longshanks! an excellent cunt, likes castles and beat everyone
Edward II - into garters and knightly orders? someone was
Edward III - big man?
Richard II - some sort of confusion, not the black prince
Henry IV - not john of gaunt?
Henry V - tourist, liked bows
Henry VI - no clue
Edward IV - maybe this was the garter guy, his wife had illegitimate kids?
Edward V - or his wife
Richard III - doomed hard arse, nifty fighter
Henry VII - calmed everything down and set everything up nicely
Henry VIII - imaginative egomaniac
Edward VI - adolescent irrelevance
Lady Jane Grey - insufficiently well connected
Mary I - insufficiently diplomatic
Elizabeth I - much more diplomatic, lots of spies&other friends
James I - the new world, handled some rubbish, probably alright
Charles I - didn't deserve to be portrayed by alec guinness
Cromwell - dour, not really sure what I think of him
Charles II - maybe more chill?
James II - not sure
William III & Mary II - something important happened here...
Anne - after her it's bollocks

yeah got nothing on henry III

into garters and knightly orders? someone was - Edward III

some sort of confusion, not the black prince - Black Prince's son

Henry II - boring? What?! Basically conquers his right to accession of throne of England, marries the King of France's ex-wife from under Louis' nose, his knights, hearing his intemperate remarks, kill (his former best friend) Beckett (for which Henry will have to publicly be made to atone). He's the creator of the 'Angevin Empire', the first Platagenet king, an excellent legal reformer and bringer of stability after thirty years of anarchy except amongst his family; all of his sons but John were in open rebellion agsint him at one time or another and it is said that upon hearing of John's participation in a rebellion in 1189, he told his illegitimate son, Geoffrey, that his other sons were "the real bastards" and "shame, shame on a conquered king" (he had just acceded to the demands of Richard and Phillipe Auguste, King of France) and died heartbroken.

Yeah, self-righteous, tax avoiding, Indian plunderers kick ass!

― A Reclaimer Hewn With (Michael White), Tuesday, October 26, 2010 1:49 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Fuck that, i'd be right with those guys on the taxes the brits were trying to push.

we were plundering the wrong indians

Certainly not a fan of the Indian plunder.

michael I'm sure if any of that were true I'd have been taught that in school instead of factories and trenches and cabinets.

but that's unboring, not sure whose tedious reign i have unfairly projected onto henry.

Thye were trying to "push taxes" on all subjects (though the colonists were right about the English right to representation) many of which were for the primary benefit of the colonists, especially as regards the increasing incursions into Indian land to the west led to increased British expenditures to proved for defense. The Peace of Paris in '63 ending the war we call the French and Indian wars was expensive and thus followed by a pacifying Royal Act limiting westward settlement and exploitation. The American crazies of the time, (not the majority)loathed it, seeing as their right unfettered opportunities to slaughter the natives and expropriate their land

You can argue that America and Britain were atavistically destined for separation, and the fact that many of the 1/3 of Colonial Loyalists moved north to Canada may be the reason the US succeded as a Republic and Canada stayed loyal, but to argue that George III, a man with a dedicated sense of purpose and probity who realized the overwhelming importance to his kingdoms of being a responsible constitutional monarch and not broaching or being seen to broach the prerogatives of Parliament, was somehow malevolent is a stretch; he famoulsy said to new US envoy Adams, "I was the last to consent to the separation; but the separation having been made and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power."

There was much chauvinism on both sides but the real failure was the failure of Grenville, Rockingham, Chatham (Pitt), who at one point was revered in the colonies, Grafton and North to find a compromise between Whig and Tory and Royal and Parliamentary prerogative to allow some kind of proper representation for British subjects abroad while allowing for government its just claim to, well, governance, at least at the "imperial level".

George III and

The American crazies of the time, (not the majority)loathed it, seeing as their right unfettered opportunities to slaughter the natives and expropriate their land

you're not trying to argue that this was any different than British attitudes toward America I hope

the royal act was to stop indian attacks on whites btw

Indian attacks on Americans who kept making incursions onto Indian land!

duh! sorry, the royal proclamation line still wasn't made to protect indians and the british crown still did not give a fuck about indians!

also, incursions were still ok to be made following the royal act, just by the Crown and not settlers!

you're not trying to argue that this was any different than British attitudes toward America I hope

Uh, yes I am. In fact, the greatest thing in favor of the Colonists claims was that they were trying to uphold traditional English liberties that Parliament was being awfully cavalier about, but that is not the same as saying Parliament wanted to kill all the locals and steal their land - they wanted it to be peaceable, law-abiding and, yes, profitable, but profitable it surely wouldn't be if no-one were there.

Roxy, as I said above, and I promise you I don't have some insanely naive idea about British motives, after the French and Indian wars Britain was seeking to keep the peace and not spend so much on their military expenditures at the frontier of their Empire.

Of course, the King nor parliament would tie their hands regarding their sovereign right to conduct war.

they wanted what to be peaceable, law-abiding and profitable, the taking of the indians' land? they were trying to avoid war w/ natives, period, with the royal proc. line. how is this any different than the US indian intercourse act? the idea that any of this was done because they cared about indians' rights or believed expansion was wrong is completely off base.

xpost:

The American crazies of the time, (not the majority)loathed it, seeing as their right unfettered opportunities to slaughter the natives and expropriate their land

^I did not see the word "not" in this sentence FYI.

phew

.................so i don't see anything so special about william I that we shouldn't get to talk about sweyn forkbeard

because when I hear about sweyn I immediately think we should always import our monarchy

Just in the East, after Independence - 66 years.

The Chickamauga Wars 1776 - 1794
Northwest Indian War 1787 - 1795
Shawnee, et al., vs. US - 1800 - 1813
Creek War - 1813 - 1814
First Seminole War - 1818
Black Hawk War - 1832
Creek War - 1836
Second Seminole War - 1835 -1842

And yes, in many of those, the British failed to care one bit about what happened to their erstwhile allies.

uh yeah, one might argue that they had other interests at heart there

Interesting thread.

because when I hear about sweyn I immediately think we should always import our monarchy

The Romans

Technically, the entire Anglo-Saxon line were originally from immigrants

The Viking kings of the Danelaw.

Svend Tjugeskæg (whose wife's epithet is 'the Haughty') wasn't nearly as successful as his son Cnut. Boy did Cnut's wife was pretty awesome, too; two sons kings (by different husbands).

Cnut's sons Harold Harefoot and Harathcnut.

It's worth pointing out that Harold II (the loser at Hastings) was daughter of Gytha Thorkelsdóttir and part of the Danish ascendancy under Cnut.

I guess Henry VII doesn't really count as foreign.

James I while properly British most certainly wasn't English.

William III (only co-regnant I know of) was Dutch.

The first two Georges were Hanoverian.

That's all only if you look at it from the pov of male primogeniture. If you include all the enate importations, like many monarchies, they have amongst the most cosmopolitan of lineages

uh yeah, one might argue that they had other interests at heart there

You could or you could simply point out that the land those Indians lived on had been ceded as part of the Treaty of Paris and was, thus, the Americans' to do with as they pleased. They were also war-weary and even more broke and wanted to concentrate on Canada and India. Then, they had a wee war on their hands with France (though I think there was some common cause during the Creek War) whilst they were again battling us in the war of 1812.

Technically, the entire Anglo-Saxon line were originally from immigrants

this is only one step from "technically we're all africans", but I think what I'm really saying here is the existing british monarchy&parliamentary system should be replaced by one of a rotating cast of the world's more colourful regimes

or now this haiti thing hasn't worked out for wyclef