Features

Queen Elizabeth II is NOT the Queen of England – is it so hard to get it right?

By
13th May 2021
I am a bit of a stickler for the correct usage of styles and titles. So it is a bit of a pet peeve of mine when these are used improperly. The main one that bugs me is calling Elizabeth II, Queen of England. That bothers me because “Queen of England” is not her correct title! Her correct title, simplified here, is Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. England has…
Read more
FeaturesHistory

The problem with Elizabeth II’s regnal number

By
13th March 2020
In my article on numbering the Kings and Queens of Britain, I mentioned that this practice was not always accurate and, I’d like to add, not without its controversy. On February 6 1952, came the death of King George VI of the United Kingdom. It occurred during the night…
Features

Numbering the Kings and Queens of Britain

By
7th March 2020
One aspect of the evolution of monarchy that I find interesting is the development of Ordinal numbers, or regnal numbers, and also called post-nominal numbers used to differentiate between monarchs of the same name within the same territory. In the British system of numbering the monarchs, a king or queen will not get a regnal number unless there is another monarch with the same name. For example…
Read more