A lighter, if geekier topic...

[orichalcum]

Forthcoming when I finish it - a review of the only Pulitzer-Prize winning novel to reference "Queen of the Demonweb Pits," as far as I know. It's kind of impressive when a mainstream novel (one assigned as mandatory reading for all the frosh at my college, at that, which is why I'm reading it) outgeeks me, and I have to keep asking CP questions like "Who's Uatu the Watcher, honey?"

On the request of meepodeekin, my random ponderings on the question of "Which English monarch's name has the highest average success rate?" where "success" is defined as "generally considered a good king by historians/the random public/tourist displays in the Tower of London."


So, Ill-Starred Monarch names are easy:
John (Despite the Disney refrain, he was in fact not too late to be known as John the First).
Ethelred (Ain't never gonna be an Ethelred II)
Charles (beheaded or a kinda useless rake)
Richard (Yes, I love R III too, but when none of the three died peacefully and all had highly checkered reigns, it's not such a good omen.)

Then there's the Boring But Popular Category:
George
William

And then we get to the really popular names, and the real showoff: (rated from ++ to --) (Please comment on the ratings!)
Edward Vs. Henry

We'll take the Edwards first, counting the pre-Norman Conquest ones:
Edward the Elder: Extended control of Wessex over Norse, Scots, and Welsh: +
Edward the Martyr: Religious/secular conflict, murdered and left land in chaos: --
E Confessor: Patron saint of difficult marriages! Sentenced his mom to trial by ordeal! Reign of peace and prosperity, but left land in chaos/civil war. 0
E I (Longshanks): Successful conqueror, but really, really nasty guy: -
EII: Abdicated on grounds of incompetence, murdered, played favorites: --
EIII: Reigned for 50 years, conducted successful war, instituted Justices of the Peace, good family man: ++
EIV: Restored peace and order after civil war to England, brilliant general., not good at dealing with conspiracies: +
EV: Prince in the Tower. Unsuccessful reign not his fault: -
EVI: Child monarch, apparently very smart, established Protestantism more fully in England.: +
EVII: Liberal, peacemakers, instituted military reforms, good constitutional monarch: ++
EVIII: Pro-Nazi, abdicated due to personal reasons: -
Total: 0

And now the Henrys:
H1: Restored peace and order, lots of administrative reforms, messy succession, 23 kids: +
HII: Ended civil war, lots of reforms, messy succession (largely own fault): +
HIII: Weak, erratic king, anti-Semitic: -
HIV: Usurper, but generally fairly strong king: +
HV: Great military leader, restored peace and order, invented passport: ++
HVI: Insane, led kingdom into civil war: --
HVII: Effective but nasty, miserly usurper: -
HVIII: Increased power of monarchy and wealth, messy personal life: 0
Total: +

I'm not really sure we get a definitive verdict here. Opinions?

Comments

[gee-tar.livejournal.com]

Hey, I think the Elizabeths have done pretty well for themselves. Granted, not many data points to go on, but the average is high.

And what novel are you reviewing? Because a Pulitzer winning novel with those allusions seems right up my alley.

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz.

[outlawradio.livejournal.com]

I LOVE that book. And I think it outgeeks a lot of people.

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

I think EII might bring it down, but yeah, high average overall, certainly. I decided not to focus for the goods on monarchs with 2 or less data points, though.

[apintrix.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I vote Elizabeth for best English monarch name EVAH.
:D

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

EVIII was pro-Nazi? No _wonder_ holmes_iv's family arranged for his downfall....

Edit: Oh damn, have no read more about the Duchess of Windsor on wikipedia and I SO take that joke back...

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

Um, yeah. Much as I love holmes_iv and viking_cat, their relation had some unsavory politics.

[meepodeekin.livejournal.com]

This isn't really my area of expertise, so I'll just stick to admiring the hilarity of many of your listed criteria, e.g. "invented passport," "Prince in the Tower. Unsuccessful reign not his fault," and "Patron saint of difficult marriages!" This takes the wind out of the more serious criteria on your list.

Also, as far as the tourist displays on the Tower of London are concerned, doesn't Richard I get any love? I'm not defending his reign on a serious historical basis, but come on, the Lionheart? Absolutely my favorite king growing up. (Probably because he had the best nickname and the Plantagenets clearly had the best coat of arms, but still.)

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

RI spent six months of his entire reign in England, bankrupted the country, left it without a stable succession, and engaged in a series of unnecessary and devastating wars. He's still used as a boogey-man figure in the Middle East to scare Arab children, who are told that Malik Ric will come and eat them up if they don't behave.

Yeah, I liked him as a kid, too. :(

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah - hilarity intended. This is all just for fun. :)

[marginaleye.livejournal.com]

I think the British royal family ought to seriously go out on a limb, and name the males of the next generation (in no particular order): John, Richard, Stephen, and Arthur (just to totally freak everyone out -- although there is a historical precedent for this -- Henry VIII had a short-lived sickly older brother named Arthur). If, by some freakish chance, the House of Windsor experiences an unlikely population surge and needs yet more princely names, how about harkening back to the Anglo-Saxon era, and go for an Alfred and Edmund. All these damn Edwards and Henrys are a yawn-fest, and the brand seriously needs to be "freshened up."

[gee-tar.livejournal.com]

As opposed to the French's penchant for Louis?

[feir-fireb.livejournal.com]

Well, if that's the standard, clearly we need something really new and daring like "Madison" or "Logan".

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Er, did you know that Edward I was named for (Saint) Edward the Confessor, who ruled England just before ill-fated Harold (killed at Hastings by William I)? "Edward" is a good "Anglo-Saxon" name, and Henry III gave his son that name for exactly that reason....

p.s.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

I apologize for my tone in my prior comment--long day, going too fast. I found your comment oddly ironic, given the reasons for the long (re)use of the name "Edward"....

[ladybird97.livejournal.com]

I actually heard a conference paper a few years ago on the subject of why H1 was a terrible king :) I think the presenter was just being contrary and slightly silly (very senior scholar with a good sense of humor; he could get away with it), but it was entertaining all the same. I'm agreeing with your assessment that H1 was a Good King TM in general, though, because he had to overcome a lot of early rebellions in order to do the things he did.

I also think that Edward the Confessor should at least be a + because even though he screwed up his succession (and mother, trial by ordeal, what? missed that one!) he was mostly a very good king during a rough time.

Oh, and H6 lost the Hundred Years War, too, but there can't be any more minuses than he already has! I'll balance that out with 'the poor guy became king when he was a baby.'

[gee-tar.livejournal.com]

And Westminster Abbey. Surely that gives either E the C or H7 some points. Though, if you gave both of them points, the difference remains the same.

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

Apparently, he put his mother through trial by ordeal for adultery, which she successfully passed. You may be right on the plus, but there's a decent argument that the first duty of a monarch is to ensure a stable succession.

[jendaviswilson.livejournal.com]

I'm voting for Henry. I like the name Henry. I might consider naming a kid Henry, although I haven't run that by Michael and he would probably veto.

[apintrix.livejournal.com]

What's 'e got against 'enry?

I like the name Henry too... but particularly with the nicknames "Harry" and "Hal". :)

(I blame Shakespeare for this.)

[ladybird97.livejournal.com]

Oh! and who IS Uatu the Watcher? :)

[gee-tar.livejournal.com]

He's an alien in the Marvel universe. He watches the different parallel universes and even narrated his own comic book series called "What if?" that took Marvel characters and did strange things with them.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

If it matters, Æthelræd (Ethelred) was not the first king of that name in the area now called England.... Pity about the idiot one who had Danes in England massacred, since his name means "noble counsel." (Should it be relevant at some point, a good reference is Cheney and Jones, A Handbook of Dates for Students of British History (2000), which lists things and individuals besides dates.)

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I keep having sloooooooow thoughts. Is the novel-length version of Oscar (the character) as annoying and sexist as the short-story Oscar? I found the story fascinating, and it's great both that it exists and that New Yorker (of all things) published it, but I am having trouble imagining reading a whole book's worth of that guy.

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say so, but I'm only halfway thru. I'll post more when I'm done.