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]

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.