The Rough Guide to the Royals by Rough Guides

Author:Rough Guides
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409360094
Publisher: Apa Publications
Published: 2012-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

If you discount James Stuart, the Old Pretender, who spent 64 years claiming the thrones of England and Scotland but no years at all actually sitting on them, Queen Victoria is Britain’s longest-serving monarch. She presided over unprecedented change. In the very year that she came to the throne, 1837, Daguerre invented photography, Darwin finished writing up his Beagle voyage, and Cooke and Wheatstone patented their electric telegraph. By the time she died, on 22 January 1901, after 63 years and 216 days on the throne, her country was covered in railways (not to mention photographs, telegraphs and telephones), and Britain had acquired a global Empire.

Until recently, Victoria’s nearest rivals for longevity were George III, who kept going, despite poor mental health, for 59 years and 247 days, and James VI and I, who ruled Scotland for 57 years and 246 days (though in England he only managed a touch over 22 years). Now, however, second place goes to Elizabeth II, who at the time of writing was approaching her sixty-year jubilee. Assuming she – and the monarchy – survives, she will surpass Victoria’s record on 10 September 2015.

Elizabeth has some way to go, however, before she achieves a world record. She has to watch out for multi-billionaire Bhumibol Adulyadej, aka Rama IX of Thailand, who is still going strong at over 65 years. It seems unlikely that she’ll ever catch Bernhard VII, Prince of the German micro-state of Lippe; known as “Bellicosus”, or “the Warlike”, Bernhard is currently acknowledged as the European record-holder, with an 81-year reign stretching across most of the fifteenth century. The all-out global champion, however, is Ngwenyama Sobhuza II of Swaziland: he reigned from 1899, when the British were fighting the Boers in South Africa, to 1982, when they were grappling with the Argentinians in the Falklands.

The title of shortest-reigning English monarch is a tricky one to award. The strongest candidates, arguably, don’t count, as they were never crowned. The top five uncrowned monarchs are Lady Jane Grey, the “Nine Day Queen” of 1553; Sweyn “Forkbeard”, who managed forty days around Christmas 1013; Edgar II, who teetered on the throne for a couple of months in 1066; the boy prince Edward V, who vanished into the darkness of the Tower of London some time in 1483; and Matilda, who came out on top for a brief spell, in 1141, but is usually discounted in favour of her rival, Stephen. The title, then, should probably go to Edmund II, “Ironside”, who just about got himself crowned in April 1016, while the Danes were laying siege to London. Unfortunately, he was dead by November.

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