h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just thought I'd point out that up here North of the Border she is only Queen Elizabeth the First as Henry VIII's daughter was the last monarch of England alone. So does that mean that Scotland will continue as a monarchy to such time as we have a second Queen Elizabeth?

In my article on the Stone of Destiny (to be found around here somewhere) I called Her Maj Elizabeth the First and Second. However, sombody turned up to explain that there was a law passed in the fifties somewhere which stated that the Monarch will be known by the greatest number, i.e. she is Elizabeth the Second everywhere she is Queen, but if there was another James he would be James the Eighth everywhere. Bizarre, but apparently true.

The eighth? I though James the sixth was the last one...?

That was James VI of Scotland and I of England. There was a James II as well, so if we count him as VII of Scotland we'd be up to VIII.

There was a James II? That's something I never knew about. I like my history too, never come across him. Maybe I'm reading the wrong history books...

James the II and VII, brother of Charles the II and a Catholic. Overthrown in the Glorious Revolution and replaced by William of Orange and his wife Mary as joint Monarchs. He ran off to Ireland to continue fighting at the Battle of the Boyne but after engendering a couple of hundred years of religious hatred and songs in Ireland he ran off to the Continent. His son claimed to be James III and VIII and was known as the Old Pretender in the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion. His son was Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Young Pretender of 1745. So now you know.

Ahhhhhh! Now I get it! You know, we only briefly covered the whole William of Orange thing in school, for obvious reasons, which I didn't agree with at all. But now I know.

*heads off down to her old high school to give her old history teacher a slap*