Charles the Third: What’s in a name?
Charles the Third: what’s in a name? I often wondered why Elizabeth and Phillip chose Charles as the name of their first born son knowing full well that it would be the name of a future King of England? Charles the First was beheaded in The English Civil War (1649.) His subjects and especially the parliament were not about to accept an absolute monarch. Excuse me, this is England not France. The irony is that the Puritan ruler Oliver Cromwell made himself absolute dictator. Oh, the ironies of history. After the Restoration, the beheaded Kings’ Son became Charles the Second (1660) till his death in 1685. A good Protestant English King…sort of. Rumor has it that he was a secret Roman Catholic with absolutist fantasies. We will never know for sure. His son, James the Second, married a Roman Catholic and declared that his son, the future King would be raised Roman Catholic. Parliament would never agree to a Roman heir to the throne. (This is deep history.) In 1685, Parliament deposed the King and gave the Crown to his Protestant Daughter Mary and her Husband the Duke of Orange from the Netherlands. Yes, England now had an English Queen and a Dutch King. It worked. England loved them. Just wait, after their daughter Anne died without an heir, England ended up with a German King who only spoke flawed English…all to keep the throne, and the nation, Protestant. We don’t worry about stuff like that anymore. So why did they pick the name “Charles?” Unless it is in Elizabeth’s diary, we will never know. Long Live King Charles the Third.
