King Of England Research Articles

Historic British Royal Memes

Historic British Royal Memes

Royalty and Its Representation in Popular Culture

Royalty and Its Representation in Popular Culture

The Royal Treatment

The Royal Treatment

A Kingdom of Possibility

A Kingdom of Possibility

The Death of Queen Elizabeth, the Death of the British Empire

The life of Elizabeth Windsor famously kmown by her title Queen Elizabeth the second, is one of mixed realites she is the longest reigning British Monarch in history having set on the throne for 70 years. The reign of Elizabeth was born from the greatest times of the British Empire with many colonies and a great reputation of the empire after the defeat of the Germans in World war 2. Queen Elizabeth has been credited in overseeing the end of colonisation from the British empire by many African states who were under British colonial rule. She facilitated for negotiations in some cases between liberation war movements and the colonial governments on peaceful ways of transfering power. Her Queen`s government even went on to sanction Ian Smith regime in Rhodesia when it declared independence from Britain, the sanctions were as a result that her majesty`s government would only accept independence if it was given to the majority black africans of Rhodesia. The British economy under her rule had prospered beyond unimaginable dought with the British pound being the most powerful currency, the attractiveness of the pound attracted great minds from across the globe which helped improve the British economy and advanced its technological base. The common wealth of nations an organisation the Queen championed has had success in cooperation between Britain its former colonies and other countries that were not British colonies have since joined the organisation because of its successes. This paper seeks to show how the British economy, social base and its political prowess has suffered from the days that the Queen became sick to her subsequent death and the aftermath. Policies like the Brexit that was carried out during her old age and its impact of Britain will be visited upon in this article, the Irish referendum, the removal of the British Mornach as heard of state by carribean nations that belonged to the British realm. The paper seeks to show how Elizabeth Windsor was the glue that bonded British modern society and the survival of the British monarch without her is under threat.In her life Queen Elizabeth worked with 15 British Prime Ministers from diverse parties sharing diferent ideologies this showed her to be a democratic monarch. This paper will expand on the front of the death of monarchs and empires in the modern era and Elizabeth Winsdor being the last great monarch.

Wives of Henry VIII: Historiography in the concepts of modern cinema

The research relevance is determined by the variety of myths and legends formed around the historical personality of Henry VIII, which are not true, yet are repeated in the context of contemporary cinema. The study aims to analyse each of Henry VIII’s wives, using literature as a primary source, analyse modern cinema and attempt to introduce an innovative view of the historical situation in the history of the British monarchy. The artistic and stylistic method and the method of comparative analysis were used. Aside from the rapid change in the paradigm of personal life, the second monarch of the Tudor dynasty is also known for several significant reforms that were demonstrated only in a few films and TV series, and then in passing, leaving a bad impression of the English crown. Under the Tudors, England became the “mistress of the seas” and established the Anglican Church independent of the Pope, from a period of turmoil to stability. The work combines the embodied images with portraits of Henry VIII’s wives’ contemporaries, namely those of Hans Holbein the Younger. General information on the establishment of the English monarch, their origin, as well as the circumstances at court after the marriage, namely the death of the heirs to the throne, which, as recent studies have proved, was related to the health of the monarch, not his wives, was analysed. The study examines the external features, behavioural patterns, and influence on the internal politics of medieval England. The following films were analysed: “The Other Boleyn Girl” (2008, directed by Justin Chadwick), the TV series “The Tudors” (2007-2010, directed by Michael Hirst), “Henry VIII and His Six Wives” (2016, directed by Chris Holt), establishing that cinema does not accurately convey the era, the character and appearance of the girls. This study may be useful for researchers, history buffs, specialists in the Tudor dynasty, students of history and amateurs

Vita Haroldi and Hamlet—a flight of the imagination

This discursive article was inspired by a reading of Vita Haroldi and in seeing similarities to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In the introduction, I examine the possible links between the medieval survival story Vita Haroldi and Hamlet. Part One explicates three potential approaches to a study of early modern English literature: the traitorous letter trope, the historiography of the death of medieval English kings, and the interest of leading lights in Elizabethan England in Anglo-Saxon law and the church. Part two implements these approaches in a brief reading and interpretation of Hamlet. Both the play Hamlet and the character of Prince Hamlet are situated in a transition from the medieval to the early modern; from a faith-based world to a rational one, from a focus on revenge to one on justice.

Divorced, beheaded, defied: solidarity in individual and collective herstories in SIX the Musical (2017)

ABSTRACT Recent television shows and specials, films, and biographical musicals such as SIX the Musical (2017), signal an ongoing preoccupation with the British monarchy, particularly as it intersects with empowering re-tellings of women’s herstories. SIX reassesses the wives’ relationships to Henry VIII and to each other, and explores how they have been portrayed and mythologised throughout history. It reimagines each of the wives as pop princess characters, giving each queen an amplified and powerful voice and a platform with which to use it. Humour is used to expose the ways in which gender is socially constructed and performed, how it is represented in musical theatre, and to challenge accepted narratives surrounding the six women. SIX demonstrates how women’s individual and collective agency can co-exist, and how the solidarity between the wives on stage, and the women playing them, can also extend to the women in the audience. SIX is also distinctive in the majority-female and non-binary practitioners that comprise its creative team, which further challenges the typically male-dominated musical theatre industry. In this short article, I examine the form and function of the feminism promoted by SIX, and in particular its engagement with female joy, frivolity, and love.

The Best King of England

The Best King of England

An appraisal study of Ghanaian media's attitude towards Britain on the death and burial of Queen Elizabeth II

Considering the recent anti-imperial sentiments that have inspired several agitations in the media landscape of Francophone African countries, the study examines the existence or otherwise of such sentiments in Ghana's media landscape through the media's publications about the death and burial of Queen Elizabeth II. It explores the attitude portrayed by the media through their publications to understand the current political relationship between Ghana and Britain. Using the linguistic Appraisal System's Attitude as a tool for analysis, the study, selecting fifteen print and radio media organisations in Ghana, examines data about the death and burial of the Queen. The study finds that the British monarch and her affiliates are favourably presented in the affect, judgement and appreciation systems of evaluation and considers this presentation as a demonstration of solidarity between the nations. It concludes that Ghana, and by extension, African Anglophone countries, shows less hostility towards the former colonial authority.

Metafora i metonimija u eufemizmima u zvaničnim izjavama kraljice Elizabete II

Though well recognised as devices used in the formation of euphemisms, metaphor and metonymy as such remain under-researched in current literature. Our study examines the use of euphemistic language in the official speeches and statements of the former British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. The goal is to identify euphemisms and explain the metaphors and metonymies used in their formation, drawing on the Conceptual Metaphor and Metonymy Theory and Critical Metaphor Analysis. Metaphor and metonymy account for the formation of most of the analysed euphemisms. We argue that the analysed metaphors are motivated by the ideological concepts of (a) the struggle for survival and (b) materialism, as well as by the intent to positively evaluate certain political and everyday endeavours. The analysed metonymies are motivated by the intent to highlight more desirable or less undesirable aspects of events and things.

The Commonwealth Realms: A Thorn in the Side of the British Monarchy?

The death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022 has given renewed momentum to claims for a republic in a significant number of Commonwealth realms, while also revealing how confused the perception of the role of the British monarch in the Commonwealth is. The latter is indeed both the head of 15 Commonwealth states, and since 1949, has been the “Head of the Commonwealth” as an international organisation of sovereign independent states. With a special focus on the case of Commonwealth realms, this article proposes to examine the extent to which these two roles of the monarch in the Commonwealth are compatible. While the monarch’s position as head of the Commonwealth, mainly shaped by Queen Elizabeth II throughout her reign, conveys the image of the head of a multicultural and multiracial “family of nations”, his role as constitutional monarch of his 14 “other realms”, might well undermine the legitimacy of the monarchy, at both international and national levels, and particularly in the context of increased global demands for reparations and decolonial justice.

“A Ceremony of National and Representative Character”: The Four-Nations Politics of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee

AbstractIn June 1887, Britons crowded the streets of London to celebrate Queen Victoria's fiftieth year on the throne. It was an opportunity to publicly revel in the social, political, economic, and imperial progress Britain had made during her historic reign. The Lord Chamberlain was tasked with organizing a formal jubilee ceremony at Westminster Abbey representative of the queen's diverse subjects. But this proved a difficult undertaking for a multinational kingdom with a vast overseas empire. Grievances over seating in Westminster Abbey, jubilee honors, and an absent royal family fostered varying degrees of solidarity and rivalry among the United Kingdom's four constituent nations. The Irish Question and imperial expansion—matters in which Victoria was personally invested—heightened four-nations sensibilities and influenced participation in the festivities. The queen's Golden Jubilee both reflected and inspired four-nations thinking, and it revealed public concerns that the British union might exist as a hierarchy of nations rather than as a collaborative venture among equal members. As the institutional embodiment of tiered society, the Crown became an outlet for subjects to explore questions and modes of belonging within the global British world. A four-nations analysis of Victoria's 1887 jubilee shows that despite its unifying function, the modern British monarchy has struggled to harmonize the United Kingdom's multinational perspectives.

Ruling the Airwaves: Anti-Monarchism in British Grime Subculture

While the British monarchy remains a symbol of stability for a majority of Britons, it constitutes a symbol of stasis for a considerable minority. The release of the Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen” (27 May 1977) marked a watershed moment in British music history due to the song’s explicit anti-monarchism. This article explores how anti-royalist sentiment has evolved since the turn of the millennium in British grime music, becoming increasingly concerned with the legacy of colonialism and race relations in British society, while maintaining the 1970s punk emphasis on the British underclasses and socio-economic disparity. I argue that grime subculture has established itself as a sort of “counter empire,” which has successively challenged key British figures and institutions by provocatively eluding hegemonic public space and appropriating major symbols of the dominant culture.

Epilogue: The Postscripts of Vernacular Victoria

“Aajkal Agra ka mausam kaisa hai?” Queen Victoria asks herself, alone in her sumptuous quarters at Osborne House.1 How is the weather in Agra these days? Polite small talk, the loose change of a British monarch's verbal currency, recasts itself in unfamiliar phonemes as the empress of India practices her Hindustani. Soon, Agra will retreat from the imperial consciousness; it will be time to go to the durbar room, or work on her Urdu writing under the munshi's tutelage, perhaps before lunching on chicken curry.2

The Treaty of 1815? Or the Proclamation of the Convention for the Ceylon Settlement Act?

This research aimed to investigate the Paper written by the British in 1815 AD called 'Givisuma', in historiography and within the Sinhalese context. In 1815, the paper that the British documented regarding the Ceylon and obtained signatures from elites at Kandy has been attested in various Sinhala language sources as 'Givisuma'. Several scholars have been mentioning this as 'Sammutiya' (Convention). Nevertheless, in this regard, English words included in the primary sources indicate a different Sinhala literal meaning. The paper of 1815 is commonly referred to as the 'Proclamation' in the primary sources and its Sinhala meaning is being ignored in secondary Sinhala language sources and usage among the Sri Lankans. 'Proclamation' means the Sinhala literal meaning of, "Prakasha Pattraya", "Danveem Pattraya". A 'Proclamation' is a formal announcement, usually made by a government or other powerful authority which has been used as a means of expression by the British colonialists and the legal mechanism to affirm the accession of a British king or queen and confirm the right to the lands belonging to the Great Britain. A 'Treaty' is a legal document in international relations. A 'Convention' is a set of rules for parties who agree to a convention to solve a problem that affects a number of people in the world. The components included in a 'Treaty' are called 'Agreements'. Thus, this research seeks to determine the most fitting name for the document proposed in Sri Lanka in 1815 considering its Sinhala language meaning. The Historical Research Method has been used for this research. Considering the medium of expression enforced by the British in their colonies, their content, and the nomenclature given to those expression mediums, the paper written in Ceylon in 1815 has a different meaning than the meaning that emerges from the term 'Treaty'. The findings suggested that, based on historical considerations, the document 1815 in Sri Lanka may be more accurately described as the "The Proclamation of the Convention for the Ceylon Settlement Act, 1815" rather than using the term "1815 treaty (Givisuma)".

Archbishop Wulfstan of York and the Danish Conquest of 1016

Abstract Wulfstan, archbishop of York (1002–1023) and bishop of Worcester (1002–1016), occupies a pre-eminent place in the political history of eleventh-century England, yet surprisingly little is known of his life and career. The consequences of this ignorance are particularly acute for the years surrounding the Danish Conquest of 1016. The upheavals of this period led Wulfstan to compose his most well-known homily, the Sermo lupi ad Anglos (1014), resign from the see of Worcester (1016), and transfer his loyalty from the English king Æthelred to the Danish conqueror Cnut. Yet while the years 1013 to 1018 left discernible traces in Wulfstan’s thought, the particular circumstances that produced these traces can be perceived only dimly. The means by which Wulfstan maintained his status through the years of conquest are significant for more than just their impact on his career and evolving political vision. While his role as a leading legislator during the reigns of both Æthelred and Cnut has been taken as evidence that he managed to emerge from the Conquest relatively unscathed, Wulfstan’s influence at the royal court during these years was inconsistent at best and his success in navigating the change in power was not inevitable. Wulfstan’s approach to the complicated politics of the Conquest thus provides a useful case-study of the various ways in which the Church, its leaders as much as its institutions, balanced competing allegiances to king and conqueror.

‘But by the Eyes of His Trustees’: the Emotions and Post-Mortem Strategies of Will-Writing in Restoration London, 1660–1700’

ABSTRACT Wills made in the English probate system during the seventeenth century were emotion-filled documents that allowed their testators to continue to speak and influence the living after their deaths. Read aloud during the probate process, their terms carried out by representatives appointed in an emotionally reciprocal exchange, and made available for public consumption in records offices after the death of the will-maker, wills allowed the words used and their self-fashioning to linger in minds and memories. Beyond words, early modern testators left bequests of personal items, charitable gifts, and material goods, all grounded in emotional meaning. This article examines a sample of seventeenth-century wills written by Londoners during the restoration of the English monarchy (1660–1700). Through linguistic and socio-cultural analysis, it finds that early modern Londoners intentionally utilised their wills to express expectations of their surviving kin which were grounded in emotional terms, and to maintain post-mortem relationships with their living executors from their positions in death in order to ensure their ongoing influence.

On the Decline of British Royal Power in the Early George Era (1714-1761)

After the Glorious Revolution, the British monarchy began to be restricted. The Bill of Rights marks a long-term struggle between monarchy and parliament. This article discusses the decline of British monarchy in the early George era. During this process, George I ushered in an era of gradual decline in monarchy, mainly due to the king's recognition of his own identity and the establishment of the Prime Minister system, leading to the decline of British monarchy. During the reign of George II, the personal factors of the king, the expansion of the Prime Minister's power, and the shift of the Prime Minister's "supporting body" from the king to the parliament also marked the continued decline of royal power. However, monarchy was only a custom and convention at this time, without legal recognition from the state. The main factor leading to the decline of British monarchy was the establishment of the Prime Minister system and the expansion of power.

The Semantic Frame of The Royal Funeral

Any form of life ends in death. Human death is a difficult moment for an individual’s family. Various cultures observe diverse rituals and traditions connected with the end of life and perform different burial rites. Memorial services assume a range of forms depending on the culture and religious tradition an individual was brought up in and followed throughout their life. However, memorial ceremonies are also diversified within a given culture. The funeral of a monarch is much more complex as compared to this of any of his/her subject’s. The death of the British Monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, in September 2022 was followed by a period of mourning and state funeral. The analysis in the present paper focuses on the semantic frame of the royal funeral. The methodological framework adopted for the discussion is the cognitive linguistic one, focusing on cognitive-linguistic models such as frames and scripts, exemplified here by the frame of the ROYAL FUNERAL and the [ROYAL FUNERAL] script. Both of the presented models contain unique elements that are not to be found in other contexts. The components of frame and script which are specific to this event are highlighted. The data for the detailed description of the frame are gathered from the online news reports provided by the British Broadcasting Corporation. The study shows how different the discussed model is from the standard description of the frame of FUNERAL and the [FUNERAL] script respectively. Also, many of its elements are culture-specific.