World's oldest kingdoms....

[Lucky13]

1. Japanese Monarchy 600 BC-Present 2,600 Years
2. Cambodia Monarchy 69-Present 1,444 Years
3. Oman Monarchy 751-Present 1,262Years
4. British Monarchy 800-Present 1,200 Years
5. Norway Monarchy 862-Present 1151 Years
6. Luxembourg 922-Present 1,081 Years
7. Denmark Monarchy 935-Present 1068 Years
8. Sweden Monarchy 970-Present 1,043 Years
9. Thailand Monarchy 1238-Present 775 Years
10. Andorra Monarchy 1278-Present 735 Years
11. Brunei Monarchy 1363-Present 650 Years
12. Spain Monarchy 1479-Present 534 Years
13. Monaco Monarchy 1604-Present 409 Years
14. Liechtenstein Monarchy 1627-Present 386 Years
15. Bhutan Monarchy 1650-Present 363 Years
16. Kuwait Monarchy 1718-Present 295 Years
17. Saudi Arabia Monarchy 1744-Present 269 Years
18. Swaziland Monarchy 1780-Present 233 Years
19. Bahrain Monarchy 1783-Present 230'Year
20. Netherlands Monarchy 1815-Present 197 Years
21. Lesotho Monarchy 1822-Present 191 Years
22. Belgian Monarchy 1831-Present 182 Years
23. Tonga Monarchy 1875 138 Years
24. Qatar Monarchy 1868 Present 142 Years
25. Jordan Monarchy 1921-Present 92 Years
26. Malaysia Monarchy 1957-Present 58 Years
27. United Arabs Emirates Monarchy 1971-Present 42 Years

Then you got to ask yourself, wasn't England a 'republic' for some years?

 

[mikewint]

Jan, if you are referring to the Commonwealth. that was the period from 1649 onwards when England, along later with Ireland and Scotland, was ruled as a republic following the end of the Second English Civil War and the trial and execution of Charles I. The republic's existence was declared through "An Act declaring England to be a Commonwealth", adopted by the Rump Parliament on 19 May 1649. During the period, fighting continued, particularly in Ireland and Scotland, between the parliamentary forces and those opposed to them, as part of what is now referred to as the Third English Civil War.
In 1653, after the forcible dissolution of the Rump Parliament, Oliver Cromwell was declared Lord Protector of a united "Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland" under the terms of the Instrument of Government, inaugurating the period now usually known as the Protectorate. After Cromwell's death, and following a brief period of rule under his son, Richard Cromwell, the Protectorate Parliament was dissolved in 1659 and the Rump Parliament recalled, the start of a process that led ultimately to the restoration of the monarchy in 1660.

 

[pbehn]

Jan JAN FFS edit that post before a Scotsman or a Welshman sees it and hope an Irishman never ever gets word of it. We may have had a monarchy and some form of government when we didnt actually have a King or Queen but England has a lot of assassinations and politiking and the rule of Scotland Wales and especially Ireland has been much different from the year AD800 onwards

For a while our rulers were interchangeable
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Bloodaxe

 

[Lucky13]

I'm just the messenger....

 

[yulzari]

You are right that the compiler should have written English not British but not only that: there hasn't been an English Monarch of England since Edgar II in 1066. French, Welsh, Scots, Dutch and German yes. But English? No.

BTW, the Restoration deemed that Charles II had been the King since Charles I died.

 

[pbehn]

You are right that the compiler should have written English not British but not only that: there hasn't been an English Monarch of England since Edgar II in 1066. French, Welsh, Scots, Dutch and German yes. But English? No.

BTW, the Restoration deemed that Charles II had been the King since Charles I died.

I suspect even longer than that, the first thing a monarch does with his family is marry the children off to make friends, even in 1066 the houses of European monarchs were completely interbred.

 

[yulzari]

It took from George I until George V to entirely eliminate a German accent from the British Royal Family. Mind you, the English Royal Family had French as their first language for generations after William the Bastard. The German thing does seem fair though. The English are Germans after all. I used to live not far from the scene of the last battle between the British and English. Damn that William. If it were not for him the verb at the end of the sentence would be and we would not have surnames.

 

[pbehn]

It took from George I until George V to entirely eliminate a German accent from the British Royal Family. Mind you, the English Royal Family had French as their first language for generations after William the Bastard. The German thing does seem fair though. The English are Germans after all. I used to live not far from the scene of the last battle between the British and English. Damn that William. If it were not for him the verb at the end of the sentence would be and we would not have surnames.

Attitude to rulers has changed over the years, few ever heard a monarch speak until fairly recently. I believe at the time of Napoleon only 10% of French people spoke French as we know it. England and parts of Scotland were Roman colonies for a long time and Latin was the language educated people used followed later on by French which is a vulgar form of latin.

When did the British fight the English? It seems like a contradiction? Or do you mean Britons?

 

[yulzari]

Battle of Hingston Down (Hengestedun) 838. The British, with their Danish allies, lost out to the English under King Ecgberht. A later sucessor Athelstan completed the job when he drove the British from Devon and brought King Hywel of Cornwall under his tribute. Making the Tamar the boundary between England and Cornwall and brought the Cornish Church under Canterbury. I used to live in English colonised NE Cornwall not far from the Cornish fort of Whalesborough (Wealsburgh) or 'Foreigners (cornish) Fort' which commanded the crossing of the Bude estuary.

St. Patrick was a well educated middle class post Empire Briton who thus spoke and wrote in Latin. Hence the ease with which he slipped into the Roman Church. Must have been a bit of a shock to the Irish slavers when they found that they had taken a posh boy and didn't quite know how to market him.

In the 1870 war the French found that only a third of their troops readily understood received French (ie Parisian) and soldiers who could read and translate became NCOs. Afterwards centralised French schools actively taught only in received French to try to eliminate the various patois. Mind you the Bavarian officers were still speaking in French to each other in WW1.

It is all complicated. Even Edgar II was brought up in Hungary.

It was Emperor Charles V who said' I speak Spanish to God, Italian to Women, French to Men and German to my horse.'

So much trivia, so little time!

 

[Clave]

Our history is far too long and complicated, and there were kings of bits of England way before 800. Mercia, Wessex, East Anglia etc. etc. all had kings back in 500-and-something. I know it doesn't count towards current monarchy, but I felt the need to mention it.