# Could there be a Queen Meghan? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 23, 2018, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691 "2018-05-23T18:17:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/121 "2018-05-30T20:11:16Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > Also, Charles has stated that if and when he succeeds to the throne, he will reign as George VII. That really pisses me off. There have been enough Kings named George. Why can’t he choose a name that nobody has had before? It’s like, he gets to choose whatever name he wants, so why wouldn’t he choose something unique? Not necessarily even something outlandish, just something unique. There hasn’t been a King Daniel or a King Michael or a King Christopher or a King Thomas, so why doesn’t he just pick a name like that? Why does he have to be so boring? ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/122 "2018-05-30T20:18:54Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Charles is a historically bad name for the UK monarchy. Was the first King Charles even that bad? I get the impression he was sort of a victim of an angry mob who hated him because he was married to a Catholic. Oliver Cromwell, who replaced him, wasn’t really any better, was he? I know that the Irish hate him. And the English eventually deposed him and replaced him with the monarchy, so he couldn’t have been that effective. Wikipedia says: “Cromwell is one of the most controversial figures in the history of the British Isles, considered a regicidal dictator by historians such as David Sharp, a military dictator by Winston Churchill, but a hero of liberty by John Milton, Thomas Carlyle, and Samuel Rawson Gardiner, and a class revolutionary by Leon Trotsky.” Ehhhhh…if Leon Trotsky likes you, chances are you’re kind of fucked up. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/123 "2018-05-30T20:24:49Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > …Not sure what Golda Meir’s citizenship status was when she became Prime Minister of Israel. Had been a naturalized US citizen raised in Milwaukee. Israel is quite cool about people retaining joint US-Israeli citizenship. She was born in the old Russian Empire in 1898, and lived from 1906-1921 in the U.S., it looks like: [Golda Meir - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golda_Meir#Early_life). Don’t know if she was ever naturalized - U.S. immigration law was a bit looser back then. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/124 "2018-05-30T20:34:52Z")
> [@Jacquernagy](#): > > That really pisses me off. There have been enough Kings named George. Why can’t he choose a name that nobody has had before? It’s like, he gets to choose whatever name he wants, so why wouldn’t he choose something unique? Not necessarily even something outlandish, just something unique. There hasn’t been a King Daniel or a King Michael or a King Christopher or a King Thomas, so why doesn’t he just pick a name like that? Why does he have to be so boring? Upthread someone said that the name is one of his existing names and his full name is Charles Philip Arthur George. I’m not sure if that’s custom or a hard requirement, but it seems it’s going to be one of those. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/125 "2018-05-30T20:41:12Z")
> [@Jacquernagy](#): > > Was the first King Charles even that bad? I get the impression he was sort of a victim of an angry mob who hated him because he was married to a Catholic. Oliver Cromwell, who replaced him, wasn’t really any better, was he? I know that the Irish hate him. And the English eventually deposed him and replaced him with the monarchy, so he couldn’t have been that effective. > > Wikipedia says: > > “Cromwell is one of the most controversial figures in the history of the British Isles, considered a regicidal dictator by historians such as David Sharp, a military dictator by Winston Churchill, but a hero of liberty by John Milton, Thomas Carlyle, and Samuel Rawson Gardiner, and a class revolutionary by Leon Trotsky.” > > Ehhhhh…if Leon Trotsky likes you, chances are you’re kind of fucked up. He was no friend of semi-modern conceptions of democracy and believed it was his way or ye olde heighhwayye. His downfall was a good part his pigheadedness. But Cromwell, while ostensibly for power invested in Parliament, was another side of the same coin, with additional religious fundamentalism (guess Trotsky ignored that?). The Wars of the Three Kingdoms were a brutal period with few good guys. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/126 "2018-05-30T23:26:17Z")
> [@Jacquernagy](#): > > That really pisses me off. There have been enough Kings named George. Why can’t he choose a name that nobody has had before? It’s like, he gets to choose whatever name he wants, so why wouldn’t he choose something unique? Not necessarily even something outlandish, just something unique. There hasn’t been a King Daniel or a King Michael or a King Christopher or a King Thomas, so why doesn’t he just pick a name like that? Why does he have to be so boring? Cite, please, that he gets to pick whatever name he wants, rather than one of the names he was baptised with, in the Church of which he will be Governor? ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/127 "2018-05-31T00:03:57Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Cite, please, that he gets to pick whatever name he wants, rather than one of the names he was baptised with, in the Church of which he will be Governor? As a person living in England, surely his choice of name is unencumbered by the law. If he wakes up tomorrow and decides his name is Bob…it is. I guess “gets to” would encompass constitutional conventions as well as the actual law, but since it’s never happened, there’s no precedent for what other institutions would do if he decided to use any name of his choice. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/128 "2018-05-31T00:17:08Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Even if she has, she presumably only started to do so when cast in _Suits_, at which time she was already about 30 years old, and have been living in the US for rather longer than 14 years. > > The Constution doesn’t require that you have been a resident of the US for the 14 years immediately before being elected President; just that you have “been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States”. Any 14 years will do. That’s not entirely clear. I believe the provision could easily be read as “the last 14.” ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/129 "2018-05-31T00:37:42Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > As a person living in England, surely his choice of name is unencumbered by the law. If he wakes up tomorrow and decides his name is Bob…it is. > > I guess “gets to” would encompass constitutional conventions as well as the actual law, but since it’s never happened, there’s no precedent for what other institutions would do if he decided to use any name of his choice. As a person living in England, Charlie’s got all sorts of rights and options. True, he could go by another name. He could get involved in politics and stand for the House of Commons. Even if he doesn’t stand himself, he could hit the hustings and campaign for candidates of his choice. As a person living in England, he could convert from Protestantism and the C of E to any other religion he fancied. He could choose to become a Buddhist, or a Roman Catholic monk. As a citizen living in England, he could say, “I’m 70 and time to retire. I’m off to the Highlands for stag stalking and salmon fishing. No mobile, may never come back.” Charlie Windsor could do all that. Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, Heir to the Throne, cannot do all that. He’s circumscribed by a millenium of customs and traditions that don’t have the force of law, but are effectively binding on him. So, let’s get back to **Jacquernagy’s** impassioned post about how Charles could choose any name he wanted. If it’s so obvious to **Jacquernagy** that Charles could choose a name other than his baptismal names, he should be able to come up with examples of kings or queens of England / Great Britain / the United Kingdom who have done just that: reigned under a name other than one of the baptismal names they’ve had since birth. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/130 "2018-05-31T00:45:19Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > I thought it was settled consensus that De Valera Sr was a fiction and he was born out of wedlock? He was born in a hospital for “fallen” women and apparently claiming widowhood was a common tactic then. Not really a “settled consensus” - more a plausible theory. Odds are that de Valera was illegitimate, but this doesn’t preclude his father having been a man called de Valera. And while no death record can be found for de Valera senior, this may simply reflect the fact that the family’s claims about his death (Colorado in 1886) were a fiction to disguise the fact that he had simply abandoned them, leaving town and adopting a new name. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/131 "2018-05-31T00:48:31Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > As a person living in England, surely his choice of name is unencumbered by the law. If he wakes up tomorrow and decides his name is Bob…it is. > > I guess “gets to” would encompass constitutional conventions as well as the actual law, but since it’s never happened, there’s no precedent for what other institutions would do if he decided to use any name of his choice. This. He can take any name he likes, more or less, not only because under English law anyone can, but also because as the sovereign he would be “the found of all honours” and can therefor regulate styles and titles - including his own - as an exercise of the royal prerogative. But he is in practice constrained by tradition, precedent and expectations. No English monarch has ever used a regnal name which is not a name by which he was baptised. Charles is unlikely to set a new precedent here, because why would he? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/132 "2018-05-31T00:55:35Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > That’s not entirely clear. I believe the provision could easily be read as “the last 14.” If that’s the case, Hoover was not eligible to be elected President in 1928. He was living in London from 1915 to 1917, running the Belgian Food Relief Commission, as a private citizen. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/133 "2018-05-31T01:06:35Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > If that’s the case, Hoover was not eligible to be elected President in 1928. He was living in London from 1915 to 1917, running the Belgian Food Relief Commission, as a private citizen. Two points: 1. Residency is where a person lives with the intent to remain indefinitely. It is possible to stay somewhere for months or perhaps years without changing residency, if the duration is limited. If I take a three month vacation to London, I have not changed by residency. I’m not sure what Hoover’s intention was. 2. This has been a point of debate regarding whether Hoover was eligible. The interpretation that a President must only have 14 years of residency whenever would seem silly as it would not require that he or she be a current resident. He could be 70 years old, having spent the last 56 years out of the country and still be eligible. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/134 "2018-05-31T01:10:10Z")
Equally silly would be if someone lived 50 years in the States, then moved to England for a year with intention of taking up residence, and then came back a year later. He’d be ineligible to be elected president until he turned 65, even though he’d lived 64 years in the States. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/135 "2018-05-31T01:14:16Z")
Getting back to the monarch’s changing names, I do acknowledge that Robert III, King of Scots, reigned under a name that was not his baptismal name. He was christened John, but came to the throne with weak support, so he reigned as Robert III, taking his father’s name. However, Scottish monarchical precedents don’t seem to carry much weight with the British Royal Family, vide the numbering system for monarchs. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/136 "2018-05-31T02:25:23Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > So, let’s get back to **Jacquernagy’s** impassioned post about how Charles could choose any name he wanted. If it’s so obvious to **Jacquernagy** that Charles could choose a name other than his baptismal names, he should be able to come up with examples of kings or queens of England / Great Britain / the United Kingdom who have done just that: reigned under a name other than one of the baptismal names they’ve had since birth. He can choose any name that he wants because he exists solely for my amusement. It’s like he’s a character in a book…a book that I am writing. [Every day.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1d4r9awjKE) ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/137 "2018-05-31T02:33:39Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Getting back to the monarch’s changing names, I do acknowledge that Robert III, King of Scots, reigned under a name that was not his baptismal name. He was christened John, but came to the throne with weak support, so he reigned as Robert III, taking his father’s name. > > However, Scottish monarchical precedents don’t seem to carry much weight with the British Royal Family, vide the numbering system for monarchs. I read something, somewhere, that if there is ever another King James, he would be James VII of the United Kingdom. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/138 "2018-05-31T02:37:42Z")
That was Churchill’s suggestion when Elizabeth came to the throne. Scots nationalists objected to her being “Elizabeth II”, as there had never been an “Elizabeth I” of Scotland. Churchill proposed that if a new monarch’s name had different numbers in England and Scotland, the new monarch should be counted from the higher of the two former monarchs of that name. A new King James would therefore be James VIII. A king Robert would be Robert IV, counting from Robert III of Scotland. A new king Constantine would be Constantine V. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/139 "2018-05-31T02:52:48Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Equally silly would be if someone lived 50 years in the States, then moved to England for a year with intention of taking up residence, and then came back a year later. He’d be ineligible to be elected president until he turned 65, even though he’d lived 64 years in the States. Not really. As with any bright line rule, one could point to unfair applications, but I wouldn’t think that any country would be unreasonable for asking that its chief executive have determined to be a resident for the previous 14 years. I believe my point stands, though. Imagine if Trump lived in the US from his birth until 1960, and he has lived with a remote Amazonian tribe since then and running for President from that remote village. Must he become a resident if he wins? It makes a mockery of the residency requirement. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691/140 "2018-05-31T02:58:05Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Imagine if Trump lived in the US from his birth until 1960, and he has lived with a remote Amazonian tribe since then… Oh, I’m imagining it, alright. It feels great. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-there-be-a-queen-meghan/814691.md?page=8)