Queen of England

Gotcha.

It is interesting, then, that the British monarchs retained the English regnal numbers but dropped the Scottish ones. (Or did they? I have heard the first British monarch, James, referred to as “James VI of Scotland, I of England.” Is the queen regnant ever referred to as “Elizabeth I of Scotland”?)

Yep. I saw that myself while I was in Scotland. I remember it because it made me look up the reason why it was that way.

DancingFool

True, but only up to a point. Such a fuss was made of the issue in 1952 that Churchill promised that in future the higher regnal number, whether English or Scottish, will be used in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK. The neat thing about this solution was that it meant that the numbers of all the post-1707 monarchs were ‘correct’ after all. It also means that there can still be a Charles III and a William V.

And if we’re being pedantic, James VI and I would have been emphatic that the monarchy became ‘British’ in 1603, whatever his formal title said.