The patient replies, “Fair fa your honest sonsie face, Great chieftain o the puddin race, Aboon them a ye take yer place, Painch, tripe or thairm, As langs my airm.” This phenomenon has been happening ever since there has been stand-up comedy," he says. As the two jesters from Richard I's court demonstrate, comedy has always been risky, and the power has always ultimately rested with the audience. If Kenneth was the first king of a united Scotland, then his grandson Constantine was the king who shaped the country into something we’d recognize as Scotland today. Over the course of his 43-year reign, it went from being called the Kingdom of the Picts to the Kingdom of Alba, the Gaelic word for “Scotland.” The words “Scot” and “Scotland” were first used during his reign.

Following Queen Elizabeth’s death on September 8, 2022, her son, Charles George, ascended to the throne and began his reign as King Charles nearly immediately. People are not happy about Charles being the new King of England, thus everything from complaints about the new look of the British pound to his “sausage fingers” has been a butt of jokes.The joke lives up to the "truly tasteless" promise of the book. This is how it starts in its 1,000-year-old format: Two men were walking along a road talking of this and that. "What do you think," says one. "Which is more fun, defecating or having sex?" When Aethelred died in early 1016, Edmund made his way to London to be crowned the new king of England. Both of his brothers had died in 1014. In a final effort to halt the Danish invasion, he went to Wessex to raise an army. He fought the Danes at Penselwood and Sherston. Then he made his way to London where he successfully broke the Danish siege.

King Charles is visiting an Edinburgh hospital. He enters a ward full of patients with no obvious sign of injury or illness and greets one. Reporters crowd around for a chance to ask the Prince a question. Geoff Harvey, renowned Perth journalist finally has the courage to ask “Your Royal Highness. Thank you for visiting our great state. If I may ask, what was the inspiration behind your interesting hat?”. Edgar the Peaceful was also instrumental in the foundation of a modern, nationalized currency for England. Before his reign, coinage was produced on a regional basis. The average silver penny varied in size, weight, and stamp across the kingdom. In early civilizations, kings and queens were typically selected through birthright or hereditary means. As time progressed, various factors including military prowess, religious power, or political acumen could contribute to a person's ascension to the throne. In modern times, royal families often exist primarily for ceremonial purposes and have little governing power. The process by which someone becomes a king or queen can vary depending on time period and location, but usually entails some combination of bloodline, election by peers, or coronation by a divine entity. A history of kings and queens The coronation of Charles III and his wife, Camilla, as king and queen of the UK and the other Commonwealth realms is scheduled to take place in May 2023.Athelstan was elected king of Mercia in 924 following the death of his father, Edward. By late 925, he’d been elected king of Wessex, too, though not before he had to put down a rebellion. Even more confused, and his grin now rictus-like, the Prince moves on to the next patient, who immediately begins to chant:

While Athelstan was the first actual king of England, it was Edgar the Peaceful who laid the foundations of a long-lasting, powerful realm. He worked tirelessly to centralize the power of the monarchy over the whole kingdom. He was also responsible for defining a system of weights and measures to be used across the kingdom. Although many kings had tried this, he was the first whose system was widely implemented and used.This type of modern comedy, which dates in minutes, is a far cry from a joke scribbled in the margins of a Latin text, which needed to remain funny for the next scholar at whichever time they stumbled across it. It was a close shave for the men, as "if they hadn't come up with such a witty reply, their fate would have been dire indeed", says Bayless. With the might of the two greatest Anglo-Saxon kingdoms behind him, Athelstan finished what his grandfather Alfred the Great had started. In 927, Athelstan conquered the last Viking territory in England—the Kingdom of York—and became the first monarch in history to be king of all England. The most powerful Vikings were the Ui Imair, who had their base in the Hebrides. While the history of the conflict between Constantine and the Ui Imair is shrouded in uncertainty, their influence had faded in the face of a centralized Scotland by the end of Constantine’s rule. By the end of Robert’s reign, over half the most powerful nobles in Scotland were Stuarts, all but ensuring their dominance of Scotland for the next few centuries. Unlike previous Scottish kings who’d spent most of their time courting their followers in lowland Scotland, Robert frequently toured the entire country with his court, engaging in diplomacy with his vassals and securing their support and respect.

Around 848, Kenneth became king of the Picts and united Scotland under a single monarch for the first time. How exactly he became king is unknown. Among the various theories are that his mother was related to a Pictish claimant, that he was elected by the Picts, or that he seized the kingdom by force. King and queens have always been one of the most powerful representations of political and social power. King and queen have occupied the throne and shaped their respective domains throughout history, from ancient cultures to modern nations. Their reigns frequently marked the peak of their kingdom's prosperity and power, as they served as the foundation for numerous powerful dynasties. The Egyptian First Dynasty, which was established by King Narmer in 3100 BC, was the first known example of ancient kings and queens. Pharaoh Aha, his successor, is credited with starting a long line of kings who each built their empires and developed the country's rich culture. Some of the most powerful ancient kings and queens followed the Pharaohs. Particularly, the Assyrians and the Babylonians were two major empires whose rulers were well-known for their leadership and the size of their military. Queen Semiramis of Assyria was a particularly powerful ruler who shaped the country's early history and ruled from 811 to 806 BC. The powerful kings and queens of the Greeks and Romans, who rose to power in both city-states and empires, are well-known. Two of the most prominent monarchs of these ancient cultures were Caesar and Augustus of Rome, as well as Agamemnon and Cleopatra of Greece. Both were wise politicians and military leaders who used their power to shape societies and cultures for centuries to come. However, the history of kings and queens extends beyond the ancient world. Europe witnessed the rise and fall of a number of powerful dynasties during the Middle Ages, including the Merovingians, Carolingians, and Plantagenets. These families played a significant role in European politics, from Charlemagne and Alfred the Great in the 8th and 9th centuries to Philip II of France and Henry VIII of England in the later Middle Ages. Although their power and influence may be significantly different from those of their forebears, kings and queens still reign in many nations today. The current Queen Elizabeth of England has served as a significant and symbolic leader since the 1950s, and monarchies like Saudi Arabia, Japan, and England continue to be significant forces in their respective nations. While kings and queens' roles and powers have evolved over time, their impact on shaping our shared human history is undeniable. The contributions of kings and queens have been crucial in defining our past and present, from Egypt's Pharaohs to modern monarchies. 5 questions to help you come up with king and queen namesDid you hear about the British who is such a big fan of the Royal Family, each of his four sons is named after a king? After months spent poring over medieval texts for her PhD, Martha Bayless made a surprising discovery. She was looking at some of the earliest jokes written in Latin by Catholic scholars (some in excess of 1,000 years old). Few had ever been translated into English before, yet many were still funny – and some even made her laugh out loud. John abandoned London to Louis and then the old Anglo-Saxon capital of Winchester, which Louis had also seized by June. By midsummer, over half the kingdom belonged to him. Prince Charles looks Geoff squarely in the eye and says, “Well I told Mummy I was heading off to visit Perth and I clearly heard her say, ‘Perth? Wear the fox hat.’” Bayless has found that many of the oldest written jokes were scribbled in the margins of ornate early Latin Bibles. Even in a culture where only academic and religious elites could read and write, early Church scholars were busy entertaining each other with smutty comments.