Bonus: Monarchy Charlies

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[00:00:08] This is BewilderBeasts, an infotainment show dedicated to inspiring curiosity for all ages by investigating the ways animals intersect at humanity.

[00:00:17] I am not a historian, an ethologist, a researcher, a scientist, a zoologist, a trained audio engineer or an expert in... well, anything.

[00:00:26] Y'all, I'm lucky if I can remember to put my clean laundry in the dryer before it gets funky.

[00:00:31] And while I make every effort to present things as accurately as I can with a fun flair, I'm going to mess up.

[00:00:37] And that's okay. I hope I've given you a nice place to jump off from on your own adventures into curiosity.

[00:00:42] Or at the very least, I've given you the key to win your next round of trivia.

[00:01:08] Hi everyone. This is a behind-the-scenes bit from the Tower of London Ravens episode I just recorded.

[00:01:13] I had to cut it for time. That episode went incredibly long, which tends to happen when I start going on a history tangent that has nothing to do with the animals and I'm trying to make it fit.

[00:01:23] But I thought all y'all would like this. You will still get your bonus episode later this month, but please enjoy this little cup bit from the most recent episode of BewilderBeasts.

[00:01:34] You may remember in season one I did a bit on monarchs who died in spectacularly stupid ways, all involving animals in some way.

[00:01:47] I brought it back in season two and will likely do a three-peat in season four because they are just so much fun to do.

[00:01:54] And using the dong sound effect is kind of my favorite thing.

[00:02:02] This was covered in the story when the king of Greece was killed by a monkey bite.

[00:02:07] Y'all, the global map changed and millions of people died because of a near-feral primate who bit the king of Greece in his groin in 1919. Bad monkey.

[00:02:19] But in that story was another King Charles, King Charles II of Nevers who got really sick and his doctors it was a different time.

[00:02:29] Basically prescribed wrapping him like a mummy in layers of brandy-soaked cloth, which is super flammable.

[00:02:36] But that wasn't the problem. The problem was his night nurse dropped a candle on him and whoop!

[00:02:42] Up in flames he went, whoopsie, I don't feel terrible about it.

[00:02:46] He was actually called quote, the bad king by his people.

[00:02:50] Not Charles the Great but Charles the Bad King.

[00:02:55] So maybe whoopsy was more of an oops, I have no idea.

[00:03:01] But given that King Charles III just chose his name, I thought I would do my part and read and elaborate on a Twitter thread that I just did on B. Wilderby's pod on Twitter.

[00:03:12] If you're into this sort of thing. It wasn't about the queen.

[00:03:15] I feel like I'm blissfully ignorant on monarchy things as an American and having my heritage primarily be Irish and English.

[00:03:24] I'm constantly at war with myself on how I'm supposed to feel about pretty much anything. So I just don't.

[00:03:30] But I did do a little bit of digging on King Charles'. King Charles's? Monarchy Charlie's.

[00:03:37] Given after the queen's death this week, Prince Charles ascended to the throne with his royal, mmm, castle mate with benefits, Camilla.

[00:03:46] He could have taken on any of his, and this is not a joke, names all of which are first names.

[00:03:53] Born as Charles, Philip, Arthur, George, that is too many first names.

[00:03:59] He could have picked any of those as his king name.

[00:04:03] But given that King Charles got to choose his name, I wanted to go over the preceding UK centric King Charles's.

[00:04:12] While I was in the UK, I saw this portrait. Very, very old-timey, oily portrait, 1600s-age portrait of King Charles the first.

[00:04:22] If there are words on a thing, I tend to read those first.

[00:04:26] And this portrait in the Portrait Museum in Edinburgh had the words,

[00:04:30] A header, a title if you will, like a book almost that said, King Charles's last day.

[00:04:37] I had just enough time for my brain to wonder what a last day would be like for the king, right?

[00:04:43] Obviously this thing that I'm going to look at is going to be painted with beautiful oils or ink.

[00:04:49] Maybe it's a pony ride, or maybe it's him sitting on a chair or a throne looking out at the sea, contemplating what he has done for the kingdom.

[00:04:58] Uh, no. It was another dude with an axe, his face stoic, or maybe bored, hard to tell.

[00:05:05] Given that you had to sit for hours in pose, people just couldn't smile for that long to get the painting right.

[00:05:11] Thank God for Polaroid. Anyway, this man who is facing the audience, Mona Lisa-style, torso up,

[00:05:18] and instead of his hands folded in his lap like our old friend Mona, he's holding up what I assume is the decapitated head of Charles the first.

[00:05:26] This was a very different last day than I was expecting, but it made an impression.

[00:05:30] So much so that I took this photo weeks ago before King Charles the Third ascended to the throne.

[00:05:36] Okay, so this was Charles the first executed for treason and the monarchy ended, at least for a little time, with his very graphic death.

[00:05:45] Maybe that's not who Charles the Third is trying to be named after.

[00:05:49] What about Charles the second? There aren't that many to choose from.

[00:05:53] Unlike Henry's, there were probably at least eight of those and given that we only remember the one who had seven wives,

[00:06:00] it's probably best we stopped while we were ahead with eight.

[00:06:03] So Charles the second. Oh dear. Remember, I took these photos before I even knew the queen was ill or on death's doorstep.

[00:06:13] I like to take photos that make me laugh or giggle or make me want to know more.

[00:06:17] Or dogs. Any dogs. I did a whole Twitter thread on the dogs in the paintings of the Portrait Museum and it was gold.

[00:06:22] But anyway, back to Charles the second. I took several photos of his portraits in Edinburgh and London,

[00:06:28] not realizing until today Charles adopted the name Charles the Third.

[00:06:33] That's when I was like, wait, I have pictures of the other two.

[00:06:37] Charles the first who we talked about decapitated and Charles the second.

[00:06:40] Oh boy, every single painting he's man spreading like he's taking up his God given space,

[00:06:47] six whole seats on a public bus.

[00:06:50] He's portrayed as a dapper dude, not terrible looking and given the Habsburg jaw problems

[00:06:56] and the small gene pools and other monarchies at the time.

[00:06:59] And there's later this is remarkable and always with the legs played like he's a gymnast at the Olympics.

[00:07:06] The reason is unknown. But then when I was reading his history,

[00:07:10] I saw that he had a baker's dozen mistresses and it suddenly became quite clear why he was sitting

[00:07:17] legs a Kimbo in every portrait.

[00:07:20] But we can think Charles the second, not the one candle murdered or candle whoopsied,

[00:07:25] but instead Charles the second with all of those mistresses for the Ravens of London.

[00:07:30] But those famous Ravens at the Tower of London are because of him at least rumored.

[00:07:35] When his astronomer complained that the birds were shitting on his telescope team moved the astronomer

[00:07:39] to an observatory built in Greenwich instead of kicking out the birds.

[00:07:44] But Charles part two, man spreading for days was not a good husband but an excellent adulterer.

[00:07:50] He had no legitimate kids but had a ton of mistresses and maybe that's why he was sitting like that in all of his portraits.

[00:07:57] We have yet to see what Charles the three quill does I would like to see him stand up for his daughter-in-law

[00:08:04] or maybe give some countries back to their people, apologize,

[00:08:08] acknowledge a problematic history of colonialism or literally anything.

[00:08:12] But for now it's a blank slate.

[00:08:14] Hopefully he can pose better in a portrait than C2 and keep his head literally and well metaphorically,

[00:08:21] unlike C1.

[00:08:23] The one thing we do know, he has to keep the birds.

[00:08:26] I'm just saying maybe going with Charles especially since he had so many names to choose from is a bad omen.

[00:08:35] Or perhaps he wants to turn this boat around.

[00:08:38] Hopefully the latter.

[00:08:39] That said he is the oldest seated monarch in UK history at 73 years old,

[00:08:45] which is still younger than the United States President Joe Biden who was elected the oldest president in US history.

[00:08:55] So yay!

[00:08:56] Glad to see it's finally time for those elder white dudes to take their turn.

[00:09:01] It's my time yo, but they're not saying yo because they're in their 70s.

[00:09:06] Go you guys.

[00:09:08] Get it.

[00:09:09] Slowly.

[00:09:10] So you don't throw out your back.

[00:09:12] All things considered though Charles III is going to be and already is controversial in so many ways.

[00:09:19] But I will say as far as the environment is concerned and there are many places where he could and should speak up.

[00:09:26] The racism directed at his daughter-in-law and grandson is front and center.

[00:09:30] But as far as the environment is concerned, he has always been a champion and will go to bats.

[00:09:35] I hope.

[00:09:36] Time will tell what he can do with the weight of the crown on his head, an energy crisis like no other at his feet,

[00:09:42] and the ability to say as king I'm not political and have to set aside to let others handle the big issues as a cop out.

[00:09:49] The three quill has petitioned governments gone to bat for stopping climate change, even wrote books on this subject.

[00:09:55] It was a major driving force for 73 years in public service as the Prince of Wales.

[00:10:01] On Friday, as he was crowned king and leader of the UK, Yahoo News.com said,

[00:10:08] In his Friday speech, the new king did not mention the words climate change and that in and of itself spoke volumes.

[00:10:16] It is a new time indeed.

[00:10:18] When I was in the UK there were strikes aplenty.

[00:10:21] Garbage and sanitation strikes were leaving streets littered because the sanitation workers were not getting paid.

[00:10:27] So they stopped collecting trash and good for them.

[00:10:31] Bad for tourists, but they absolutely sent a message.

[00:10:35] Pay people for the work they do, especially if it's work you don't want to do.

[00:10:40] Heat or eat was a slogan I heard several times in Edinburgh.

[00:10:43] People had to pick between eating or staying warm.

[00:10:47] And it never got above temperature for a light jacket to come off.

[00:10:51] My tank top, hopeful arms the entire time I was there stayed jacketed.

[00:10:56] And man was I looking forward to getting attention from my dog tattoo on my bicep.

[00:11:00] It never happened because Edinburgh, while a beautiful city,

[00:11:03] wrapped all the time in a spring chill and clouds.

[00:11:07] All the time.

[00:11:08] I mean there was a bit of a drought so climate related.

[00:11:11] So I didn't need the rain jacket that I left behind which is also telling.

[00:11:16] I should have needed that jacket I forgot.

[00:11:19] And when the rainy country stopped raining it's a big sign something is wrong.

[00:11:23] So with Charles the three he'll keep the ravens as there are no telescopes for them to poop on.

[00:11:28] And they bring people to the tower.

[00:11:30] Come for the stories of beheading.

[00:11:32] Sorry Anne Boleyn and Jane Gray.

[00:11:34] Stay for the freaking cool birds.

[00:11:36] And if they're gone the country will fall.

[00:11:38] And that's an easy thing to keep.

[00:11:40] Keep the tourists coming.

[00:11:42] Keep the people talking.

[00:11:44] Keep the history salacious but we aren't killing people anymore at the tower.

[00:11:48] But we can't pay or feed them or give them heat.

[00:11:51] Charles's rain is just starting.

[00:11:53] We'll see what he can do or if he'll do.

[00:11:56] Does he use the crown to stand in front and blaze a trail?

[00:11:59] Or does he sit under it and hide behind the title?

[00:12:02] Time will tell.