Long live the king

So, Charles Philip Arthur George (No Last Name) became King of England last week, ruining any chance I had as a possible descendent of the royal Stewart family of Scotland to ascend to the throne.

As would be expected, I was deeply disappointed by this turn of events, as it’s always been my goal to possess a great fortune, massive estates, pastures full of fine horses, and maybe the only gull-wing Aston Martin ever made but no real job to speak of.

the 1700s after having run out of people over there to annoy.

Apparently, that’s part of the Stewart genetic code — the annoyance gene, as it were — that drives them to do things that, well ... they didn’t cut off Mary Stuart’s head for nothing.

It may have been because she changed the spelling of her surname from Stewart to Stuart just to put on airs, or possibly it was her incessant whining about being locked up in various castles for 18 years because of some family squabble.

Copyright

By Stewart Dobson

In fact, it was in my high school yearbook under “Career Goals” that I wrote, “King of England,” figuring that I should state my claim publicly as early as possible to avoid the competition.

Charles, of course, at a year younger than I, would have been 16 at the time, thus making it a crapshoot regarding which one of us would actually make it to adulthood and beyond.

The way I figured it, if something were to happen to Charles — heaven forbid — the royal family might look at his brother, Prince Andrew, and say, “Nahhhhhhh, let’s see who else is available and my name might come up.

As most people have already figured out, none of the above is true, but it sounds good on paper, since my grandmother really was a Stewart, whose forebears emigrated to the United States from Scotland and Ireland in

The story handed down from one generation to the next was that Queen Elizabeth I ordered her head chopped off because Mary just wouldn’t shut up.

Unfortunately, I can’t connect the dots between me and any of the formerly royal, if headless, Stewarts or Stuarts, because their prominence faded and they kind of went downhill once they arrived here.

I say that after making one and only one attempt to trace my ancestry years ago. My brief sojourn into the past ended when the first thing I found was that a great-great-great something or the other was strung up in Delaware in the 1800s for being substantially less than a pleasant individual.

Considering that one possible descendent had her head cut off and another was hanged, it’s probably in my best interest to maintain a low profile and let King Charles do his thing, whatever that is, and leave the gull-wing Aston-Martin business to someone who can make the payments.