Talk:List of English royal consorts

Philip of Spain
What happened to the Philip of Spain entry? There seems something about him but in wrong format. I think that Philip II of Spain was a consort because his children by other wives could not succeed to the English throne - indeed, he had such children and they didn't. William III's hypothetical children by other wives could have succeeded but only after Anne and her line. Smlark (talk) 12:21, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

In fact, Lord Darnley was known as King of Scotland but was obviously also a consort as he was not numbered nor would his hypothetical children by other mothers preceded Mary Stewart's other family except where he would have done. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smlark (talk • contribs) 20:59, 13 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Incidentally, to this old question (queried a long while ago, but still relevant as Philip was restored to this list), the reason Philip of Spain does not belong on this list of English consorts is that he was not a consort, he was a co-monarch. Philip ruled jointly with Mary I as King of England. Parliament was called under Mary and his name, coins were minted with depictions of them both, and so forth. This is explained in the opening paragraph. Lord Darnley was a King-consort, not King by jure uxoris, that is ruling by right of his wife. 94.13.231.111 (talk) 19:38, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Agree with User:Smlark. Had he been co-monarch in any true sense, he would have continued to rule England after Mary's death. Deb (talk) 17:04, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
 * To continue the comparison, Edward II of England was contracted* by proxy to Margaret of Norway and was thus theoretically king consort of Scotland for four years until she died, even though they never met. This did not make him King regnant thereafter, nor his children by his subsequent marriage.
 * Thankfully, Anne, Victoria and Elizabeth II have not crowned their husbands and I hope no Queen Regnant in the future does.
 * Source: conversation with Kathryn Warner. Smlark (talk) 15:03, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Discuss differances
Could you guys (Tharky and Mikey) bring your disputes to the discussion page? GoodDay (talk) 00:42, 28 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually I'm happy with the current edit that Michael Sanders made. TharkunColl (talk) 00:44, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Guilford Dudley
Should Dudley really be in italics as the Royal Family site lists Jane as a Queen in their official list: ? William Quill (talk) 00:53, 11 February 2008 (UTC)


 * He should be listed as Lord Guildford Dudley as his father was already a higher peer long before his marriage, which is not true of other consorts. Smlark (talk) 17:03, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

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Philip - monarch or consort?
The discussion has been started here. Surtsicna (talk) 15:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

By the stated conventions of this page, he was a consort as he was one of the "spouses of the reigning monarchs of the Kingdom of England." The fact that he was granted the title of 'king' is immaterial. He was still a consort ("King Consort", if you will) as his status was entirely in right of his wife. RandomCritic (talk) 13:51, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
 * William III and Mary II were both "spouses of the reigning monarchs of the Kingdom of England" but are not mentioned here. Anyway, Philip was not only granted the title of king, but also the right to "aid the same most noble Queen his wife in the prosperous administration of her realms and dominions"; in other words, he was a co-monarch. The issue has been discussed and it's been concluded that he was much more than a consort. If you wish to dispute that, please read Talk:List of English monarchs/Archive 4 and argue against the consensus. Surtsicna (talk) 14:03, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
 * What consensus? Philip has never been considered a reigning monarch of England by historians.  That fact that his title was entirely in the right of his wife is sufficiently shown by the fact that (unlike William III) he lost any powers he may have possessed in England the moment Queen Mary died. RandomCritic (talk) 19:26, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * He has been considered a reigning monarch of England. Had you seen Talk:List of English monarchs/Archive 4 as I suggested, you would've found the consensus. His title was in the right of his wife but, unlike wives of kings, Philip was made co-monarch by an act of Parliament. He and Mary reigned together until her death. Such arrangements were not uncommon when a woman reigned. Surtsicna (talk) 19:33, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

We're back again to this debate. The pages are currently consistent. This page (by not listing him) implies that he was king of England. His own page explicitly calls him King of England. The English monarchs list lists him as a king of England. Mary's page calls him king of England. It is inappropriate to change just this page to say he wasn't, as the decision affects all these pages. If anyone thinks it should be different, gather a consensus for the change among all interested parties/pages, rather than flying in the face of what looks like an already established consensus. Agricolae (talk) 21:55, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

What about William and Mary?
While William III and Mary II were both rulers (king and queen regnant respectively), weren't they also, at the same time, each other's consorts and thus, should be included on this list? /Ludde23 Talk Contrib 18:16, 3 June 2012 (UTC)


 * They were both monarchs in their own right thus and co-monarchs neither should be included. 86.30.20.115 (talk) 12:02, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Held the title of Queen consort?
The OED gives the earliest usage of 'consort' as 1634, with the next usage in 1640-4:


 * a. A partner in wedded or parental relations; a husband or wife, a spouse. Used in collocation with some titles, as queen-consort, the wife of a king; so king-consort, prince-consort (the latter the title of Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria).
 * 1634  W. Wood New Englands Prospect Ded. Note sig. A2v,   Your selfe, and your vertuous Consort.
 * 1640–4  King Charles I in J. Rushworth Hist. Coll.: Third Pt. (1692) I. 521   His dearest Consort the Queen, and his dear daughter the Princess Mary.

The statement in this Wikipedia article that 'Most of the consorts are women, and held the title of Queen consort' appears to the inaccurate. The term didn't exist until long after the death of almost every queen listed in the article, so it isn't possible that they held that title during their lifetimes. NinaGreen (talk) 09:26, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * That is nonsense. Non-existence of a term for a thing means non-existence of the thing. It would be anachronistic if the articles claimed that they were styled as "HM The Queen Consort". Thus, it is not correct to say that they held the title of "Queen consort", but simply describing them as queens consort is not. One might argue that spelling Anne Boleyn's title as "queen" is anachronistic because it was spelled "quene" during her lifetimes and because she herself spelled it that way in her signature, but that would not make sense either. Surtsicna (talk) 10:19, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Obviously it wasn't nonsense, as you changed it to 'enjoyed titles and honours pertaining to a queen consort'. However you need to add a citation for that, as at the moment it's original research. NinaGreen (talk) 18:30, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Now that's even more nonsense. Surtsicna (talk) 18:36, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I've added a citation needed note. If you can't provide a citation, perhaps another editor can, although I suspect there is no reliable source which would support the statement that all these queens over a span of many centuries 'enjoyed titles and honours pertaining to a queen consort', a term which wasn't even in use until the mid-1630s. The statement appears to be original research, contrary to Wikipedia WP:NOR. NinaGreen (talk) 20:45, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * A queen consort is the wife of a reigning king. What you are doing is now bordering vandalism and I reverted it. I am also beginning to suspect that you are only trolling me. It is not possible that someone seriously insists that the wives of early kings were not queens consort because the term did not appear until the mid-1630s, that it would be "disrespectful in the extreme" to refer to Elizabeth I and Mary I as Elizabeth and Mary respectively, etc. Should this inexplicable behaviour continue, I will have to report it. I am surely not going to waste my time explaining to you over and over again that referring to Elizabeth I as Elizabeth is normal, etc. Surtsicna (talk) 00:34, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Surtsicna, I'm not certain why you continue to escalate this. Putting a citations needed tag on an article which has no citations is the furthest thing possible from vandalism. It's encouraged by Wikipedia, and such tags appear on innumerable articles which lack citations. What possible reason could you have for reverting the tag rather than letting other editors supply citations for the article if they can be found? Moreover this topic has nothing whatever to do with 'referring to Elizabeth and Mary', and I cannot imagine why you brought that up here. Wouldn't the easiest thing be for you to work on articles I'm not working on? I've lost count of the number of articles I've been working on lately and which you were not working on at all, and on which you've suddenly and without discussion reverted work I've put considerable time into, sometimes introducing outright errors, such as the recent instance in which you inserted the name 'Catherine Parr' when both the context (the pronoun 'his') and the source indicated that it was 'William Parr' who was meant . You also discourage other editors from working on articles I'm working on, telling them their work 'looks ridiculous', and 'serves no purpose' . Perhaps we can work together in the future, but in the meantime, I think it would be helpful if you would refrain from constantly reverting my work without explanation. I have not edited a single article you've been working on. It's unnecessary for you to devote so much negative attention to the articles I'm working on, particularly articles which have gone through DYK reviews, and which you've then seen fit to make significant changes to after DYK editors have approved them for DYK.NinaGreen (talk) 01:12, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * There is no perfect article, NinaGreen, and those selected by DYK reviewers are far from perfect. There are also no infallible editors. I did make that mistake, but there was no way I could know that you did not mean Catherine Parr; the original version mentioned her right before that sentence and mentioned the other Parr as Marquess of Northampton. It was only natural to assume that the Marquess of Northampton would be referred to as Northampton, since that is correct. Therefore, I did not introduce an error; I simply replaced one error with another. I obviously do not revert your work; I just try correct what is incorrect. I've never said that anyone's work looks ridiculous. The ahnentafel is what looked ridiculous. How could an ahnentafel with only names of parents and grandparents (and in the article about a person not notable for his ancestry) not look ridiculous? As for citation tags in this article, you are very well aware why they make no sense. I have already explained that. Surtsicna (talk) 09:42, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Defaultsort
Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_royal_consorts - I see that Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Jane Seymour are sorted under their Christian names, while Anne Neville, Catherine Parr and Elizabeth Woodville are sorted under their surnames. I suggest that, for consistency, there should be one rule for all of these ladies. My own feeling is that they should all be sorted under Christian names, as that is how the other consorts are sorted. Except for Prince George of Denmark, who is currently under 'P' - I suggest that he should be sorted under 'G'. Alekksandr (talk) 22:06, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Now done. Alekksandr (talk) 21:28, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Sigrid the Haughty
I am wondering on what basis it is concluded that Sigrid the Haughty, if she even existed, was the wife of Sweyn during the just over 2 months that he was king of England. Agricolae (talk) 23:43, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Philip of Spain (again)
Template:English_consort includes him. *If* the consensus is that he was a king regnant rather than a king consort, should he be removed from that template? Alekksandr (talk) 16:46, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
 * You'll be hard pressed to find a reliable source that refers to him as a king regnant. Deb (talk) 17:01, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
 * His exact status was deliberately kept ambiguous, and it's not Wikipedia's job to try to settle it one way or the other. He credibly belongs on both lists. Richard75 (talk) 17:03, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I would agree with that. Deb (talk) 07:37, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

The Royal/Noble Houses of the Consorts
Should the houses the consorts came from be included, as to match the other lists of consorts. 2600:8801:141B:9900:A016:3B5F:F49E:ED4F (talk) 01:55, 19 July 2022 (UTC)