| God Save the King |
12 January 2004
|
Aussie Forklift Driver is True King of England -- Historian Claims
The bad news is that Queen Elizabeth II is not the rightful Queen of England. The good news is that the man who should be king doesn't want the job. He's got one as a forklift operator in the Australian town of Jerilderie, 640km southwest of Sydney. The best news is he's a republican.
The news came as a bit of a shock to Michael Abney-Hastings, aged 62, who is the 14th Earl of Louden (a rather impoverished one) and who emigrated to Australia as a teenager. After a hard day at the wheel of his forklift, he was visited by a film crew from Britain's Channel 4 TV network and Dr. Michael K. Jones, an independent scholar and medievalist.
According to Dr. Jones, Edward IV of the Yorkist Line of the Plantagenet family was illegitimate -- his parents were about 100 miles apart when he was conceived during a five-week window in 1440. Dr. Jones suggests that a French archer named Blaybourne sired the future king of England. If so, George Duke of Clarence, the first legitimate son Richard Duke of York. His senior line of descent makes Michael Abney-Hastings the rightful monarch -- King Michael I of England (what this does for the crown of Scotland is not clear at this juncture).
However, the offspring of Edward IV's line, the Windsors of Buckingham palace, can keep their jobs as currency and stamp models. The true king doesn't want the job, having told the BBC and the Australian media:
As much as I love England, I honestly feel in this day and age Australia should be standing on its own feet in everything, and that means we have to be a republic. In the last referendum we had on it, I actually voted to become a republic.
Hereditary monarchy is a rather silly idea. But if the institution is going to be tolerated, giving the job to someone who doesn't want it, who won't do it, and who would vote to abolish it seems safe enough. God Save King Michael.
Home