How to remember the kings and queens of Britain and their accession dates
Remembering all the kings and queens and dates of their accession to the throne can be achieved through the following procedure:
i/ Take the first letter of the monarch’s name
ii/ Convert any number that accompanies the name (e.g., Henry VIII = 8) to a letter
NOTE: See the Remembering Numbers part of our Mammoth Memory Techniques section for a complete guide to this system
iii/ Make a word out of those two letters by adding vowels. Note that vowels have no effect on a word – again, see Remembering Numbers.
Example
William I
i/ Take the first letter of the name = W
ii/ Convert the number that accompanies the name to a letter: 1 = t or d
iii/ Make a word out of w and t using one or more vowels:
wat x
wet ✓
wit x
wot x
wut x
So William I
becomes
King Wet
The year he became king was 1066.
Forget the first 1,000 years because that is obvious.
So convert 66 to letters using the Major Number System (see the Remembering Numbers section of Mammoth Memory Techniques).
66 = ch ch = choo choo (train).
Now we associate “wet” with “choo choo” (train).
In the next picture we combine the two:
The King was wet from the choo choo train ride across the English Channel.
NOTE: William I came from Normandy, Northern France, hence the Normans.
Examples follow for all the Kings and Queens from 1066 right up to our present monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. (There were many monarchs before William I, but we haven’t included them for this exercise.)
