It’s time once again to check in on what searches people have done to find themselves at Shakespeare Teacher, and to respond in the name of fun and public service. All of the following searches brought people to this site in the past week.

Just as Shakespeare’s history plays are often an examination of the inner lives of kings, The West Wing is an examination of what it’s like to be the President. Both deal with the psychological consequences of holding so much power. Was Bartlet’s sleeping disorder modeled after Henry IV’s?

Sorkin was certainly aware of the resonance, and a major story arc in Season 3 centered around President Bartlet attending a condensed version of Shakespeare’s history plays. In one scene, the President takes a moment to distract himself from some bad news about his re-election campaign to tell his aide about how excited he was about seeing the play. Then, he asks what’s really on his mind:

“If Shakespeare wrote a play about me, how many parts do you think it would be?”

I never did post the answers to this Shakespeare crossword. I’ll give it another week in case anybody still wants to try it, and then I’ll post the answers.

Catherine of Aragon
Anne Boleyn
Jane Seymour
Anne of Cleves
Catherine Howard
Catherine Parr

This search came in from the UK.

Since 1066, when William the Conqueror won the Battle of Hastings, the English crown has been held by one family (with a brief interregnum in the 1650’s). All subsequent monarchs have been direct descendants of William. So Queen Elizabeth II, for example, inherited the crown from her father King George VI, who (after his brother’s abdication) came to power through his father, King George V. His father was King Edward VII, whose mother was Queen Victoria. You could continue her line all the way back to William the Conqueror.

Henry VIII is also descended from William the Conqueror, but has no verified descendants. However, the Queen is descended from some of Henry’s suspected illegitimate children. So if they are, then she is.

I keep getting this search term. I give up. Why?

No, she isn’t. It was just a movie.

I leave the task of responding to the remaining search terms to my readers:

This entry was posted on Friday, May 29th, 2009 at 11:46 am and is filed under Genealogy, Googleplex, Histories, History, Shakespeare, Television, The Plantagenets, The Tudors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.