Talk:William III

Title?

Should the word Britain be in this title? Perhaps there is a more appropriate and accurate disambiguation word we could use. Britain narrows things down to that island, though William was king of Ireland also. Then of course, he was Dutch too. Maybe that would help. Or something along the lines of William III (of Orange)? --Mal McKee 11:26, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

Britain is both a geography term and a history term, and here it's history. That is "Britain" is the usual historians' term for the country he ruled. --although the "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" terminology came 5 years after his death. Richard Jensen 11:59, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

Right, but William III wasn't known as "William III of Britain" necessarily, was he? He was the third other than Scotland, so far as I know. I suppose, technically speaking, he should be regarded as William I of Ireland. Scotland though, as I'm sure you know, is part of Britain - both historically and geographically.

I still think the mention of Britain in the title is potentially misleading and inaccurate, especially given the wealth of confusion surrounding the term - even by inhabitants, and perhaps a better title could be found. --Mal McKee 13:22, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

Well, we need something to disambiguate him from the other William III's. Is there something you can suggest which would be better?

If we could separate the 'page name' and the 'article title' (as suggested here) it would be nice (so the title would only be "William III"), but there's still some resistance to doing that. J. Noel Chiappa 13:52, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

I added a footnote to the first sentence to clear it up a little--he was III for Netherlands, II for England, and I for Scotland and Wales. (and Ireland???) Richard Jensen 14:07, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

[Edit conflict] response to J. Noel Chiappa:

Yeah - I thought possibly "William III (of Orange)" or "William III (Nassau)" (did I spell that correctly!?). Maybe Richard Jensen or someone else can come up with a more appropriate alternative. Of course, he was a British king, so that gives us another possibility: "William III (British)" or "William III (British monarch)" or something along those lines.

One thing that should probably be decided early on (if a change to the title is made) is that the titles should have some measure of consistency throughout. We shouldn't have a situation whereby there are articles titled "William III (British)", "Elizabeth II (English)" and "George VI of England", for example. Having said that, perhaps official titles should be considered, though this is made complex by the fact that many British monarchs have held multiple titles concurrently (King/Queen of.. Scotland, Ireland, England, United Kingdom etc etc). The more generic "British" might serve us well to that end though.

Thanks for pointing out the forum discussion to me - I've not joined it yet, but I should hopefully be doing that tomorrow. I'll have a look at the pros and cons of the system you describe and maybe add my own thoughts to the discussion there. --Mal McKee 14:10, 13 May 2008 (CDT)