History is Awesome!

https://twitter.com/quicunquevult/status/980518324739231744

(Mods, can we have a "country: spain" tag?)

 The discovery of the skeleton of King Richard III under a parking lot almost threatened to wipe the Super Bowl results off the front page (I exaggerate).  The BBC article mentions that Greyfriars church in Leicester, where he was buried, was "demolished" during the 1500s (the English Reformation), and I can't help wondering about that, as the Tudors seemed to be a little vindictive.  

As it happened, last night I was reading about another Richard in high office.  The New Yorker's Thomas Mallon reviews two books about Richard Nixon, and does a little speculative history.  He focuses on the "Checkers" speech (I was a toddler at the time, unfortunately) as a sort of pivot in Nixon's political career.  I will have to read at least one of the books reviewed.

Must be something about guys named "Richard."

So there I was, cleaning up and updating my bookmarks, when I noticed the following style of reference in the introduction to the Paris Peace Treaty of September 30, 1783 (between Great Britain and the United States):

the most serene and most potent Prince George the Third, by the grace of God, king of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, duke of Brunswick and Lunebourg, arch-treasurer and prince elector of the Holy Roman Empire etc.

Which is rich, if you think of it, since not only was that treaty negociated and signed in France, but it could only be signed after a prior treaty, between Great Britain and France, as explicitely stated in the Preliminary Articles of Peace; November 30, 1782:

To be inserted in, and to constitute the Treaty of Peace proposed to be concluded, between the Crown of Great Britain, and the said United States; but which Treaty is not to be concluded, untill Terms of a Peace shall be agreed upon, between Great Britain and France;

So I dug further, and found that the prior treaty had been signed between George III (who was King of France there as well) and LOUIS, par la grace de Dieu, Roi de France et de Navarre or (in the English version) LEWIS, by the Grace of God, King of France and Navarre. Ain't diplomacy grand?