10 Historical Facts You Should Know (But Probably Don’t)

8. The First English King To Speak English Was Henry IV

I’ll get this out the way from the start before I start getting emails from any pedants, by this I, of course, mean AFTER 1066 and the victory of William the Conqueror. Of course, the Anglo-Saxon kings spoke English as it was their language, English-Angles, you know the score. That said, it still took from 1066 to 1399 for English to be the first language of a monarch!

I know what you’re thinking: “you're talking about first language, that’s cheating a bit”. You’d be right. You’d also be wrong. English kings (and Empress Matilda) didn’t really have a fondness for English and it wasn’t considered as important as French for centuries in the royal courts.

Richard the Lionheart, that English icon, that symbol of English pride, couldn’t really speak English and spent very little time on the Island of Britain. He spent about 6-9 months of his ten-year reign in England and preferred to be crusading or in Aquitaine. The Englishman in me gets iffy about this but have you been to the south of France? I find it hard to blame him in all honesty.

You may be asking: “why him, why now?” and you’d be right to ask that as it allows me to make my writing flow. The short answer is that Henry IV wasn’t brought up to be king and therefore spoke English as a preference. That’s right, it took someone not expecting to go far for them to speak English. He gained the throne through conquest and therefore wasn’t conditioned for the role.