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> Most English monarchs barely spoke the language.

^Most^Several

Famously of course the first two Georges, perhaps William of Orange, definitely of course William the Conquerer and his immediate successors, but I think most is a gross exaggeration.



Read through any royal writings. English was almost never used. French is by far the most commonly used language of English royals.


For certain legal written uses. The claim that the King was also the monarch of France was only dropped from the official titles lat in the French revolution. Then again, the charter of my high school was signed by Charles I and is written in English, like all the other colonial era official documents I've seen (a small number!) were.

But as a spoken language, there is plenty of evidence the other way. All the Tudors and Stuarts were English speakers, for example.

I have heard that French was the vernacular of the late Romanovs, about which I am…dubious.




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