English Heritage has just run a competition to find England’s most useless Monarch. The result was never going to be a surprise because the “winner” could only come from a handful of stinkers and duffers.

In the end they alighted on that bulbous, wasteful drunk George IV, who was so corpulent he was known as the Prince of Whales before he became King.

George was totally self-obsessed, unlike his sweet-natured father George III, who had the misfortune to suffer from the genetic disease porphyria, which made him increasingly insane.

The younger George was also nasty and brutish to his rather ugly and unhygienic wife Caroline, and scandalized the nation by gross over-spending in very hard times. The baroque dazzle of the Brighton Pavilion in no way compensates for his extravagance, indeed it neatly sums it up. The Monarchy has rarely been as unpopular than it was under King George IV.

However, my own choice is the same as historian Andrew Roberts’s — King Stephen. Here’s his assessment of this odious man:

“King Stephen usurped his uncle Henry I’s throne in 1135, outmanouevring both his own elder brother Theobald and the rightful heir, Henry’s daughter the Empress Matilda. He seized the Treasury, crowned himself, gave Cumbria to the Scots to buy them off, paid Danegeld to appease the Danes and then plunged Britain into a series of four civil wars between 1138 and 1154. These left the country ravaged, impoverished and weaker than at any other time before or since.”

Anyone who has watched the British TV series, Cadfael, or read the books by Ellis Peters which are set in these civil wars, will have some idea of the privations of the period.

Andrew Roberts is right too when he says Britain is passing through a golden age during the reign of Elizabeth II. Let us hope she will soon be served by better politicians than now and for the rest of her time among us.

As Royal news is a bit sparse this weekend, I thought I’d be a bit self-indulgent and show you a few photos of Royal Anecdotes’ new environment at Exeter’s Quay. The weather is gloriously spring-like at present, so I spent the morning wandering along the river and canal snapping the views.

Our old Customs House with two cannons guarding it

The Customs House was built in 1661 and is the oldest brick building in Exeter. It was used by Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise as recently as 1989. Its magnificent interior reflects the wealth of the West Country’s wool trade at the time it was built.

View across the canal to the bridge and the 11th-century Cathedral

There’s an almost holiday resort atmosphere here at the Quay right now with people sitting out for lunch at the many pubs and restaurants. It can’t surely be mid-February? — but it is.

Regency view across the river

Now here’s a perfect cluster of Regency buildings, straight out of Jane Austen. Apart from the car and the couple in fluorescent yellow togs, it could be 200 years ago.

A pair of medieval houses, now used for commercial purposes

As much of old Exeter was destroyed by bombing in World War 2, it remains a miracle that so much from the medieval and Elizabethan periods remains standing.

More genuine Royal anecdotes on Monday.

Click on the Flickr logo in the sidebar for more Exeter photos. Click on the thumbnails for more detailed shots.

I’m getting a few emails about normal comments going into the moderation panel, so here’s a quick guide to what’s happening.

We have very strong spam comment guards as we get around 500 of them per site per day. Many of them are totally horrific, and the rest are attempts at grabbing free advertising space.

We also have “first-comment moderation”, which means the first time you comment on the site, it will be moderated. Once you get that cleared, you should get through every time unless you put in two links or more. Some words also trigger the trap.

The Royal Anecdotes site has always been a law unto itself in moderation, blocking quite ordinary comments. Gigi had one in there this morning which I’ve now released from captivity. Long comments are more likely to be blocked than shorter ones.

We normally look at the moderation panel around 5 to 6 times a day, so they will pop out at some time. If you’re commenting in the U.S. in the evening, or in Australia, you will have to wait till the sun comes up over Devon, England for its release.

Just think of Paris Hilton and wait patiently.

We’ve just created a Flickr photostream of life in Exeter, England, generally regarded as one of the most loyal cities in the UK to the Monarchy.

It’s where I live, of course, and I’m going to build up a store of such shots over the summer.

You can see them here : Flickr Photostream.