Why regnal numbers do not count every earlier king

The panel uses the long sequence of French kings named Louis to show that a royal number depends on whom a later political order chooses to count. Louis Philippe styled himself Louis Philippe I rather than Louis XIX because the compound name marked a different identity in the sequence. England raises a similar problem: Edward the Confessor predates the familiar post-Conquest numbering that begins with Edward I, so he remains unnumbered despite earlier English kings also bearing the name. The exchange presents regnal numbers as retrospective conventions shaped by political chronology rather than a simple count of everyone who previously shared a ruler's name.