What do the second-largest county in Virginia and a British royal heartthrob have in common?
A name and a long-ago relative.
The county is named for Prince William Augustus, an ancestor of Prince William, 22.
(Prince William County Historical Commission)
|
|
Prince William County officials are hoping that's enough to lure the fair-haired Prince William Arthur Philip Louis -- son of Princess Diana and Prince Charles and grandson of Queen Elizabeth II -- to its 275th birthday celebration in 2006.
The county was named for an earlier William, Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, who is Prince William's seventh great uncle and was the unmarried, childless son of King George II, said Michael P. Gleason, who studies Virginia's royal history.
Yesterday, Sean T. Connaughton (R), chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, sent a letter extending the invitation. Following protocol, the letter went to Sir David Manning, British ambassador to the United States, who will forward the invitation to the prince's schedulers.
A royal appearance would be, by far, the highlight of the yearlong celebration, which is still being planned. The festivities may include a parade, and $10 commemorative license plates will be offered.
"He could bring a little class and excitement to Prince William," said Liz Bahrns, a county spokeswoman who is helping to plan the event. "It's really hard to get high-profile individuals."
Today's Prince William, 22, is an improvement over his ancestor. Prince William Augustus, who was 9 years old when the county was established, later earned the nickname "the Butcher" for his ferocious quelling of a Jacobite uprising in 1745.
Bahrns said that if he comes, Prince William will see a side of the county quite different from the big-box, discount-mall destination it has become. And officials probably won't mention the county's famous former resident Lorena Bobbitt, who severed her husband's penis in 1993 and was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
"I think that he would like to see that we're a progressive community with humble beginnings that has grown in the last decade to compete with other communities in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area," Bahrns said.
Recently, as proof that the county has come of age, officials have emphasized plans for Prince William's first luxury hotel and conference center, as well as a proposed $56 million performing arts center modeled after Milan's La Scala opera house.
Prince William County has shown some chutzpah by inviting a royal family member, said Gleason, founder and co-publisher of Virginia magazine. He has been helping to plan commemorations in the commonwealth for nearly four decades, including Queen Elizabeth's visit to Charlottesville during the 1976 bicentennial.
"We spent 14 months planning for a visit that lasted five hours," he said, adding that if Prince William visited the county in 2006, he probably would spend only a few hours there.
Fifty-six out of 61 counties established before the American Revolution were named for British royalty or government figures, but Gleason could not recall any other county named for an 18th-century royal extending such an invitation.
Now that the young prince has been invited, will he come?
"It's hard to say," said Steve Atkins, a spokesman for the British Embassy. "That's a matter for Buckingham Palace and Prince William. The royal family are extremely busy and undertake a certain amount of foreign travel."
History doesn't offer encouraging precedent.
Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, never visited the county named in his honor. He never even visited Virginia, where Cumberland County and the Cumberland Gap are also named for him.
