Age at Marriage of Kings and Consorts

A comparison of ages at marriage among monarchs and their consorts across history

Figure 1: The Dumbell chart compares monarchs’ ages and consorts’ ages at the time of marriage. The x-axis shows ages from 0 to 80 years, with green dots representing consorts’ ages and brown dots representing kings’ ages. Dotted lines connect each pair, indicating the age difference. The chart is organized by consorts’ ages, from the youngest at the bottom to the oldest at the top.

Steps to Create this Graphic

1. Load Packages & Setup

pacman::p_load(
  tidyverse,     # Easily Install and Load the 'Tidyverse'
  ggtext,        # Improved Text Rendering Support for 'ggplot2'
  showtext,      # Using Fonts More Easily in R Graphs
  janitor,       # Simple Tools for Examining and Cleaning Dirty Data
  skimr,         # Compact and Flexible Summaries of Data
  scales,        # Scale Functions for Visualization
  lubridate,     # Make Dealing with Dates a Little Easier
  MetBrewer,     # Color Palettes Inspired by Works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
  ggalt          # Extra Coordinate Systems, 'Geoms', Statistical Transformations, Scales and Fonts for 'ggplot2'
 )   

camcorder::gg_record(
  dir    = here::here("temp_plots"),
  device = "png",
  width  =  8,
  height =  12,
  units  = "in",
  dpi    = 320
)

### |- resolution ----
showtext_opts(dpi = 320, regular.wt = 300, bold.wt = 800)

2. Read in the Data

tt <-tidytuesdayR::tt_load(2024, week = 34) 

monarchs_marriages <- tt$english_monarchs_marriages_df |> clean_names() |> glimpse()

tidytuesdayR::readme(tt)
rm(tt)

3. Examing the Data

glimpse(monarchs_marriages)
skim(monarchs_marriages)

4. Tidy Data

# Tidy
cleaned_monarchs_marriages <- monarchs_marriages |>
    mutate(
        across(everything(), ~na_if(., "-")),
        across(everything(), ~na_if(., "NA")),
        across(everything(), ~na_if(., "?")),
        across(everything(), ~na_if(., "–")),
        across(where(is.character), str_trim),
        across(c(king_age, consort_age, year_of_marriage), ~str_replace_all(., "\\(\\?\\)", "")),
        across(c(king_age, consort_age, year_of_marriage), as.numeric),
        pair_name = paste(king_name, "-", consort_name)
    )

# Filter out rows with NA values in king_age or consort_age, and calculate the age gap
filtered_monarchs_marriages <- cleaned_monarchs_marriages |>
    filter(!is.na(king_age) & !is.na(consort_age)) |>
    mutate(
        age_gap = abs(king_age - consort_age),
        pair_name = paste(king_name, "-", consort_name),
        pair_name = fct_reorder(pair_name, -consort_age, .desc = TRUE)
    ) 

# Subset for kings labels
kings_data <- filtered_monarchs_marriages |>
    select(pair_name, king_name,king_age, consort_age) |>
    mutate(hjust = case_when(
        king_age < consort_age ~ 1,  
        king_age > consort_age ~ -0.5,  
        TRUE ~ -1                  
    ))

# Subset for consorts labels
consorts_data <- filtered_monarchs_marriages|>
    select(pair_name, consort_name, consort_age, king_age) |>
    mutate(hjust = case_when(
        consort_age < king_age ~ 1,
        consort_age > king_age ~ -0.4,
        TRUE ~ 1
    ))

5. Visualization Parameters

### |- plot aesthetics ----
bkg_col      <- colorspace::lighten('#f7f5e9', 0.05)    
title_col    <- "gray20"           
subtitle_col <- "gray20"     
caption_col  <- "gray30"   
text_col     <- "gray20"    
col_palette  <- col_palette  <- MetBrewer::met.brewer("Degas")[c(6, 2)]  

### |-  titles and caption ----
# icons
tt <- str_glue("#TidyTuesday: { 2024 } Week { 34 } &bull; Source: List of Monarchs by marriage (.ianvisits.co.uk)<br>")
li <- str_glue("<span style='font-family:fa6-brands'>&#xf08c;</span>")
gh <- str_glue("<span style='font-family:fa6-brands'>&#xf09b;</span>")
mn <- str_glue("<span style='font-family:fa6-brands'>&#xf4f6;</span>")

# text
title_text    <- str_glue("Age at Marriage of Kings and Consorts")
subtitle_text <- str_glue("A comparison of ages at marriage among monarchs and their consorts across history.")
caption_text  <- str_glue("{tt} {li} stevenponce &bull; {mn} @sponce1(graphic.social) {gh} poncest &bull; #rstats #ggplot2")

### |-  fonts ----
font_add("fa6-brands", "fonts/6.4.2/Font Awesome 6 Brands-Regular-400.otf")
font_add_google("Oswald", regular.wt = 400, family = "title")
font_add_google("Merriweather Sans", regular.wt = 400, family = "subtitle")
font_add_google("Merriweather Sans", regular.wt = 400, family = "text")
font_add_google("Noto Sans", regular.wt = 400, family = "caption")
showtext_auto(enable = TRUE)

### |-  plot theme ----
theme_set(theme_minimal(base_size = 12, base_family = "text"))                

theme_update(
    plot.title.position   = "plot",
    plot.caption.position = "plot",
    legend.position       = "top",
    
    plot.background       = element_rect(fill = bkg_col, color = bkg_col),
    panel.background      = element_rect(fill = bkg_col, color = bkg_col),
    plot.margin           = margin(t = 20, r = 25, b = 20, l = 25),
    axis.title.x          = element_text(margin = margin(10, 0, 0, 0), size = rel(1.2), color = text_col,
                                         family = "text", face = "bold", hjust = 0.5),
    axis.title.y          = element_blank(),                                                                # Hide y-axis title
    axis.text.y           = element_blank(),                                                                # Hide y-axis labels
    axis.text.x           = element_text(size = rel(0.95), color = text_col, family = "text"),
    axis.line.x           = element_line(color = "gray40", linewidth = 0.12),
    panel.grid.minor.x    = element_blank(),
    panel.grid.major.x    = element_blank(),
    panel.grid.major.y    = element_blank(),  
    panel.grid.minor.y    = element_blank(),
    
    axis.text.x.top       = ggtext::element_markdown(),
)   

6. Plot

### |-  final plot ----  
p <- ggplot() +
    geom_dumbbell(
        data = filtered_monarchs_marriages,
        aes(x = king_age, xend = consort_age, y = pair_name),
        size = 0.25, 
        color = 'gray50', 
        size_x = 3, 
        size_xend = 3, 
        dot_guide = FALSE
    ) +
    
    # Plot kings' data
    geom_point(
        data = kings_data,
        aes(x = king_age, y = pair_name, color = "King's Age"), 
        size = 3
    ) +
    geom_text(
        data = kings_data,
        aes(x = king_age, y = pair_name, label = king_name, hjust = hjust),
        size = 2.8,
        color = col_palette[2],                
        fontface = 'bold',
        nudge_x = -2  
    ) +
    
    # Plot consorts' data
    geom_point(
        data = consorts_data,
        aes(x = consort_age, y = pair_name, color = "Consort's Age"), 
        size = 3
    ) +
    geom_text(
        data = consorts_data,
        aes(x = consort_age, y = pair_name, label = consort_name, hjust = hjust),
        size = 2.8,
        color = col_palette[1],               
        fontface = 'bold',
        nudge_x = -2  
    ) +
    
    # Scales
    scale_x_continuous(
        limits = c(-15,80),
        labels = scales::label_number(suffix = " yrs"),
        position = "top"
    ) +
    scale_y_discrete() +
    scale_color_manual(
        name = "Legend:",
        values = col_palette                
    ) +
    coord_cartesian(clip = 'off') +
    
    # Labs
    labs(
        x = element_blank(),
        y = element_blank(),
        title = title_text,
        subtitle = subtitle_text,
        caption = caption_text
    ) +
    
    # Theme
    theme(
        plot.title = element_markdown(
            size = rel(2),
            family = "title",
            color = title_col,
            face = "bold",
            lineheight = 0.85,
            margin = margin(t = 5, b = 5)
        ),
        plot.subtitle = element_markdown(
            size = rel(1.1),
            family = "subtitle",
            color = title_col,
            lineheight = 1,
            margin = margin(t = 5, b = 15)
        ),
        plot.caption = element_markdown(
            size = rel(.65),
            family = "caption",
            color = caption_col,
            lineheight = 0.6,
            hjust = 0,
            halign = 0,
            margin = margin(t = 10, b = 0)
        )
    ) 

7. Save

### |-  plot image ----  
ggsave(
  filename = here::here("data_visualizations/TidyTuesday/2024/tt_2024_34.png"),
  plot = p,
  width  =  8,
  height =  12,
  units  = "in",
  dpi    = 320
)

### |-  plot thumbnail----  
magick::image_read(here::here("data_visualizations/TidyTuesday/2024/tt_2024_34.png")) |> 
  magick::image_resize(geometry = "400") |> 
  magick::image_write(here::here("data_visualizations/TidyTuesday/2024/thumbnails/tt_2024_34.png"))

8. Session Info

sessionInfo()

R version 4.4.1 (2024-06-14 ucrt)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64
Running under: Windows 10 x64 (build 19045)

Matrix products: default


locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.utf8 
[2] LC_CTYPE=English_United States.utf8   
[3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.utf8
[4] LC_NUMERIC=C                          
[5] LC_TIME=English_United States.utf8    

time zone: America/New_York
tzcode source: internal

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices datasets  utils     methods   base     

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] htmlwidgets_1.6.4 compiler_4.4.0    fastmap_1.2.0     cli_3.6.3        
 [5] htmltools_0.5.8.1 tools_4.4.0       rstudioapi_0.16.0 yaml_2.3.10      
 [9] rmarkdown_2.28    knitr_1.48        jsonlite_1.8.8    xfun_0.47        
[13] digest_0.6.37     rlang_1.1.4       renv_1.0.3        evaluate_0.24.0