What do you make of someone who renounces his birthright — especially when that means renouncing the right to be King? The story has played out before, triggering the expected media firestorm. There is the example of King Edward VIII, who gave up his throne to become the Duke of Windsor. Today’s tabloids and talk shows are consumed with debate about that man’s great-great nephew, Prince Harry, and his decision to walk away from royal duties. Whether you applaud or condemn the decision, there can be no doubt that giving up the right to be King has consequences.

No one knew that better than Les. You’ve never heard of a King by that name? That’s because Les renounced his birthright.

When Prince Harry walked away from being an active member of the royal family, there was no reasonable expectation that he would ever inherit the throne. Les, on the other hand, was the firstborn son. There was no doubt that he would be King. His decision to renounce that birthright carried immediate and irrevocable consequences for him.

You might think that being King would be glamorous, but Les saw beyond the public facade. There was nothing about that life that appealed to him. He wanted nothing to do with carrying on that kind of tradition. What he wanted more than anything else was to be a common man.

They say that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. We so often look at the rich, famous, and powerful and try to imagine living their lives. Then we hear those very same people talk about how unhappy and unfulfilled they are and how much they yearn for a simpler existence.

Perhaps you can’t imagine giving up the right to be King. Perhaps you can’t fathom why anyone would trade that right for the ability to be a commoner. Perhaps that would be different if you knew what Les knew. He was a true insider and knew better than anyone the dark secrets of the family.

Regardless of what the rest of the world thought of Les’s family, he knew just how dysfunctional it was. His parents’ marriage was a sham from the start. Les’s father started physically and emotionally abusing his new wife, Dorothy, during their honeymoon. His short temper was made worse by alcohol — a thing he turned to with increasing regularity.

It wasn’t just Dorothy who was the target of the alcoholic tirades. Les was just a few days old when his father came after him with a butcher knife. Dorthy snatched Les up to protect him and was likewise threatened. The inebriated King said he’d kill both of them. Dorothy was forced to flee with her newborn son. In so doing, she saved both of their lives, but it would have other consequences for her, as well. She had to give up her dreams of being married to a King.

Divorce — even under circumstances such as these — was scandalous. It was something virtually unheard of in the family. It was expected that the unhappy couple would put on a positive face for the public and deal with their problems in a quiet, dignified way. Dorothy couldn’t do that. Knowing full well the consequences of the life she was leaving behind, she divorced the King and took her young son with her.

Les’s formative years bore no resemblance to privilege or royalty. It was tough for him and his mother. They got some financial support from the family in exchange for Dorothy’s pledge to keep quiet about the King’s drunken fits of violence. Even so, life was a daily struggle for them. It remained that way until Les was four years old. Dorothy met a man who seemed to be the polar opposite of her ex-husband. He was kind, caring, supportive, and gentle. He was also a commoner. It was bad enough that she brought scandal to the family name by filing for divorce. Now, it seemed that she was rubbing it in her former in-laws’ faces by marrying the most common of men.

Despite everything that had gone wrong in what was supposed to be a fairy tale life, it was only when Dorothy met this commoner that she and her son became truly happy. Her new husband was a hard-working businessman who embraced Les as if he were his own flesh and blood. As Les grew and made the decisions that would shape him as a man, it was his stepfather who inspired him more than anyone else.

When Les turned 22, he made the fateful decision to formally sever all claims to his birthright. He was still the firstborn son to a King, but he wanted nothing more than to model himself after the commoner who, as far as he was concerned, was his true father. He decided to make it official and signed the documents in which he abdicated all rights he might otherwise enjoy as the son of a King. Just so there would be no doubt whatsoever about the life he was choosing, he also changed his name that day.

The young man wanted nothing to do with the life he and his mother fled so many years ago. The man who raised him and who modeled what it meant to be a loving husband, father, and model citizen was a commoner, but that’s exactly the kind of man he wanted to be. For that reason, he adopted the name of the man who had adopted him.

That’s why you’ve never heard of a King named Les. Instead, you have heard about a man from the Midwest of the United States who worked hard, fell in love, remained faithful to his wife, and raised his children. Along the way, he achieved power and influence beyond anything his birth father could have hoped for. At the same time, he never seemed to let that power change him, and he never stopped being the most common of common men. You’ve never heard of a King named Les, because the boy who was born with the name Leslie Lynch King, Jr. renounced his birthright and modeled and named himself after the commoner who showed him what it means to be a real man: Gerald R. Ford.

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