1 {scene: An island off the coast of Antigua}
1 [sound]: Bang! {Wendy appears with a pistol and the natives scatter}
2 Wendy: Quick, they won't stay scared long. Out of the pot!
3 Ponsonby: No, as an officer of His Majesty's Navy, I refuse to take assistance from the likes of you!
4 Mate: A disreputable, filthy, thieving, backstabbing pirate, sir?
4 Ponsonby: A woman!

I added a rather cool puff of smoke effect coming out of the barrel of Wendy's pistol. Just in case you don't notice it at this size.

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2018-10-05 Rerun commentary: As the Pirates theme is canonically set in 1652, His Majesty the King would be...

Oh.

Well.

This is embarrassing.

Students of English history are now no doubt already laughing.

Okay, time to 'fess up...

King Charles I was executed by Oliver Cromwell's Parliamentarians, ushering in the Interregnum period, during which England formally had no monarch, but was instead ruled as the Commonwealth of England, a republic. This period lasted from Charles's execution on 30 January 1649 until the Restoration of the throne, when his son Charles II was named king on 29 May 1660.

One may most obviously conclude from this that the news of Charles's demise has not yet reached Captain Ponsonby's outpost in the Caribbean. News did travel rather slowly in those days, after all.

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Forum writer Paul says:

Captain Ponsonby is simply a true Royalist, who rejects the legitimacy of a Parliament ruling without a King.

It is true that in 1649, at the climax of the English civil war, King Charles I lost his kingdom and his head. But the Royalist cause was not dead. The succession happens instantly on the death of a British monarch.

Prince Charles became at that moment, in the eyes of all true Royalists, by right King Charles II of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Indeed, the Scottish Parliament accepted him as their King, and as King of Scotland, he raised yet another Royalist Army, marched it South to defeat by Oliver Cromwell at Worcester, in 1651 and fled to the Spanish Netherlands (via a Royal Oak Tree). By 1652, he had already established his court in exile, and was waiting for Cromwell's death to return in triumph.

Vindicated! But wait, Veli-Matti writes by email:

Never mind Cromwell, there is an even bigger issue... The English didn't capture Port Royal and Jamaica until 1655! Yet Wendy's father is the governor there... :)

Of course, it could be that they are all in the service of the Spanish (unlikely as it is), and hence His Majesty would be... Philip IV the Great. :)