Historic king free to go round church with a queen (7)

I believe the answer is:

richard

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'historic king' is the definition.
'richard' can be an answer for 'king' (Richard I or Richard II). I'm unsure of the 'historic' bit.

'free to go round church with a queen' is the wordplay.
'free to go' becomes 'rid' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'round' is an insertion indicator.
'church' becomes 'ch' (common abbreviation).
'with' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'queen' becomes 'r' (abbreviation for regina, e.g. in ER ).
'ch'+'a'+'r'='char'
'rid' enclosing 'char' is 'RICHARD'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for richard that I've seen before include "'Beau' Nash's first name" , "Branson or Cliff" , "man" , "-- Strauss, composer" , "Cliff --; -- Wagner" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.

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