Taking a look back at the monarchs who reigned over England from William the Conqueror onwards. A wonderful historial article written and curated by IoIo Griffiths.
Norman Kings
William I (1066-1087): Usually referred to as William the Conqueror. He was Duke of Normandy and became king of England after defeating Harold II at the Battle of Hastings. William claimed that his second cousin, Edward The Confessor, had promised him the throne of England, and that Harold was therefore an usurper. In 1085 he started compiling the Domesday Book, a record of the wealth of his new kingdom.
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR (Image: The Print Collector/Getty)
William II (1087-1100): He was unpopular and given to extravagance and cruelty. He was killed by a stray arrow, while out hunting in the New Forest (which may or may not have been shot deliberately on the instructions of his younger brother, Henry).
WILLIAM II (Image: Hulton Archive/Stringer)
Henry I (1100-1135): The youngest son of William I. He was called Henry Beauclerc because he was well-educated. He gave England good laws, even if the punishments were often severe. His two sons were drowned in the White Ship in 1120, so his daughter Matilda was named as his successor. When he died in 1135, ‘of a surfeit of lampreys’, the Council considered a woman to be unfit to rule, and offered the crown to Stephen, Duke of Blois, a grandson of William I through his daughter Adela.
HENRY I (Image: Hulton Archive)
Stephen (1135-1154): He was a weak king, and his reign was dogged by constant raids by the Welsh and Scots, the barons being powerful and unruly, and from 1139, when Matilda invaded from Anjou, there was a decade of civil war, which ended when Stephen agreed to nominate Matilda’s son Henry as his successor.
STEPHEN (Image: The Print Collector/Getty)
House of Plantagenet
Henry II (1154-1189): Son of Matilda, and Geoffrey Plantagenet, Duke of Anjou. He was a great soldier, and through his wars, and his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, he extended his French lands so that he ruled most of France. He is mostly remembered for his quarrel with Thomas Becket, and the murder of Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170.
HENRY II (Image: National Portrait Gallery/Wikimedia Commons)
Richard I (The Lionheart) (1189-1199): He was the third son of Henry II. Although King of England, he spent all but six months of his reign abroad, and was the leading Christian commander during the Third Crusade. On his way back from the Holy Land he was captured, and the ransom paid for his release nearly bankrupted the country. During his reign, Philip Augustus, King of France took advantage of Richard’s absence in the Middle East and tried to take over his French possessions.
RICHARD I (Image: Hulton Archive)
John (1199-1216): Brother of Richard I. Although he was an able administrator, he was cruel, self-indulgent and selfish, which made him very unpopular. By 1205 he had lost Normandy and Anjou to the French, and his heavy taxation and disputes with the Church (he was excommunicated by the Pope) made him very unpopular. A result of this was that many barons rebelled, and in 1215 the barons, with the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury, forced John to sign the Magna Carta, a document which guaranteed a number of rights, and limited the king’s powers.
JOHN (Image: The Print Collector/Getty)
Henry III (1216-1272): He was nine years old when he became king. He was devoted to the Church, arts (he ordered the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey in the Gothic style) and learning, and was easily influenced by the clergy and his wife’s French relations. In 1258 and 1259 the nobles, under the leadership of Simon de Montfort, had tried to define common law in the spirit of the Magna Carta, but in 1262 Henry renounced these Provisions, and war broke out. De Montfort captured Henry in 1264 and forced him to set up a Parliament at Westminster (the forerunner of the present House of Commons). Henry escaped, and then defeated and killed De Montfort at the Battle of Evesham. Royal authority was restored by the Statute of Marlborough (1267), in which the king also promised to uphold Magna Carta and some of the Provisions of Westminster.
HENRY III (Image: The Print Collector/Getty)
Edward I (1272-1307): He formed the Model Parliament in 1295, which brought the nobles, knights and clergy together, along with the Lords and Commons. His reign was dominated by his wars against the Welsh and Scots. In 1282 he defeated Llewelyn ap Gruffydd, and brought the Principality of Wales (north west Wales and parts of the south west) into the English legal and shire system. The castles, including those of Caernarfon, Conwy, Rhuddlan and Beaumaris, are part of his legacy.
EDWARD I (Hulton Archive/Getty)
Edward II (1307-1327): He was a weak and incompetent king, whose relationship with his male favourites, the most notorious being Piers Gaveston (Medieval chroniclers hint that they might have been lovers), offended his wife, Isabella the daughter of the King of France, and the barons. His defeat by the Scots at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 would also not have helped his popularity. Isabella, and her lover, Roger de Mortimer, deposed Edward, in 1327, and had him murdered at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire.
EDWARD II (Image: The Print Collector/Getty)
Edward III (1327-1377): Was 14 when he was crowned. In 1330 he launched a coup against his mother and her lover, Roger de Mortimer, and began his personal reign. In 1328 Charles IV of France died, and Edward III was his closest male relative (through Edward’s mother Isabella). In 1337 Edward decided to press this claim, which began the Hundred Years War (1337-1453).
EDWARD III (Image: Culture Club/Getty)
Richard II (1377-1399): He became King at the age of 10, as his father, Edward the Black Prince, had died before his grandfather, Edward III. In 1381 he bravely marched out to meet the rebels of the Peasants Revolt, but his Council advised him to rescind the pardons he had issued, and the rebellion was crushed with great severity. He later became more tyrannical, and in 1397 arrested and banished many of his opponents, including his cousin, Henry, Duke of Hereford. He also confiscated the lands of the Duchy of Lancaster, which had belonged to his uncle, John of Gaunt, and shared them among his followers. In 1399, John of Gaunt’s son, Henry, Duke of Hereford, was to take advantage of Richard II’s absence in Ireland, and usurped the throne, and ambushed Richard near Rhuddlan, before taking him to Pontefract Castle, where Richard was killed.
RICHARD II (Image: DeAgostini/Getty)
House of Lancaster
Henry IV (1399-1413): He returned from France to claim his father’s lands in the Duchy of Lancaster, which had been seized by Richard II. Parliament recognised him as king, but spent most of his reign fighting against plots, rebellions and assassination attempts. Owain Glyndwr declared himself Prince of Wales, and led an uprising against English rule, which became very dangerous when the Percy family and the French allied themselves to the Welsh.
HENRY IV (Image: Media Storehouse/Wikimedia Commons)
Henry V (1413-1422): He was a pious, stern and skilful soldier, who had proved himself by helping his father to crush many rebellions. In 1415 he renewed the war against France. He captured Rouen and was recognised as the next French king after marrying the daughter of the French king, but died before he could ascend the throne.
HENRY V (Image: Archive Photos/Getty)
Henry VI (1422-1461): He became king of England at the age of 10 months, and inherited a losing French war, which ended in 1453. He was gentle and retiring, and founded Eton College, and King’s College, Cambridge. In 1454 he had a bout of insanity, and Richard, Duke of York, was made the Protector of the Realm. The House of York challenged Henry VI’s claim to the throne, which led to the beginning of the Wars of the Roses. Henry was deposed in 1461, and was briefly restored to the throne in 1470, before being murdered in 1471.
HENRY VI (Image: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty)
House of York
Edward IV (1461-1483): Came to the throne in 1461 after deposing Henry VI. He used his financial acumen to tighten his control of royal revenues to reduce the Crown’s debt. He maintained close relations with merchants, and traded wool on his own account, so that the king could “live of his own” and was less dependent on Parliament to grant subsidies.
EDWARD IV (Image: VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty)
Edward V (1483): Was 13 years old when he became king, on the death of his father, and reigned for two months. He and his brother Richard were imprisoned in the Tower of London, and murdered, allegedly on the orders of their uncle, Richard of Gloucester, who became Richard III.
EDWARD V (Image: The Print Collector/Getty)
Richard III (1483-1485): He was the brother of Edward IV. His ruthless method of removing all opposition and the alleged murder of his nephews made his rule very unpopular. He was defeated by Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth. In 2012 Richard’s skeleton was discovered during the excavation of a car park in Leicester, and his remains were reinterred at Leicester Cathedral in 2015.
RICHARD III (Image: The Print Collector/Getty)
House of Tudor
Henry VII (1485-1509): He was descended from an Anglesey family, and so could draw on the support of the Welsh, and on his mother’s side, had also inherited a weak claim to the English throne through an illegitimate son of John of Gaunt, fourth son of Edward III. In 1485 he landed in Pembrokeshire, and gathered supporters across Wales as he marched to Bosworth Field in Leicestershire. He made good his pledge, made in December 1483, to marry Elizabeth, the daughter of Edward IV. This symbolically united the houses of Lancaster and York, and was also a sound move in that her claim was more solid than his.
HENRY VII (Image: The Print Collector/Getty)
Henry VIII (1509-1547): Became king on the death of his father, and while everyone will know about his having six wives, it was his wrangling with the Pope over the issue of trying to get an annulment for his first marriage that led to the break of the Church of England with Rome. The Acts of Union, in 1536 and 1542, legally incorporated Wales into England. The Dissolution of the Monasteries, which took place between 1536 and 1541 served the purpose of removing an institution which was generally perceived as being idle, wasteful and no longer relevant, though the real motivation undoubtedly desire to acquire the wealth of the monasteries for the Crown, which helped to fund a powerful Navy.
HENRY VIII (Image: Stock Montage/Getty)
Edward VI (1547-1553): Edward came to the throne as a sickly boy of nine years old, with the government being carried out by a Council of Regency, with his uncle, the Duke of Somerset styled as Protector. During his brief reign the uniformity of worship and Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer helped turn England into a Protestant country. But there was a dispute over the succession, and Edward nominated his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, as his successor, since his sister Mary was a Catholic. Jane was proclaimed Queen, but Mary and her supporters entered London, and 17-year-old Jane was taken to the tower, after having only reigned nine days, and was executed.
EDWARD VI (Image: Heritage Art/Heritage Images/Getty)
Mary I (1553-1558): She was a devout Catholic, and tried to convert England back to Catholicism, with the utmost severity. In 1554 she married Philip, who became King of Spain in 1556, but this marriage was childless. This marriage was unpopular with the populace as England did not gain the benefit of a share of the Spanish trade with the New World. On the other hand this alliance dragged England into Spain’s war with France, and in 1558, Calais, the last vestige of England’s possessions in France was lost.
MARY I (Image: Hulton Archive/Getty)
Elizabeth I (1558-1603): The daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth was renowned for her wisdom and learning, and was popular from first to last. During her reign a secure Church of England was established, and its doctrines were laid down in the 39 Articles of 1563, which established a compromise between Protestantism and Catholicism. Exploration flourished with Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh and Humphrey Gilbert, as did the arts with Shakespeare being a prominent figure of the time.
ELIZABETH I (Image: Culture Club/Getty)
James I (1603-1625): He was the first king to rule over England and Scotland. Although he was fairly tolerant in terms of religious faith, the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, when Guy Fawkes and other Roman Catholic conspirators attempted to blow up parliament led to the reimposition of strict penalties on Roman Catholics. In 1610 the Authorised Version of the Bible (generally known as the King James Version) was published.
JAMES I (Image: Imagno/Getty)
Charles I (1625-1649): He believed that he reigned by the Divine Right of Kings. This put him at odds with his Parliament, and he tried to rule without the aid of Parliament as much as he could. His leading advisers included William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Earl of Strafford, who were efficient, but disliked. He also tried to gain income by such measures as exploitation of forest laws, forced loans and ship money (which was extended from just the ports to the whole country. The struggles with Parliament, and his desire to dispense with Parliamentary rule. led to the English Civil War, and in 1649 Charles was executed for treason.
CHARLES I (Image: Hulton Archive/Getty)
Commonwealth (1649-1660): The Parliamentary victory in the Civil War led to a republic being declared. In 1653, Oliver Cromwell, with the aid of the army, dismissed the corrupt Parliament, and ruled as Lord Protector, which was king in all but name, and in 1658 was succeeded by his son Richard.
Charles II (1660-1685): After the collapse of the Protectorate, the army and Parliament asked Charles II to take the throne. He was a popular king, but weak, and his foreign policy was inept. He had 13 known mistresses and fathered many illegitimate children, but no legitimate heirs. It was during his reign that the Black Death if 1665 and the Great Fire of London in 1666 took place, and the new St Paul’s Cathedral, built to the design of Sir Christopher Wren was built after the fire.
CHARLES II (Image: Hulton Archive/Getty)
James II (1685-1688): James had converted to Roman Catholicism in 1670, but his two daughters were brought up as Protestants. He became very unpopular as a result of his persecution of the Protestant clergy. After the crushing of the Monmouth uprising (Monmouth was an illegitimate son of Charles II and a Protestant), Parliament invited William of Orange, a Dutch prince who was married to James’s daughter Mary, to take the throne.
JAMES II (Image: The Print Collector/Getty)
William III (1689-1702) and Mary II (1689-1694): On November 5, 1688, William of Orange sailed with 450 ships across the Channel, unopposed by the Royal Navy, and landed in Devon, before marching to London in the Glorious Revolution. Many of James II’s army defected to join William. William and Mary were to reign jointly, and then William for life.
WILLIAM III AND MARY II (Image: Hulton Archive/Getty)
Anne (1702-1714): She had 17 pregnancies but only one child survived, to die at the age of 11. It was during her reign that Scotland and England were united by an Act of Union, and that the Duke of Marlborough gained serveral victories in the War of Spanish Succession that gave England an influence she had not previously enjoyed in Europe.
ANNE (Image: VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty)
House of Hanover
George I (1714-1727): George, the Elector of Hanover, became king of England at the age of 54, unable to speak more than a few words of English and never learned the language. The conduct of national policy was left to the government of the time with Sir Robert Walpole becoming the first Prime Minister. In 1715 James Stuart, the son of James II tried to supplant George, but failed. George spent little time in England as he preferred Hanover.
GEORGE I (Image: DeAgostini/Getty)
George II (1727-1760): He was more English than his father but still relied on Sir Robert Walpole to run the country. In 1745 the Jacobites again tried to restore the Stuarts to the throne, and Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) advanced as far south as Derby, before turning back because the promised English support had failed to materialise and the Scottish lords advised retreat. (Ironically, George II was expecting the Scottish army to arrive any day, and was preparing to flee, so we could have had a king Charles III in 1745). The Jacobites were routed at Culloden in 1746, and Bonnie Prince Charlie fled to France.
GEORGE II (Image: Bettmann/Getty)
George III (1760-1820): Most well-known for having become insane and having lost the American colonies, but he was the first English-born and English-speaking monarch since Queen Anne. His reign was the time of the Industrial Revolution, of great statesmen like Fox and Pitt, great military heroes like Nelson and Wellington, and literary figures like Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Shelley and Keats. From 1811 his son George ruled as Prince Regent.
GEORGE III (Image: History/Universal Images Group via Getty)
George IV (1820-1830): He was known as the First Gentleman of Europe, and had a love of art and architecture (it was he who commissioned the Brighton Pavilion, which was built in an Indo-Islamic style). He was married twice: first was to Mrs Fitzherbert in 1787 (which was secretly, as she was Catholic), and then to Caroline of Brunswick in 1795. This proved to be a very unhappy marriage, as he was was not at all attracted to her, and in fact found her disgusting, and refused to live with her. When George became king in January 1820 (and Caroline became queen) the Government offered Caroline £50,000 if she would stay out of England, but she refused, and tried to enter Westminster Abbey at George’s coronation on April 29, 1821, but was refused admittance, and died 19 days later. George was considered a great wit, but also a buffoon.
GEORGE IV (Image: Universal History Archive/Getty)
William IV (1830-1837): Younger brother of George IV, and was nicknamed ‘the sailor king’ because he had spent 10 years in the Royal Navy. He hated pomp and wanted to dispense with the Coronation, and the people loved him because of his lack of pretension. It was during his reign that slavery was abolished in the British colonies in 1833, and the Reform Act in 1832 extended the franchise for voting to the middle classes, on the basis of property qualifications.
WILLIAM IV (Image: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty)
Victoria (1837-1901): She was the only daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of George III, and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg. When she came to the throne, the Crown was weak and unpopular, as her uncles, who preceded her, had been treated with irreverence. In 1840 she married her cousin, Albert of Saxe-Coburg, who exerted considerable influence over the Queen, until his death in 1861. His legacies to the UK include popularising the German tradition of the Christmas tree, and the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was to highlight the advances in science and technology across the world, and Great Britain in particular. The event was housed an enormous glass building in Hyde Park, which was known as the Crystal Palace. Proceeds from the Great Exhibition financed several institutions, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum, Imperial College and Royal Albert Hall. When Victoria died in 1901 the British Empire had reached its greatest extent.
VICTORIA (Image: Imagno/Getty)
House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha
Edward VII (1901-1910): He was a much-loved king, and the opposite of his dour father. He loved horse-racing, gambling and women, and his high society lifestyle as Prince of Wales had caused his mother much misgiving, so that it was only from 1898 he was allowed to act as her deputy. The Edwardian era was one of elegance.
EDWARD VII: (Image: W & D Downey/Hulton Archive/Getty)
House of Windsor
George V (1910-1936): He was the second son of Edward VII, and was not expected to be king until the death of his elder brother, Victor Albert, in 1892 made him heir apparent. His reign was during some very difficult years, with the First World War of 1914-1918, and the troubles in Ireland which led to the creation of the Irish Free State. Anti-German feeling during the First World War led to the adoption of Windsor as the name of the Royal Family, instead of Saxe-Coburg Gotha. The Statute of Westminster in 1931 allowed Dominion Parliaments to pass laws without reference to British laws. In 1932 George started the tradition of Christmas broadcasts (on the radio) which has continued since.
GEORGE V (Image: Universal History Archive/Getty)
Edward VIII (1936): He was very popular as Prince of Wales, but in 1930 had fallen in love with Mrs Wallis Simpson, an American woman. This caused concern in the cabinet, the opposition parties and the Dominions, but the people knew nothing about it until 1936. When Mrs Simpson obtained her divorce from her second husband, it became clear that Edward was determined to marry her, and he had said that he wanted her to be crowned as queen with him during the Coronation the following May. A twice-divorced woman who had two husbands still living was unacceptable as queen in the Church’s eyes. Edward realised that he had to choose between the Crown and Mrs Simpson, and abdicated in favour of his younger brother, and then went to live abroad. He married Wallis Simpson in 1937 in a ceremony in France.
EDWARD VIII (Image: Hulton Archive/Getty)
George VI (1936-1952): He was a shy and nervous man with a bad stutter, but also very conscientious and dedicated, and worked very hard to adapt to the responsibility which came unexpectedly to him. During the Second World War he gained popularity through his courage, remaining at Buckingham Palace most of the time, despite it being bombed nine times, and visiting severely bombed areas in East London and elsewhere in the country, and kept in close touch with the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. In 1940 he instituted the George Cross and the George Medal, to recognise bravery by citizens, since the Second War was a total war, where civilians could show heroism. In 1942 the island of Malta was awarded the George Cross for resisting the enemy’s siege. The post-war years saw social changes including the creation of the National Health Service, and also the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947. In 1951 the Festival of Britain was held, on the centenary of the Great Exhibition of 1851, but also as a way of promoting a feeling of recovery.
GEORGE VI (Image: Bettmann/Getty)
Elizabeth II (1952-2022): Her coronation in 1953 was the first to be televised, which boosted the popularity of this medium. On her accession to the throne she was the head of seven independent Commonwealth nations (the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and Ceylon). During the 1960s and 1970s decolonisation progressed with more territories becoming independent members of the Commonwealth, with the Queen remaining as head of state. Some of these territories were to become republics, within the Commonwealth, but still recognising the Queen as head of the Commonwealth, although not as head of state. Her reign also saw the UK joining the European Economic Community in 1973, and in 2020 finally left the EU, after having voted to leave in 2016. Her reign was the longest, with her Platinum Jubilee being celebrated in 2022.
ELIZABETH II (Image: Yui Mok – WPA Pool/Getty)
Charles III (2022-): At 73 years at the time of accession, he was the oldest person to become king (the previous record-holder was William IV who became king in 1830 at the age of 64). His Coronation took place on May 6, 2023, and reflected the religious diversity of the UK today, although essentially an Anglican ceremony, in keeping with the King’s role as temporal head of the Anglican Church.
CHARLES III (Image: Dan Kitwood/Getty)
ROYAL CEREMONY: Bishops paying homage to Queen Elizabeth II during her coronation in 1953