Monarchs of England

Illegitimate Duke William claimed the English throne and took it at Hastings, transforming England. The Domesday Book surveyed eve...

From his Angevin inheritance, Henry ruled England plus western France, the largest realm in Western Europe. His legal reforms, iti...

Longshanks codified statutes, summoned the Model Parliament 1295, expelled Jews 1290. He conquered Wales, ring of castles, Caernar...

Claimed the French crown through his mother, starting the Hundred Years War. Victories at Crécy and Poitiers, his son the Black Pr...

Richard seized the throne from his nephews, the Princes in the Tower vanished under his watch. Two years later Henry Tudor killed ...

Victor at Bosworth, Henry united Lancaster and York by marrying Elizabeth of York, the Tudor rose combining red and white. Careful...

Desperate for a male heir, Henry broke with Rome, made himself Supreme Head of the English Church, dissolved the monasteries, redi...

Daughter of Anne Boleyn, declared illegitimate, imprisoned in the Tower, Elizabeth reigned 44 years of relative stability. Protest...

Stubborn and duplicitous, Charles ruled without Parliament 1629 to 1640, Ship Money, Laudian ceremony provoking Scotland. Civil wa...

Restored 1660 after the Interregnum, Charles forgave most enemies, executing the regicides only. Theatres reopened, wit and mistre...

Alfred hid in Athelney marsh after the Viking storm, burned the cakes legend, then Edington victory 878, the Danelaw divided. The ...

Aethelred Unraed, ill-counseled rather than unready. The St Brice Day massacre 1002, Danes killed, Sweyn revenge followed. The Dan...

Son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard spent only about six months of his reign in England. On the Third Crusade he too...

Henry renewed the Hundred Years War and won a famous victory over a much larger French army at Agincourt in 1415, largely through ...

Daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, Mary overcame the attempt to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne. She restored Roma...