Æthelstan (king of England, 925–939) He made his court a hub of learning; established a more efficient system of justice; and seems to have been genuinely popular with all who met him.
It is the story of the greatest king England ever had. Because of what he did, he became known as Alfred the Great.
Who was the most loved? Alfred the Great: King of the Anglo-Saxons who repeatedly defeated the Vikings and laid the groundwork for the birth of England.
Henry VIII
One of England's most famous monarchs was a foul-tempered, gluttonous, bloodthirsty tyrant who, as well as ordering the executions of two of the women who had the misfortune to marry him, had an estimated 57,000 people executed during his 36-year reign.
But when all the votes are in, one figures in the minds of scholars and historians as the greatest. He is Cyrus the Great of Persia, who in the mid-6th century BC ruled the greatest empire the world had ever known.
Charles II has been reckoned the most notorious womanizer of the English kings. Among his list of mistresses are included: Elizabeth Killigrew, Lucy Walter, Jane Roberts, Catherine Pegge, Winifred Wells, Barbara Villiers, Mary Davis, Nell Gwyn, Louise de Kérouaille, Hortense Mancini, Mrs.
King John I may forever be known as a Bad King following that seminal history textbook 1066 and All That, but according to history authors, it is Henry VIII who should bear the title of the worst monarch in history.
Mary I of England. Mary I could have reserved a place in common history as the first woman ever to be the queen of England. Instead, she is mostly remembered as “Bloody Mary” – a name she acquired because of her staunch and violent opposition to the Reformation.
Oldest. The oldest monarch at the start of his reign was Charles III aged 73 years, 298 days when he became king in 2022. Prior to this, William IV had held this record since 1830, becoming king aged 64 years, 308 days.
Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and had an unpromising start, being declared illegitimate following her mother's execution. She survived interrogation and imprisonment during the reigns of her half-siblings to become England's greatest ruling queen.
George remained unpopular in England throughout his life, partly because of his inability to speak English but also because of the perceived greed of his mistresses and rumours concerning his treatment of his wife. George died on 11 June 1727 during a visit to Hanover and was succeeded by his son.
The conventional story of why Edward VIII came to abdicate in 1936 is well known and hardly needs any detailed rehearsal. The King abandoned the throne because he was determined on marrying the American divorcée Wallis Simpson, 'the woman I love', a union rejected by the political and royal Establishment.
In 1978, Vittorio Emanuele – the king who never was – got into trouble while he and his wife and kids were living on the island of Cavallo, on the south coast of Corsica, France.
In 2012, the bones of King Richard III were discovered and excavated from underneath a parking lot in Leicester, England. He had been buried there since 1485, without anyone knowing it besides the people who put him there more than 500 years ago.
In all antiquity, history records only one woman who successfully calculated a systematic rise to power during a time of peace: Hatshepsut, meaning “the Foremost of Noble Women,” an Egyptian king of the Eighteenth Dynasty who ruled during the fifteenth century bc and negotiated a path from the royal nursery to the very ...
Shah Jahan, the sixth Mughal emperor of India, is remembered as the most handsome of all the Mughal emperors. He was born in 1592 in Lahore, Pakistan, and was the son of Emperor Jahangir and his wife, Nur Jahan. He ascended the throne in 1628 and ruled until his death in 1666.
It was pretty common for kings to have a mistress in those days, in part because marriages were arranged for political gain and not personal companionship.
Without suffering a single defeat, Alexander led his men to victories across the Persian territories of Asia Minor, Egypt and Syria. In 331 BC, his outnumbered army faced off against the Persian King Darius III at the Battle of Gaugamela.
The King ascended to the throne at the age of 73, making Charles III the oldest person to become monarch in the United Kingdom. He was born at Buckingham Palace on 14 November 1948, four years before his mother's incredible reign began.
Rana Kumbha remains among a very few select kings of World History to have never lost a battle and remain undefeated till his last breath. But his military achievements are not the only thing he is remembered for. It was during his rule that Mewar Kingdom flourished in all fields.
But even those royals might have been aghast at the actions of Russian czar Peter the Great, who in 1718 had his eldest son tortured to death for allegedly conspiring against him. Peter I, better known as Peter the Great, is generally credited with bringing Russia into the modern age.
Elizabeth I (1533 – 1603)
The history books talk much of her make-up and spinsterhood, but there is no doubt that she was one of the most badass monarchs England ever had.