Edward I was a qunt. I'd plump for Edward III over Longshanks. Agree on Alfred and Liz I, but would also put in Henry II for legal reforms and Matilda for gumption and Athelstan for being the first.
Henry VII (saved a broken and bankrupt kingdom and eschewed the stupid aristocratic claims to France's equivalent of Lincolnshire other than in name)
James I (sailed the ship of state over tricky seas)
Charles II (LAD)
Alfred/Edward the Elder/Athelstan (architects)
Mary II (sensible, saved the country from rampant superstition)
Edward I/III and Henry I/II would have been up there but for troublesome offspring (tbf not Mattie's fault)
Worst:
Edward the Confessor (the worst Englishman that has ever lived - basically handed over all his subjects to be genocided by a foreign tyrant because he had a spat with his brother-in-law)
John (does ANYone have ANYthing positive to say about him? Had rightful king Arthur blinded and then murdered, then had the murderers murdered on trumped-up charges, ran blarting to the Pope over Magna Carta to renege on his own promise)
Mary I (handed a grateful kingdom on a platter and then pissed all over it)
Charles I, James II (just sit on the throne and STFU - don't go imposing your FSM lunacy on people who don't want it)
Henry VI (given the biggest territory of any English king and reams of competent advisers that had enabled that, ended up causing the most brutal civil war the country had ever had)
surprised u don’t include richard i in the worst category there scep tick - bankrupted the country out of pure folly, ignored it, then left it 2 the mercy of his brother
E8 at least had the decency to extradite himself from the throne when it was obvious he'd be more E2 than E3.
Quick skim suggests Richard III has been overlooked - perhaps because he is such an obvious choice. Infanticide megalomaniac. The Billy S Macbeth storyline would have been better suited to him, he seems to have been righteous until 1483.
best monarch, plainly, is going to be one from the days when the british monarch had some real power
Hank-7 was a good one. Businesslike, restored stability after the frankly ludicrous Wars of the Roses and pointless French campaigns before that. Reformed the Treasury, which always seemed to need doing. His eldest son a mere idle playboy by comparison.
Elizabeth 1 was not a madwoman. She was cruel and paranoid, like her dad, with an extra streak of personal vindictiveness, but intelligent and amoral rather than mad.
Surprised there’s no love for Edward VII - the only monarch in our history who has invented a chair to facilitate orla between three participants simultaneously.
Only king not to fritter away the country's wealth on pointless French wars
Agreeing with Louis XI that the whole thing was a waste of money and time, on receiving 60,000 gold crowns and a 50,000 annual pension, intending to spend the time afterwards partying
Sadly he died shortly thereafter of apoplexi from overeating, leaving the country in the gentle hands of his brother Richard III
Yes, Liz I saved the country from continental style 30 year wars between fanatical Catholics and Calvinists, setting up the Church of England as a compromise
Being an avid Yorkist I have Ricky 3 as my fave and Hank 7 as evil bastard no.1 for rewriting history to denigrate his predecessor. Anyone who doubts this, read Daughter of Time.
Bollocks. Richard had nothing to gain from the murder of the princes. It was Buckingham. You've fallen for Tudor propaganda.
He basically threw his sister-in-law under the bus to get rid of E5. He knew from what happened when H6 was sprung what could happen if someone sprung E5 out of the Tower. He could have stopped H7 before he even started had he just paraded E5 on the battlements or something to prove E5 was alive.
I will concede that there is the possibility that E5 and his brother died of natural causes, could have been a very pestilential time, which then caused problems later. But Richard absolutely had the kingdom to gain by terminating his nephews with extreme prejudice.
The key is what R3 did to Hastings (the baron, not the port), a mate of his who helped him get the Lord Protector position, at a time when nobody had even the slightest scintilla that R3 was going to go full tonto on bloodline. Two months after getting the LP he had Hastings dragged out of Cabinet and summarily executed. No reason at all other than covering up the path.
Ah yes, that famous ally of the medieval English whose vested interests lay in stable rule in England. Oh wait...
How about the Italian cleric Dominic Mancini, who wrote at the end of 1483 that R3 had killed E5 in hi De occupatione regni Anglie per Ricardum tertium libellus?
How about the fact the story was put about by the family that stood most to benefit from it the deaths and went on to found a rigidly controlled propaganda-led state? It just doesn't make any sense.
It doesn’t make sense that someone who stood to be king if E5 and R2.5 were somehow disqualified and removed from existence should disqualify them and remove them from existence?
We know he had them disqualified…we know he removed their allies from existence.
richard iii more than likely had the princes murdered imo
they were dead by 1487
the mancini stuff is pretty strong evidence they were dead in 1483
although he’d had them de-legitimised, he was paranoid as fook given all the rebellions and plotting against him, so they were deffo dangerous 4 him 2 allow alive
henry vii could have done it, but by then he’d won a decisive victory and didn’t need 2 - he executed his captives l7er in his reign when the rebellions started again. and he didn’t do it in secret.
it’s not evidence per se, but while i think the pure tudor propaganda theory has legs (it is deffo a thing, they were rampant), it is somewhat undermined by dicky 3’s body being found and eg having the hunchback, which suggests the propaganda had more than a kernel of truth
Not Henry VII. Buckingham, who was the next in line before Henry VII. And as you say, they were already delegitimised and RIII had the throne. Anyone trying to get the throne had to first undermine RIII, which would have legitimised the princes again, and would have then had to deal with them as hurdles to the crown. Far easier to kill the princes first - something RIII had no motive to do.
The strongest argument against H7 doing it (apart from the obvious one that every contemporary source that deals with the issue says R3 did it) is that H7 rode the wave of revulsion from the disappearance of E5. Which R3 could have punctured by presenting E5 as his ally.
R3 absolutely had every motive to get rid. After all, he had seen how E4 nearly lost everything because H6 was alive in prison - and was sprung for one more crack at the job. It's not even as if H6 had the nous to do that for himself. E5 would have had loads of supporters seeing him as the legit king - which wouldn't be surprising as not one person on the entire planet had any doubts he was, until E4 was dead and R3 could machinate from a position of strength.
Buckingham wasn't after the throne for himself either - he supported H7's first go at the butt end of 1483, hence his execution. But if Buckingham actually did/arranged the deed, he did so on R3's orders. After all, it would have been a grandmaster move for R3 to tell Buck to kill the princes, then reveal to the world that Buckingham had done so, and have him attaindered forthwith. And of course...
Buckingham, who was the next in line before Henry VII.
...Buckingham was executed in 1483, when the next in line to the throne was Edward of Middleham - R3's son.
Lady Jane Grey. Only 16, but made a spirited attempt to prevent England falling into the hands of Catholic Mary. Refused to allow her husband to be given the title king. Quite a feminist, in that sense.
Refused to allow her husband to be given the title king. Quite a feminist, in that sense.
Her “feminism” benefitted no woman apart from her. Whereas Edward vii campaigned against racism and class divisions when he was one of the world’s biggest beneficiaries of both.
Seems a bit harsh blaming Britain’s war on a man who died four years before it started.
WW1 was a shocking mistake by European diplomats and if anyone had the charisma, people skills and aversion to war to have banged their heads together and prevented hostilities it would have been E7. He enjoyed continental women far too much to allow war to sully his happy hunting grounds.
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who would you have for worst?
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surprising lack of objection to Longshanks from rof's resident sweaty
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Heh
shame she wouldn’t be able to return the compliment
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worst? Stephen, John, Mary I, Charles I, James II. One of them.
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Edward I was a qunt. I'd plump for Edward III over Longshanks. Agree on Alfred and Liz I, but would also put in Henry II for legal reforms and Matilda for gumption and Athelstan for being the first.
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Best:
James II
Charles I
Elizabeth II
Mary I
Worst:
Elizabeth I
"William III"
Edward II
Edward VIII
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Agree with your worst. Plus Eadwig who was useless.
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I just don't think there's any point engaging with people who think Edward I was good
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In a similar way to Sky Sports and football not existing before 1992, the pre-conquest monarchs are surely ruled out.
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Surely the best must be someone whose achievements extend beyond waving and not dying for a really long time?
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This is like those music poles that put Ed Sheehan’s albums in an all time top 10
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Polls
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Definitely not Limey. The Normans inherited a lot from the Anglo-Saxons.
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You sound like Souness Orwell, just before he went on to harrow the north!
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Edward the Elder.
Are we counting Bretwaldas?
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Just an unashamed Catholic renegade, Jack.
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My vote is for Henry V. Took an arrow in the face and just got on with it.
Probably the Kenneth Branagh version but I haven't seen the Tom Hiddlestone one. Any good?
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Henry vi has to be in the running for worst.
Agree with Liz I, Edward III and Henry II for best.
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Best:
Edward I/III and Henry I/II would have been up there but for troublesome offspring (tbf not Mattie's fault)
Worst:
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he’s really gunning 2 re-establish the tradition of an earldom 4 ex-pms isn’t he
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surprised u don’t include richard i in the worst category there scep tick - bankrupted the country out of pure folly, ignored it, then left it 2 the mercy of his brother
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Yeah, he's 25% of the reason why Henry II is not Britain's best monarch. All of his sons were turbokhunts.
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Worst
1.James II
2. Henry VI
3. Edward VIII
4.John
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E8 at least had the decency to extradite himself from the throne when it was obvious he'd be more E2 than E3.
Quick skim suggests Richard III has been overlooked - perhaps because he is such an obvious choice. Infanticide megalomaniac. The Billy S Macbeth storyline would have been better suited to him, he seems to have been righteous until 1483.
Three Richards, all dicks.
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feeble and obvious use of flattery in the hope she doesn’t unilaterally remove him
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Elizabeth I was a butcher and a madwoman.
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best monarch, plainly, is going to be one from the days when the british monarch had some real power
Hank-7 was a good one. Businesslike, restored stability after the frankly ludicrous Wars of the Roses and pointless French campaigns before that. Reformed the Treasury, which always seemed to need doing. His eldest son a mere idle playboy by comparison.
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agree with ducks btw, Liz 1 was a ludicrous individual fgs
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Elizabeth 1 was not a madwoman. She was cruel and paranoid, like her dad, with an extra streak of personal vindictiveness, but intelligent and amoral rather than mad.
Surprised there’s no love for Edward VII - the only monarch in our history who has invented a chair to facilitate orla between three participants simultaneously.
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Second. First pre-deceased H7. Sliding doors moment. H8 was the Harry to Arthur’s Wills. Bred for the tourney rather than the throne.
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Always had a soft spot for Edward IV
Only king not to fritter away the country's wealth on pointless French wars
Agreeing with Louis XI that the whole thing was a waste of money and time, on receiving 60,000 gold crowns and a 50,000 annual pension, intending to spend the time afterwards partying
Sadly he died shortly thereafter of apoplexi from overeating, leaving the country in the gentle hands of his brother Richard III
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Liz I was the most intelligent of our monarchs by a country mile.
Always had a soft spot for george v.
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Another Edward IV fan here
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Yes, Liz I saved the country from continental style 30 year wars between fanatical Catholics and Calvinists, setting up the Church of England as a compromise
Hence 3Dux hate
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Being an avid Yorkist I have Ricky 3 as my fave and Hank 7 as evil bastard no.1 for rewriting history to denigrate his predecessor. Anyone who doubts this, read Daughter of Time.
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Let's be honest they're all khunts. So are you.
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Aw thanks RR. Putting me on a par with the monarch.
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Alfred - saved English identity
William I - put an end to endless Scandinavian aggression, the previous Saxon kings being just Scandinavian puppets
Henry II - understood the importance of law and knew his rugger
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Unusual choice but Charles II did a pretty good job, particularly when compared to predecessor and successor.
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tbf he did try pretty hard - three legit possibles lost through miscarriage and about a thousand bastards.
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Sorry you’re right Scep Tick, ofc
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I feel obliged to post this
https://youtu.be/vC6okzIKQvg
take your pick
surely Horrible Histories original cast’s finest hour and a great contribution to our nation’s education
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I may start a band called A Thousand Bastards
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Bollocks. Richard had nothing to gain from the murder of the princes. It was Buckingham. You've fallen for Tudor propaganda.
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Sound man. I went to Dicky III's funeral btw.
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I love that song Mutters. I love all the orriginal HH cast.
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Or even original
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He basically threw his sister-in-law under the bus to get rid of E5. He knew from what happened when H6 was sprung what could happen if someone sprung E5 out of the Tower. He could have stopped H7 before he even started had he just paraded E5 on the battlements or something to prove E5 was alive.
I will concede that there is the possibility that E5 and his brother died of natural causes, could have been a very pestilential time, which then caused problems later. But Richard absolutely had the kingdom to gain by terminating his nephews with extreme prejudice.
The key is what R3 did to Hastings (the baron, not the port), a mate of his who helped him get the Lord Protector position, at a time when nobody had even the slightest scintilla that R3 was going to go full tonto on bloodline. Two months after getting the LP he had Hastings dragged out of Cabinet and summarily executed. No reason at all other than covering up the path.
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You know Shakespeare wasn't an actual historian, right?
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Actually that was from Thomas More.
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and tbf 2 old willy waggledagger, he was pretty good at bringing history alive and was an unintended expert at putting his own interpretation on2 it
u kno, amongst 1 or 2 other skills he probs had
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You know Thomas More had his lips firmly placed around Henry Tudor's cock, right?
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The whole fooking thread with not a mention of Athelstan? ROF is an official embarrassment.
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Er, try again.
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William III was sound. Didn’t take any nonsense from the left footers.
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Did the French Lord Chancellor? He reported in 1484 that R3 had murdered E5.
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Ah yes, that famous ally of the medieval English whose vested interests lay in stable rule in England. Oh wait...
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And it's SAINT Thomas More to you Orwell
You know, the religious Saint who had Tyndale burnt alive for translating the Bible into English
Whilst the Greeks at all times could read the Bible in their own language
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How about the Italian cleric Dominic Mancini, who wrote at the end of 1483 that R3 had killed E5 in hi De occupatione regni Anglie per Ricardum tertium libellus?
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E5 was a cocky little shit and he had it coming. R3 did the right thing.
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I like E4 too tbh
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How about the fact the story was put about by the family that stood most to benefit from it the deaths and went on to found a rigidly controlled propaganda-led state? It just doesn't make any sense.
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And it's SAINT Thomas More to you Orwell
I'm not Christian, Tarquin, so I don't believe in saints. And he was a Tudor propagandist, so hardly beyond worldly things.
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Bump
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You feel this keenly, Orwellers
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Got to think George VI belongs in there somewhere
With Churchill, held the country's morale together in the most dangerous moment in its history
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Surely Victoria. How could no one even mention her? She literally gave her name to the most globally influential era in Britain’s history.
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Nah. She was an oversexed spoiled brat.
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yeah i dunno
its difficult 2 attribute the title of our gr7est monarch 2 a dumpy old prude
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It doesn’t make sense that someone who stood to be king if E5 and R2.5 were somehow disqualified and removed from existence should disqualify them and remove them from existence?
We know he had them disqualified…we know he removed their allies from existence.
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richard iii more than likely had the princes murdered imo
they were dead by 1487
the mancini stuff is pretty strong evidence they were dead in 1483
although he’d had them de-legitimised, he was paranoid as fook given all the rebellions and plotting against him, so they were deffo dangerous 4 him 2 allow alive
henry vii could have done it, but by then he’d won a decisive victory and didn’t need 2 - he executed his captives l7er in his reign when the rebellions started again. and he didn’t do it in secret.
it’s not evidence per se, but while i think the pure tudor propaganda theory has legs (it is deffo a thing, they were rampant), it is somewhat undermined by dicky 3’s body being found and eg having the hunchback, which suggests the propaganda had more than a kernel of truth
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Not Henry VII. Buckingham, who was the next in line before Henry VII. And as you say, they were already delegitimised and RIII had the throne. Anyone trying to get the throne had to first undermine RIII, which would have legitimised the princes again, and would have then had to deal with them as hurdles to the crown. Far easier to kill the princes first - something RIII had no motive to do.
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The strongest argument against H7 doing it (apart from the obvious one that every contemporary source that deals with the issue says R3 did it) is that H7 rode the wave of revulsion from the disappearance of E5. Which R3 could have punctured by presenting E5 as his ally.
R3 absolutely had every motive to get rid. After all, he had seen how E4 nearly lost everything because H6 was alive in prison - and was sprung for one more crack at the job. It's not even as if H6 had the nous to do that for himself. E5 would have had loads of supporters seeing him as the legit king - which wouldn't be surprising as not one person on the entire planet had any doubts he was, until E4 was dead and R3 could machinate from a position of strength.
Buckingham wasn't after the throne for himself either - he supported H7's first go at the butt end of 1483, hence his execution. But if Buckingham actually did/arranged the deed, he did so on R3's orders. After all, it would have been a grandmaster move for R3 to tell Buck to kill the princes, then reveal to the world that Buckingham had done so, and have him attaindered forthwith. And of course...
...Buckingham was executed in 1483, when the next in line to the throne was Edward of Middleham - R3's son.
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Lady Jane Grey. Only 16, but made a spirited attempt to prevent England falling into the hands of Catholic Mary. Refused to allow her husband to be given the title king. Quite a feminist, in that sense.
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Sorry to be a tede but you can't have alfred. He was king of a quite lovely part of the world but not king of all england.
i would go best:
aethelstan
henry V
henry vii
worst:
stephen
henry vi
all the georges
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Bloody Mary, daughter of Spanish Princess, Catherine of Aragon, and granddaughter of Los dos Reyes Católicos, singlehandedly turned England Protestant
Whether that makes her the best or the worst depends on your religious affiliation
Certainly her husband, Philip II of Spain, of all people, was so p*ssed off with her fanaticism, that he cleared off back to Spain
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Her “feminism” benefitted no woman apart from her. Whereas Edward vii campaigned against racism and class divisions when he was one of the world’s biggest beneficiaries of both.
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E7 dragged Britain into WWI
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Seems a bit harsh blaming Britain’s war on a man who died four years before it started.
WW1 was a shocking mistake by European diplomats and if anyone had the charisma, people skills and aversion to war to have banged their heads together and prevented hostilities it would have been E7. He enjoyed continental women far too much to allow war to sully his happy hunting grounds.
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French naval agreement
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