I think a bit highly of Elizabeth I and Victoria!. Both were queens during highly changing times!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
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Position:Home>History> Who Were the Greatest Monarchs of England and the UK?Question: Who Were the Greatest Monarchs of England and the UK!? I think a bit highly of Elizabeth I and Victoria!. Both were queens during highly changing times!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: HENRY VIII: Responsible for the Reformation in England and founded the Church of England with himself as its supreme head!. He also: promoted parliamentary government by extending representation and expanding the privileges of both Houses enhanced standing of the monarchy and helped create a new sense of national identity overhauled machinery of the state, introducing progressive and efficient taxation schemes created the most magnificent court in English history patronised arts to lasting effect and popularised the art of portraiture built or remodelled 70 palaces and erected fortresses along the south coast was first English king to authorise the translation of the Bible into English ELIZABETH I: The England she inherited was described by one of her own agents as "a bone between two dogs" - France and Spain!. Few believed then that she (a mere woman, with a disputed claim) could hold the throne without tying the country to some greater power!. Instead, after 45 years of solo rule, she left a realm sure of its place in the world, with the confidence only half a century of stability could give!. One that had seen the expansion of its interests, the securing of its borders, and the regularisation of its currency, as well as the great flowering of the Renaissance!. VICTORIA: In 1837 Victoria inherited a throne toppling on the edge of extinction!. The crown was in disrepute, while mounting public and parliamentary demand for constitutional change threatened to sweep the monarchy away!. Victoria brilliantly responded to the challenge by adapting her role to the modern age!. Rather than dictate policy, she sought to encourage, occasionally to caution, her ministers in their business whilst preserving the mystique of her position!. Above all, she desired to rule for the people rather than over them!. No sovereign has studied their function more closely or worked harder!. Victoria transformed the monarchy from a remote, absolutist concept into a public institution which still thrives!. PERSONAL QUALITIES HENRY VIII: A true child of the Renaissance - a gentleman in the knightly, chivalric sense, an intellectual who read St Thomas Aquinas for pleasure, an expert linguist, a humanist, an astronomer, a world-class sportsman, a competent musician and composer, an accomplished horseman, and a knowledgeable theologian!. He could turn his hand to anything from designing weapons to mathematics or technology, from making up medicines to drawing maps or brick-making!. But Henry's true greatness lay in his practical aptitude, his acute political perception, and in the self-restraint that enabled him to confine - within limits acceptable to his people - an insatiable appetite for power!. ELIZABETH I: Brave, resourceful, charismatic, clever and extraordinarily cultured; a musician, linguist and poet!. A terrible youth (her mother executed on her father's orders; her own life threatened by her sister) unexpectedly bred in her a kind of humanity!. She was instinctively merciful; and reluctant, until forced to it, to involve England in the wars of other countries!. She counted the greatest triumph of her reign to have ruled with her people's love; and though she could be vain, she was never vain enough to put her own wishes, her own dynasty, above the needs of her country!. VICTORIA: Lengthy mourning for her husband Albert and the constraints of early photography have left us with the impression of a severe, unsmiling woman!. The phrase "We are not amused", so often attributed to the queen but probably apocryphal, has hardly lessened this unfair perception!. Victoria was serious-minded with a heavy sense of duty yet also was a very loving mother and a devoted friend!. She could also be highly entertaining with a particular fondness for risque jokes!. The key to her success, however, was her unique ability to combine the majesty of her position - which left ministers quaking - with a motherly homeliness which strongly appealed to her subjects!. Www@QuestionHome@Com I think the current monarch, Elizabeth II, is one of the great ones!. Many of the decades of her reign have been difficult ones for the UK!. She has centered her life around being the monarch, with an unsurpassed devotion to her duties!. She has a strong sense of what it means to be a constitutional monarch, of history!. She evidently makes her decisions on the scale of history, of her country!. This has made her unpopular with some of her subjects who think only of what is popular or new in the present!. I think history will judge her more kindly than the present age!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Alfred the Great - one of the first great lawgivers of England, one of the great warrior Kings, a great progressive monarch and the ideologist who created the concept of "England"!. Not technically and English monarch as he only ruled Wessex but is so important to the history of the country that he deserves a mention!. Henry I (Beauclerc) - established the earliest brackets of control that the monarch could have, limiting his own power, and he put limiters on the Kings power to issue taxes (though these were often ignored)!. His greatest effect on the office of Monarch however was to organize the treasury (he established the exchequer) and to make peace with the church after William Rufus allienated them!. Henry II (Curtmantle) - he weakened the power of the Earls and limited their power to have individual militaries!. He was one of the first kings to hold court with the local people and decide their fate in a trial!. The Assize of Clarendon was established by him and this would eventually grow into the process of Trial by Jury that we have today!. Edward I (Longshanks) - known as the Lawgiver and as Scotto-Rum-Malleus (Hammer of Scots)!. One of the great Warriors of the middle ages and no single enemy that opposed him could withstand his Plantagent fury!. He brought law and order to a the political upheaval of England after the poor reign of his father, he was the first Monarch to get Parliament to meet regularly, and conquered much of Wales and Scotland only to have much of his work undone by his useless son!. Elizabeth I - while not a great warrior or a great reformer she was a great leader and politician who managed to steer her country through one of the most dangerous threats it ever faces in the Spanish Armada and dealt masterfully with the many courtiers vying for her favor but this was all at the expense of her own happiness!. The Stuarts were all, on balance, pretty poor (though Charles II was a great patron of the arts) and from the time of William of Orange and Queen Mary II to the modern day Monarch the Kings and Queens were more or less figureheads who did not really do much!. The measure of a British Monarch from the Age of the Hapsburg Monarchs onwards is not in what they accomplish but in how well they held their position!. George III, until he went mad, was an honorable man who held the crown with great dignity but was vilified by the Colonist in their revolution and has been treated poorly by history as a result!. William IV in similar fashion was a dignified monarch who held the post with honor but because his reign was short he is mostly overlooked!. Victoria, George V, George VI and Elizabeth II have all been great dignified and honorable monarchs but all of those mentioned monarchs cannot really be compare simply because they are different types of manarchs!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Richard I (Richard the Lion-Hearted) -- considered among the most valiant of the European leaders of the Crusades Henry V -- a great military leader; scored a major victory over the French at the battle of Agincourt Elizabeth I -- presided over an era in which the English naval power greatly increased Hard to compare Victoria because by her time power was mostly concentrated in Parliament!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Henry I because he was a forerunner of Henries!. Look at how many Henries came after him!. Macbeth was pretty cool if you consider just Scotland!. Not Shakespeare's, but the real Macbeth!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Henry V Edward III Edward I George VI Look these up in Wikipedia!. Most of the rest were quite weak, did badly when monarch or only lasted a few years on the throneWww@QuestionHome@Com Kings and queens are lame!. Except for the one in the Robin Hood stories!. He seemed pretty cool!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Yeh, Elizabeth I, Victoria and Henry VIII!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Do you mean in size!?Www@QuestionHome@Com |