English Monarchs
Rulers Throughout England's History

It was that hero among English monarchs, Richard the Lionheart, who sparked my interest in English history when I was barely six years old.

The gallant crusader king, much romanticised in numerous versions of the tales of Robin Hood and by Sir Walter Scott in Ivanhoe and The Talisman, was a figure sure to stir the heart of a little girl.

For a very long time, I devoured everything I could find about Norman England, the Norman conquest and the Plantagenets in particular.

Later, my interest turned to the Wars of the Roses and the ill-fated House of York.

And with the perversity typical of teenagers, I carried a torch for the much-maligned Richard III, who died gallantly on the battlefield after coming close to defeating Henry Tudor and whose crown was (allegedly) found hanging on a thorn bush.

But the two Richards are not the only English monarchs with interesting stories attached to their names. Kingship in England stretches back over 1500 years into the dark ages after the Romans left these shores.

The line of English kings is not an unbroken one - invasions, murders and a high child mortality having seen to that - but it is nevertheless fascinating.

From a time when the strongest (and not just in the physical sense) contender to the throne was elected by his peers in the hope that he would be able to defend the country against its enemies, through a time when people believed in the god-given, hereditary right of kingship, to the time when an English king died on the scaffold, there is no historical period when English monarchs were not living their lives centre stage.

Many chose to occupy so exposed a position, some were prepared to commit murder for it, some were thrust into it unexpectedly, some might have wished to be elsewhere. But once there, they had no choice but to do the best they could.

Their exploits scandalised or entertained their subjects. They may have done harm where they meant to do good. They may have commanded loyalty or induced civil war, but they were never ignored.

And then, there were the contenders that never made it onto the throne.

England never had a King Eustace, a King Robert or (arguably) a King Arthur.

Some of the royal wannabes died young, while some were beaten to the finish line. But all of them can be classified as the monarchs that England never had.

English Monarchs before the Norman Conquest

When the Romans conquered England in 55 B.C. they found an orderly civilisation and well-tended villages, but no kings. The ancient Britons lived in clans, governed by chieftains until the invading Romans imposed their own brand of government.

The power vacuum left by the retreat of the Romans in 410 was eventually filled by the Anglo-Saxons, immigrants from the German lowlands, of which the Angles, Jutes and Saxons were the most prominent.

The newcomers pushed the native Britons into the far west of the islands and towards the north, beyond Hadrian's Wall, taking most of the land for themselves.

In their homeland these Germanic peoples knew no kings, but - once in England - they evolved the concept of elective overlordship to defend their new realms against other invaders, such as the Danes and Vikings.

They also brought their own language, Old English and in time, Britannia became the land of the Angles, England.

But while the islands now had a new name, there was as yet no single King of England. Seven sub-kingdoms - Essex, Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and Northumberland - had been formed by the newcomers, and their fortunes rose and fell often with the skill and determination of their rulers.

In the beginning, Northumberland and Kent, centres of the new Christian beliefs in England, were influential in English politics.

Later, around 800 AD, Mercia rose to prominence under Offa, who even married one of his daughters into the family of the emperor Charlemagne.

Later yet, the royal house of Wessex emerged triumphant and it is a Wessex king, Edmund, who first claims the title of King of all England.

At the turn of the first millennium, England had one of the most sophisticated monarchies in Europe, yet there were no fixed rules for the succession and the death of a sovereign often led to a period of unrest and infighting.

This weakened the country, turning it into a target for power and land-hungry usurpers. And while the threat of invasions by the Danes and Vikings first helped to unite the country under a single ruler, later the 'family feud' between the royal house and the earls of Wessex appears to have contributed directly to the Norman conquest which followed.

The Anglo-Saxon Kings of England

Norman England

Not only did the Normans impose new laws, taxes and rules, they also littered England with magnificent castles, churches and abbeys, many of which are still standing today, and brought a new language - Norman French.

For years to come, English monarchs - including my favourite Richard the Lionheart - spoke no English at all.

And William the Conqueror ordered the creation of the most amazingly detailed survey of the country when he commissioned the "Domesday Book."

So called, because - like on Judgement Day - nobody could argue its findings, the book is an inventory of all of England at the time of the conquest. As such, it gives us an amazing insight into the lives of the people of the period.

William's blood were not the most lucky of English monarchs. Henry I's only son died in a shipwreck, leading to a lengthy, bloody civil war which pitted Henry's daughter Matilda (Empress Maud) against her cousin Stephen for the crown of England. The contest was not resolved until Stephen, whose own son Eustace had died, offered to install Matilda's son Henry as his heir.

And from Henry then sprang England's longest ruling bloodline. The fierce, occasionally brilliant, volatile Plantagenets.

England's Norman Kings

More about the Normans and their impact on English life can be found on these pages:

• Norman England
• The Norman Conquest
• Norman Castles

Plantagenet England

The House of Plantagenet derives its name from the sprig of ginster (planta ginestra) that Geoffrey of Anjou, Empress Matilda's second husband, used to wear on his helmet when he rode into battle.

Not the most devoted of husbands, Geoffrey had no interest in assisting his wife to the throne of England. He had battles aplenty closer to home.

But Geoffrey and Matilda's eldest son Henry was lured by the beckoning crown into joining the civil strife that ravaged England for twenty years. And the Empress Matilda, one of the monarchs that England never had, nevertheless lived to see her son crowned as King of England.

Castle Acre Priory View This at Art.com

Henry II and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, have long headed my list of fantasy dinner party guests.

Temperamental and learned, by turns brutal and courtly, they built an empire stretching from Scotland to the Pyrenees.

Henry restored order to his war-ravaged realm, and streamlined government. And for a time, he was the envy of Europe.

But the empire assembled with such speed, fell apart almost as rapidly and by the time Henry's youngest son John held the throne, most of Henry's continental assets were lost and the English barons became restive and keen to assert their rights.

John was forced by his barons to grant the Magna Carta, his son Henry III was held prisoner while Simon de Montfort established a parliament and it was not until Edward I came to rule, that England again had a strong central monarchy.

But a genius for administration and government is not hereditary and a crown is a glittering prize for anyone brave enough to reach for it. And so followed a period of revolts, unrests, wars and regicide - culminating in that blood bath of the late Middle Ages: the Wars of the Roses.

The turbulent Plantagenets ruled England for 330 years, longer than any other family. But their luck finally ran out at the Battle of Bosworth where Richard III, the last Plantagenet king, faced his maker.

The Plantagenet Kings of England