List of English monarchs in the context of Anglo-Saxons

Mary I (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558), also known as Mary Tudor, was Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 and Queen of Spain as the wife of King Philip II from January 1556 until her death in 1558. She made vigorous attempts to reverse the English Reformation, which had begun during the reign of her father, King Henry VIII. Her attempt to restore to the Church the property confiscated in the previous two reigns was largely thwarted by Parliament but, during her five-year reign, more than 280 religious dissenters were burned at the stake in what became known as the Marian persecutions, leading later commentators to label her "Bloody Mary".

Mary was the only surviving child of Henry VIII by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. She was declared illegitimate and barred from the line of succession following the annulment of her parents' marriage in 1533, but was restored via the Third Succession Act 1543. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded their father in 1547 at the age of nine. When Edward became terminally ill in 1553, he attempted to remove Mary from the line of succession because he supposed, correctly, that she would reverse the Protestant reforms that had taken place during his reign. Upon his death, leading politicians proclaimed their Protestant cousin, Lady Jane Grey, as queen instead. Mary speedily assembled a force in East Anglia and deposed Jane.

Anglicisation or anglicization is a form of cultural assimilation whereby something non-English becomes assimilated into or influenced by the culture of England. It can be sociocultural, in which a non-English place adopts the English language or culture; institutional, in which institutions are influenced by those of England or the United Kingdom; or linguistic, in which a non-English term or name is altered due to the cultural influence of the English language. It can also refer to the influence of English soft power, which includes media, cuisine, popular culture, technology, business practices, laws and political systems.

Anglicisation first occurred in the British Isles, when Celts under the sovereignty of the king of England underwent a process of anglicisation. The Celtic language decline in England was mostly complete by 1000 AD, but continued in Cornwall and other regions until the 18th century. In Scotland, the decline of Scottish Gaelic began during the reign of Malcolm III of Scotland to the point where by the mid-14th century the Scots language was the dominant national language among the Scottish people. In Wales, however, the Welsh language has continued to be spoken by a large part of the country's population due to language revival measures aimed at countering historical anglicisation measures such as the Welsh not.

Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603) was the Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. She was the last and longest reigning monarch of the House of Tudor. Her eventful reign, and its effect on history and culture, gave name to the Elizabethan era.

Elizabeth was the only surviving child of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. When Elizabeth was two years old, her parents' marriage was annulled, her mother was executed, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. Henry restored her to the line of succession when she was 10. After Henry's death in 1547, Elizabeth's younger half-brother Edward VI ruled until his own death in 1553, bequeathing the crown to a Protestant cousin, Lady Jane Grey, and ignoring the claims of his two half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, despite statutes to the contrary. Edward's will was quickly set aside and the Catholic Mary became queen, deposing Jane. During Mary's reign, Elizabeth was imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels.

The duke of Aquitaine (Occitan: Duc d'Aquitània, French: Duc d'Aquitaine, IPA: [dyk dakitɛn]) was the ruler of the medieval region of Aquitaine (not to be confused with modern-day Aquitaine) under the supremacy of Frankish, English, and later French kings.

As successor states of the Visigothic Kingdom (418–721), Aquitania (Aquitaine) and Languedoc (Toulouse) inherited both Visigothic law and Roman Law, which together allowed women more rights than their contemporaries would enjoy until the 20th century. Particularly under the Liber Judiciorum as codified in 642/643 and expanded by the Code of Recceswinth in 653, women could inherit land and titles and manage their holdings independently from their husbands or male relations, dispose of their property in legal wills if they had no heirs, represent themselves and bear witness in court from the age of 14, and arrange for their own marriages after the age of 20. As a consequence, male-preference primogeniture was the practiced succession law for the nobility.

Robert I of Normandy (22 June 1000 – July 1035), also known as Robert the Magnificent and by other names, was a Norman noble of the House of Normandy who ruled as duke of Normandy from 1027 until his death in 1035. He was the son of Duke Richard II; the brother of Duke Richard III, against whom he unsuccessfully revolted; and the father of Duke William who became the first Norman king of England after winning the Battle of Hastings in 1066. During his reign, Robert quarrelled with the church—including his uncle Robert, archbishop of Rouen—and meddled in the disorder in Flanders. He was finally reconciled with his uncle and the church, restoring some property and undertaking a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, during which he died.

Edward the Martyr (c. 962 – 18 March 978) was King of the English from 8 July 975 until he was killed in 978. He was the eldest son of King Edgar (r. 959–975). On Edgar's death, the succession to the throne was contested between Edward's supporters and those of his younger half-brother, the future King Æthelred the Unready. As they were both children, it is unlikely that they played an active role in the dispute, which was probably between rival family alliances. Edward's principal supporters were Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Æthelwine, Ealdorman of East Anglia, while Æthelred was backed by his mother, Queen Ælfthryth and her friend Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester. The dispute was quickly settled. Edward was chosen as king and Æthelred received the lands traditionally allocated to the king's eldest son in compensation.

Edgar had been a strong and overbearing king and a supporter of the monastic reform movement. He had forced the lay nobility and secular clergy to surrender land and sell it at low prices to the monasteries. Æthelwold had been the most active and ruthless in seizing land for his monasteries with Edgar's assistance. The nobles took advantage of Edgar's death to get their lands back, mainly by legal actions but sometimes by force. The leading magnates were split into two factions, the supporters of Ælfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia, and Æthelwine, who both seized some monastic lands which they believed belonged to them, but also estates claimed by their rivals. The disputes never led to warfare.

Lady Jane Grey (1536/1537 – 12 February 1554), also known as Lady Jane Dudley after her marriage, and nicknamed as the "Nine Days Queen", was an English noblewoman who was proclaimed Queen of England and Ireland on 10 July 1553 and reigned until she was deposed by the Privy Council of England, which proclaimed her cousin, Mary I, as the new Queen on 19 July. Jane was later beheaded for high treason.

Jane was the great-granddaughter of Henry VII (through his youngest daughter, Mary Tudor), the grandniece of Henry VIII, and the first cousin once removed of Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. Under the will of Henry VIII, Jane was in line to the throne after her cousins. She had a humanist education and a reputation as one of the most learned young women of her day. In May 1553, she was married to Lord Guildford Dudley, a younger son of Edward VI's chief minister, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. In June, the dying Edward VI wrote his will, nominating Jane and her male heirs as successors to the Crown, in part because his half-sister Mary was Catholic, whereas Jane was a committed Protestant and would support the reformed Church of England, whose foundation Edward laid. The will removed both of his half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, from the line of succession because of their illegitimacy, subverting their lawful claims under the Third Succession Act. Through the Duke of Northumberland, Edward's letters patent in favour of Jane were signed by the entire privy council, bishops, and other notables.

In the First Folio (1623), the plays of William Shakespeare were in three categories: (i) comedies, (ii) histories, and (iii) tragedies. Alongside the history plays of his Renaissance playwright contemporaries, the histories of Shakespeare define the theatrical genre of history plays. The historical plays also are biographies of the English kings of the previous four centuries, and include the plays King John, Edward III, and Henry VIII, and a continual sequence of eight plays known as the Henriad, for the protagonist Prince Hal, the future King Henry V of England.

The chronology of Shakespeare's plays indicates that the first tetralogy was written in the early 1590s, and discusses the politics of the Wars of the Roses; the four plays are Henry VI, parts I, II, and III, and The Tragedy of Richard the Third. The second tetralogy was completed in 1599, and comprises the history plays Richard II, Henry IV, parts I and II, and Henry V.

Anne (6 February 1665 – 1 August 1714) was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 8 March 1702, and Queen of Great Britain and Ireland following the ratification of the Acts of Union 1707 merging the kingdoms of England and Scotland, until her death in 1714.

Anne was born during the reign of her uncle King Charles II. Her father was Charles's younger brother and heir presumptive, James, whose suspected Roman Catholicism was unpopular in England. On Charles's instructions, Anne and her elder sister Mary were raised as Anglicans. Mary married her Dutch Protestant cousin, William III of Orange, in 1677, and Anne married Prince George of Denmark, a Lutheran, in 1683. On Charles's death in 1685, James succeeded to the throne, but three years later he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Mary and William became joint monarchs. Although the sisters had been close, disagreements over Anne's finances, status, and choice of acquaintances arose shortly after Mary's accession and they became estranged. William and Mary had no children. After Mary's death in 1694, William reigned alone until his own death in 1702, when Anne succeeded him.

The Palace of Whitehall – also spelled White Hall – at Westminster was the main residence of the English monarchs from 1530 until 1698, when most of its structures, with the notable exception of Inigo Jones's Banqueting House of 1622, were destroyed by fire. Henry VIII moved the royal residence to Whitehall after the old royal apartments at the nearby Palace of Westminster were themselves destroyed by fire. Although the Whitehall palace has not survived, the area where it was located is still called Whitehall and has remained a centre of the British government.

Whitehall was at one time the largest palace in Europe, with more than 1,500 rooms, before itself being overtaken by the expanding Palace of Versailles, which was to reach 2,400 rooms. At its most expansive, the palace extended over much of the area bordered by Northumberland Avenue in the north; to Downing Street and nearly to Derby Gate in the south; and from roughly the elevations of the current buildings facing Horse Guards Road in the west, to the then banks of the River Thames in the east (the construction of Victoria Embankment has since reclaimed more land from the Thames)—a total of about 23 acres (9.3 ha). It was about 710 yards (650 m) from Westminster Abbey.

The history of the English monarchy covers the reigns of English kings and queens from the 9th century to 1707. The English monarchy traces its origins to the petty kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, which consolidated into the Kingdom of England by the 10th century. Anglo-Saxon England had an elective monarchy, but this was replaced by primogeniture after the Norman Conquest in 1066. The Norman and Plantagenet dynasties expanded their authority throughout the British Isles, creating the Lordship of Ireland in 1177 and conquering Wales in 1283.

The monarchy's gradual evolution into a constitutional and ceremonial monarchy is a major theme in the historical development of the British constitution. In 1215, King John agreed to limit his own powers over his subjects according to the terms of Magna Carta. To gain the consent of the political community, English kings began summoning Parliaments to approve taxation and to enact statutes. Gradually, Parliament's authority expanded at the expense of royal power.

Mary II (30 April 1662 – 28 December 1694) was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland with her husband, King William III and II, from 1689 until her death in 1694. She was also Princess of Orange following her marriage on 4 November 1677. Her joint reign with William over Britain is known as that of William and Mary.

Mary was born during the reign of her uncle King Charles II. She was the eldest daughter of James, Duke of York (the future James II of England), and his first wife, Anne Hyde. Mary and her sister Anne were raised as Anglicans at the behest of Charles II, although their parents both converted to Roman Catholicism. Charles lacked legitimate children, making Mary second in the line of succession. At the age of 15, she married her cousin William of Orange, a Protestant. Charles died in 1685 and James became king, making Mary heir presumptive. James's attempts at rule by decree and the birth of his son from a second marriage, James Francis Edward (later known as "the Old Pretender"), led to his deposition in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the adoption of the English Bill of Rights.

William III and II (William Henry; Dutch: Willem Hendrik; 4 November 1650 – 8 March 1702), also known as William of Orange, was the sovereign Prince of Orange from birth, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic from 1672, and King of England, Ireland, and Scotland from 1689 until his death in 1702. He ruled England, Scotland, and Ireland with his wife, Queen Mary II, and their joint reign is known as that of William and Mary.

William was the only child of William II, Prince of Orange, and Mary, Princess Royal, the daughter of King Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland. His father died before his birth, making William III the prince of Orange from birth. In 1677, he married his first cousin Mary, the elder daughter of his maternal uncle James, Duke of York (later King James II).