BRITISH KINGS AND QUEENS I
A long time ago, Britain had a lot of Kings. Celtic kings and princes were the rulers of Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and the rest of Britain was divided up between tribes of Anglo-Saxons.
Each tribe had its own king. On some occasions, one of those kings became more powerful than the others, and for a short time he was the chief king of all the tribes. Then in early 800s, bands of Danish Vikings from the north of Europe started to attack Britain. In 878, Alfred the Great, who was the Saxon King of Wessex, won a great battle against the Danes and forced them to agree to peace. A huge part of Britain was divided into Danish land (known as the Danelaw) and Anglo-Saxon Land (known as England).
As time went by, the Danes and the Saxons learned to live together and in 924 Athelstan (Alfred's grandson) became king of both Saxon and Danish lands. Athelstan is frequently known as “the first King of England”. However, after 60 years more or less, the Viking raids began again and only finished when the Danish King, Canute, the Great, became King of England in 1016, and ruled until 1035.
Canute’s son, Harald I, Harefoot, became Regent and King of England in 1035, although the legitimate heir to the throne was his half-brother, Hardicanute, who was then King of Denmark. Harald Harefoot ruled until he died in 1040, just when his half-brother was preparing to invade England to claim his rightful crown.
When Hardicanute claimed the throne of England, he was elected king, and became known as Canute II. However, he was disliked and his reign was short and very unsuccessful. He ruled from 1040 until 1042, when he died of convulsions at a drinking party in June.
After that, two more Saxon kings would rule England:
* Edward III, the Confessor, who ordered the construction of the Cathedral of Westminster, where all the Kings and Queens of England should be crowned, and who ruled England from 1042 until 1066.
* Harold II who ruled just for a few months before the normans, led by William I, the Conqueror, defeated him and the English on October 14, 1066 at Hastings. William the Conqueror became king of England until 1087.
From then on, we can find a long list of Kings and Queens of England, and from 1603 on, of the United Kingdom. Here you are a list of the Houses and lines they belonged to (all the Kings and Queens will be briefly dealt with on the blog in short).
Timeline of the Kings and Queens of England from 1066 to 1603
The Normans (1066 - 1154)
Plantagenets (1154 - 1399)
The House of Lancaster (1399 - 1461)
The House of York (1461 - 1485)
The Tudors (1485 -1603)
Kings and Queens of the United Kingdom from 1603 to the present day
The Stuarts (1603 - 1649)
The Commonwealth (Oliver Cromwell and Richard Cromwell (1649-1660)
The Stuarts (1660 - 1714)
The House of Hanovarians (1714 -1901)
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1901-1910)
The Windsors (1910 - Today)
NOTE: The only time when there was no King or Queen in Britain was between 1649 and 1660, when the country was a republic. This period is known as The Commonwealth, and the rulers were Oliver Cromwell, who ruled the country from 1649, when Charles I was executed, to 1658 (he governed the country not as King, but as Lord Protector of the Realm); and his third son, Richard Cromwell, who ruled between 1658 and 1659. On May 29, 1660, the monarchy was restored in England with Charles II.
