Greetings, and welcome to my most ambitious and lengthy set of rankings yet – the three part rankings of the Monarchs of England. First off, let me set some ground rules:
42. Edward V
Sorry Ed. You only ruled for 78 days while you were twelve years old and were never even crowned. I know that’s mainly the fault of your uncle (and ironically named “Lord Protector”) Richard III, who had you put in the tower and murdered so that he could become king. So while it’s not really your fault that your reign was so mediocre, that’s just the cards you were dealt. I mean I feel bad for writing so little about you, but then again you kind of weren’t ever really the king.
41. Empress Matilda
Well Matilda, the fact that most encyclopedic entries for your reign have “(disputed)” written after your name indicates we’re not sure if you were ever actually even ruler of England. You wrangled power away from Stephen after you captured him at the Battle of Lincoln, but were really only able to hang onto it for about 200 days before you traded him for Robert of Gloucester and fled from London without ever having a coronation. It’s really hard to move very high up the rankings if you couldn’t even last long enough for a coronation ceremony. I mean even Starscream made it through part of a ceremony. A good effort, but I don’t think England was quite yet ready for “Girl Power” in 1141, despite the fact that your claim to the throne was probably much more legitimate than Stephen’s. Still, she had the title “Empress,” so that’s pretty cool, right? No English monarch would take the Emperor/Empress title again until Victoria.
40. Edward II
Ed 2.0 is just a universal symbol for a terrible monarch. You might recall him from Braveheart as the wimpy little bitch who has his advisor/boyfriend thrown out the window. And while Braveheart might be the least historically accurate film of all time (Edward II fathered at least five children with two women, so he couldn’t have been that gay), historical consensus agrees that Edward II was pretty terrible and incompetent. Needless to say, his reign can only be described as disastrous. His Lords were constantly rebelling against him, he lost to the Scots at Bannockburn, King Charles IV seized his lands in France, and eventually his own wife led a plot with her lover Roger Mortimer to force him to abdicate in favor of their son. He was then locked up in Berkeley Castle and promptly murdered. Nobody quite knows how he was killed, but he was so unpopular that people just assumed that he had a hot poker stuck up his ass until he died. And so that pretty much became the story that people went with for centuries. Sorry fans of World Without End, he didn’t secretly go on to live under a second identity and redeem himself. That’s just nonsense there.
39. Edward VIII
Man, there are a lot of Edwards at the bottom of this list. This is really not representing my name well. This 20th Century Nazi-loving douche playboy couldn’t even reign for all of 1936 before he abdicated to hook up with an American chick who he started a relationship with while she was still married. Some people want to paint this as a beautiful story of love triumphing over all the odds – he gave up the crown to be with the woman he adored. Whatever. My assessment is more like, “he was far shittier than a 16 year old girl who ruled for nine days.”
38. Charles I
Charles I was a total dick. He constantly alienated both the nobility and commoners with his crazy and failed policies, especially related to religion and his half-assed wars in Scotland. But his biggest problem was that he was a dick his to his Parliament. But that in itself isn’t enough to make someone the fifth worst monarch ever. Lots of kings were dicks to Parliament. However, this guy once dismissed Parliament for 12 years without ever calling them back into session. Which would be a badass move if he hadn’t forgotten that Parliament had retained the main taxation and revenue collection powers for the country for the last, oh, 400 plus years. Given his other piss poor administration skills, he obviously also sucked at money management and went broke. So he finally called Parliament back in order to shake them down for more money. He burst into the Parliament building, trying to get them to obey his will because of his divine right. When they didn’t obey, he tried to have several members of Parliament arrested. One of those members of Parliament was a dude named “Oliver Cromwell.” If you know anything about English history, you can see where this is going. Not long after, in the very same Parliament where Charles I burst in and tried to have those members of Parliament arrested, it was he who was put on trial, found guilty, and sentenced to die. He was executed out on Whitehall, across the street from where today unknowing tourists line up to watch the changing of the Horse Guards, completely oblivious to the fact that England was once so pissed off at their king that they beheaded him right there. Charles I was such a dick that the British Monarchy almost came to a complete end because of him. England said, “Ugh, kings are terrible,” and became a commonwealth for 11 years after his execution.
37. Henry VI
This dude was King of England from 1422 to 1461, and again from 1470 to 1471. The fact that he was king twice should, in itself, should tell you a whole lot. But most importantly, it should tell you that he was enough of a fuckup to lose his throne at least once. Well guess what? He actually lost it both times. I mean it didn’t help Henry VI that he was living in the shadow of his awesome warrior king father, Henry V. Nor did it help that he came to the throne when he was nine months old. But those aren’t good excuses because other monarchs have been successful under similar circumstances. When he became old enough to rule on his own, he essentially abandoned typical kingly duties like fighting in war and instead let some of his crappy incompetent friends run the country. Which I guess is fine if you have a booming economy and live in an age of unprecedented peace and security. Alas, Henry VI instead lived in a time when there was a complete collapse in law and order, rampant corruption, troubled crown finances, and a steady loss of England’s territories in France. When the Duke of York returned from Ireland to challenge him, he had a complete mental breakdown and went cuckoo for cocoa puffs. He was eventually forced to flee to Scotland with his wife as his rival from the House of York, Edward IV, took the throne. Henry’s wife, the badass Queen Margaret, was actually much more competent and led a resistance movement that would eventually put him back on the throne. But that restoration only lasted for six months before he was deposed again, and this time he was imprisoned. Not long after his imprisonment, he died in mysterious circumstances as imprisoned kings and princes were wont to do in this time period.
36. James II
James II was the son of that total fuckup Charles I, so incompetence was already directly in his blood (although that gene skipped his older brother, Charles II). First James II had to deal with the Monmouth Rebellion, led by his nephew, and afterwards ordered a standing army to prevent another rebellion. That doesn’t sound that crazy, but actually it was something that was totally unprecedented in peacetime throughout all of English history prior to that point. Well, this only pissed off the people of England even more, not that they liked him much before that. And while Parliament initially supported James II in a number of his policies, they soon turned on him too. After that, James II decided to disband Parliament and demand that they never meet again in his reign. Because dicking with Parliament worked so well for his dad. Eventually, nobody could take his shit anymore and his own daughter, Princess Mary, sailed over from the Netherlands with her husband William to come over get him to forcibly abdicate the throne. His other daughter, the future Queen Anne, also betrayed him too. If your own children can’t stand your ass, how is the country supposed to like you? Getting rid of him was seen as so damn amazing that to this day it’s still known as the “Glorious Revolution.” By now you should be noticing a pattern in my list. If you don’t rule for long enough to even be crowned, of if you’re forced to abdicate from the throne because you suck so hard, there is a good chance you’re a pretty worthless monarch.
35. Stephen
Stephen’s reign coincided with a terrible civil war period in England known as “the Anarchy.” As previously noted, his rival was the Empress Matilda, who you already saw was pretty low in the royal rankings. But that’s not to say that Stephen was much better. For one, Matilda was the rightful heir to Henry I. Henry even got Stephen to agree to that all in public and everything. But when Henry died, Stephen called backsies and made up a story that Henry super secretly really wanted him to be the next king all along, for reals. He got the support of a large number of nobles and the Pope, but essentially his entire reign was defined by raging chaos, disorder, and civil war with Matilda and the barons loyal to her. History essentially comes out with a “meh” analysis of him, with the general conclusion that he was a good enough military commander, but had poor strategic judgment that ultimately undermined his rule. And poor Steven gets to be the monarch who ranks lowest without either (1) never being crowned or (2) abdicating, either willingly or forcefully.
34. George I
So how the hell did Georg Ludwig, a 54 German man and the son of somebody named “Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg,” become the King of freaking England? Well, that’s pretty complicated but it rests in the fact that there were over 50 much closer relatives (including actual English ones) who could have been heir to the throne after Anne… but the 1701 Act of Settlement, much like a country club in the Deep South, said “Sorry, no Catholics allowed!” Do you remember the flimsy premise of the 1991 film King Ralph, when a fat, slobby lounge singer winds up being the heir to the British throne? Well, delete the “flimsy premise” part of that sentence from your mind because that actually happened. George I is pretty much just the real life German King Ralph. George’s mother was Sophia of the Palatinate. Sophia’s mother was Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia. And Elizabeth’s father was James I. Got it? Well, I don’t actually care if you do or not. But if you want to talk about mediocre, this guy ruled for over 12 years and I really have nothing to say about him. He was (rightfully) ridiculed by his British subjects and largely thought to be wooden, uncouth, dull, awkward, unintelligent, and “too damn German.” He was so un-English of an “English” king (yeah, I know… technically “British” at this point) that he actually went on a trip back to Germany, died there, and they just buried him there in Germany rather than make even the slightest attempt to bring the body of the King of England back to England.
33. Mary I
Known as “Bloody Mary,” her most lasting legacy is that she shares a name with a drink that is only consumed by businessmen in first class on airplanes or by White people at brunch. Other than that, the eldest daughter of Henry VIII most famously enjoyed rounding up Protestants to burn them at the stake or behead them. I mean I don’t know if she actually enjoyed it, but she did it. Although her short rule eventually cooled down with all the beheading stuff, she still tried to roll back religious reforms to make Catholicism dominant when it was way too late for that comeback. But most stupidly in her efforts to reinforce Catholicism, she married Prince Philip of Spain under an act where Philip was to be called "King of England" – which led to great outrage and fear across England that it would be made subservient to the Hapsburg Empire. And then she went on to sort of become a laughing stock by constantly having false pregnancies. It became so much of a thing that students are most likely to hear their first fart joke as a part of official academic coursework in a Tudor England class given that Giovanni Michieli, the Venetian ambassador to England, famously joked that Mary’s pregnancies were more likely to “end in wind rather than anything else.” Fart jokes and tomato juice with vodka, this is your royal legacy Mary.
32. John
John is mainly remembered as that usurper jerk who tries to steal the crown away from his brother Richard the Lionheart in most Robin Hood movies and TV shows. And that depiction is 100% right because he absolutely was a usurper jerk. When Richard was arrested and jailed by the Holy Roman Emperor on the way back from the Third Crusade, John tried to pay the Emperor a crapload of gold in order that he just hold Richard in prison for even longer. Talk about brotherly love! And when Richard eventually returned and kicked John’s ass up in Nottingham (yeah, that part of the Robin Hood legend is actually based in fact), Richy instantly forgave John and was like, “Oh, he’s just a kid who made a mistake!” Only John was a grown-ass man around 30, so he was “just being a kid” in the same way that Ryan Lochte was just being a kid at the Rio gas station. But John eventually did become king on his own when Richard decided to accessorize his left shoulder with a crossbow bolt and gangrene. And that’s when John had to go and completely castrate the absolute power of the monarchy by bowing to the will of his barons at Runnymede and agreeing to the Magna Carta. And while I suppose that the Magna Carta is a good thing in the long run, what with it being the first important step in a long process that eventually led to constitutions and democracy, it totally sucks for John that he’s the one who was sort of the beginning of the end for the king being able to do whatever the hell he wanted. And if no other English monarch ever wants to use your name again (despite it being the most common name in the English language) because it’s tainted by your stench, there’s a good chance that you sucked. Oh, and did I mention that he got excommunicated by the Pope? Because that happened.
31. Lady Jane Grey
How great of a legacy can you establish if you only rule for nine days? It’s times like this when you really need to look at quality of rule rather than quantity, right? Well even then, nine days wasn’t enough time for a 16 year old girl who was just a confused political pawn to other power hungry assholes to do much. As often happens with pawns in a game of chess, this pawn was sacrificed when the Privy Council changed their minds about Edward VI’s wishes about her being his heir. She was promptly executed by her successor (Bloody Mary) for High Treason for pretty much no good reason at all. But should royal rankings be based on what happens AFTER your rule? What if the only legacy of a martyred innocent 16 year old is that she was a martyred innocent 16 year old? Jane Grey became a Protestant heroine for centuries after her death, and she emerged a romantic and tragic figure in popular culture including a number of novels, plays and even a frigging Helena Bonham Carter movie. Although Edward V had a similar terrible fate as one of the “Princes in the Tower,” he doesn’t even approach the epic legacy that poor Jane does. And that epic legacy after her death makes her rise well above several others who ruled for much longer but did shitty jobs during their reign. She deserves to be ranked above that bitch who had her executed. Is it unfair to Edward V that he had essentially the same tragic circumstances as Jane and yet he ranks as the worst monarch in my list while she’s several notches above him? Well sure, I guess it is a bit unfair. But maybe I’ll reassess the situation at a later point when they decide to make an awesome Edward V movie with Helena Bonham Carter. Until then…
30. Edward VI
We’re coincidentally working in reverse chronological order here for a bit. Which might surprise you, since wasn’t the Tudor dynasty supposed to be great or something instead of all in the "worst kings" section? Not really. The Tudors were famous, but other than Elizabeth they were sort of just bad. And oh Edward VI, continuing the tradition of mediocre Edwards. This sickly boy and only legitimate son of Henry VIII never had much of a chance. He had slight scoliosis of the spine, suffered from quartan fever (a form of malaria) that nearly killed him as a young child, became king at only 9 years old, then soon after suffered from another mysterious illness that almost killed him in 1550, got measles AND smallpox in 1552, and then finally succumbed to another fever in 1553 (possibly tuberculosis) that killed him at age 15 after a grand total of 6 years and 159 days on the throne. And those 6 years and 159 days weren’t exactly filled with great achievements either. For one, he never really got to rule on his own because he never reached the age of majority. His reign was marked by economic problems and social unrest that, in 1549, erupted into open riots and rebellion. He was also involved in “the Rough Wooing,” an awesomely named mini-war between England and Scotland where England kept doing douchey things to Scotland in an attempt to force a marriage alliance between Edward and the infant Mary, Queen of Scots. And the final gift of his terrible reign was a succession crisis that would lead to the beheading of 16 year old girl. Fun!
29. Henry VIII
When this ruthless, obese, gout-ridden, serial-killing, ginger sociopath wasn’t too busy executing his wives, he spent his free time executing his closest advisors and friends when they didn’t agree with him. Imagine if a petulant, tantrum-throwing little bitch like Robin Arryn grew up and was made king and you’ve essentially got Henry VIII. While other Protestant churches have some inspiring story about divine inspiration to separate them from the dogma of the Catholic Church, the whole basis for the Anglican Church is pretty much, “Well, Henry wanted to bang a younger girl and the Pope said no, so he created a new Church with himself as the head and said yes.” And that was accompanied by the Dissolution of the Monasteries, where essentially every ancient old Church and shrine in the country was destroyed. This makes Henry VIII like the greatest criminal in history to the UNESCO World Heritage Time Police Division, which don’t actually exist (as far as I know). Remember how the Taliban blew up the Buddha statues? Henry VIII did exactly that, but times 625 different monastic sites. So that he could fill his government coffers in order to… I dunno… probably execute some more wives and friends? And all of his wife swapping was to accomplish the goal of a male heir, something he couldn’t do well as beyond his daughters Mary and Elizabeth he only produced the sickly and doomed Edward VI to succeed him. Yes, it was definitely all those wives’ faults that you were an impotent gouty bitch who couldn’t shoot out Y chromosomes, Henry. And this is why we can never have a ginger King again (sorry Prince Harry, the further you fall down the succession line the better). Some people who have tried to list England’s greatest kings have actually included Henry VIII in those lists, which is just stupid and wrong. That’s confusing “famous” with “good.” Henry VIII was just an awful human being whose inherent flaws and quest for young booty led to centuries of religious strife.
- I’m only ranking post-1066 Norman Invasion Monarchs. So fans of Æthelstan, Sweyn Forkbeard, and Cnut just need to fucking deal with it.
- Sometimes I may improperly use the terms “England,” “Britain,” or “United Kingdom” interchangeably or inaccurately. Note that I do inherently understand the differences between these terms, but I don’t care enough to always pick the right one. Usually I just default to saying “England” (like I just did above), even when talking about post-Acts of Union monarchs.
- I’m counting and ranking a total of 42 reigns. Is that different from your count? I don’t care, but just to clarify the rules I’m using: Matilda counts, Louis VIII of France’s brief interlude at St Paul's cathedral doesn’t count, Jane Grey counts, Phillip II of Spain doesn’t count despite Queen Mary’s Marriage Act, the Lord Protectors of the Interregnum don’t count because they are inherently not monarchs, and I rank the reign of William and Mary jointly as one reign rather than separately.
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He never got a chance to be anything other
than the worst
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Sorry Ed. You only ruled for 78 days while you were twelve years old and were never even crowned. I know that’s mainly the fault of your uncle (and ironically named “Lord Protector”) Richard III, who had you put in the tower and murdered so that he could become king. So while it’s not really your fault that your reign was so mediocre, that’s just the cards you were dealt. I mean I feel bad for writing so little about you, but then again you kind of weren’t ever really the king.
41. Empress Matilda
Well Matilda, the fact that most encyclopedic entries for your reign have “(disputed)” written after your name indicates we’re not sure if you were ever actually even ruler of England. You wrangled power away from Stephen after you captured him at the Battle of Lincoln, but were really only able to hang onto it for about 200 days before you traded him for Robert of Gloucester and fled from London without ever having a coronation. It’s really hard to move very high up the rankings if you couldn’t even last long enough for a coronation ceremony. I mean even Starscream made it through part of a ceremony. A good effort, but I don’t think England was quite yet ready for “Girl Power” in 1141, despite the fact that your claim to the throne was probably much more legitimate than Stephen’s. Still, she had the title “Empress,” so that’s pretty cool, right? No English monarch would take the Emperor/Empress title again until Victoria.
40. Edward II
Ed 2.0 is just a universal symbol for a terrible monarch. You might recall him from Braveheart as the wimpy little bitch who has his advisor/boyfriend thrown out the window. And while Braveheart might be the least historically accurate film of all time (Edward II fathered at least five children with two women, so he couldn’t have been that gay), historical consensus agrees that Edward II was pretty terrible and incompetent. Needless to say, his reign can only be described as disastrous. His Lords were constantly rebelling against him, he lost to the Scots at Bannockburn, King Charles IV seized his lands in France, and eventually his own wife led a plot with her lover Roger Mortimer to force him to abdicate in favor of their son. He was then locked up in Berkeley Castle and promptly murdered. Nobody quite knows how he was killed, but he was so unpopular that people just assumed that he had a hot poker stuck up his ass until he died. And so that pretty much became the story that people went with for centuries. Sorry fans of World Without End, he didn’t secretly go on to live under a second identity and redeem himself. That’s just nonsense there.
39. Edward VIII
Man, there are a lot of Edwards at the bottom of this list. This is really not representing my name well. This 20th Century Nazi-loving douche playboy couldn’t even reign for all of 1936 before he abdicated to hook up with an American chick who he started a relationship with while she was still married. Some people want to paint this as a beautiful story of love triumphing over all the odds – he gave up the crown to be with the woman he adored. Whatever. My assessment is more like, “he was far shittier than a 16 year old girl who ruled for nine days.”
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| Seen here with head, before they decided to remove it |
Charles I was a total dick. He constantly alienated both the nobility and commoners with his crazy and failed policies, especially related to religion and his half-assed wars in Scotland. But his biggest problem was that he was a dick his to his Parliament. But that in itself isn’t enough to make someone the fifth worst monarch ever. Lots of kings were dicks to Parliament. However, this guy once dismissed Parliament for 12 years without ever calling them back into session. Which would be a badass move if he hadn’t forgotten that Parliament had retained the main taxation and revenue collection powers for the country for the last, oh, 400 plus years. Given his other piss poor administration skills, he obviously also sucked at money management and went broke. So he finally called Parliament back in order to shake them down for more money. He burst into the Parliament building, trying to get them to obey his will because of his divine right. When they didn’t obey, he tried to have several members of Parliament arrested. One of those members of Parliament was a dude named “Oliver Cromwell.” If you know anything about English history, you can see where this is going. Not long after, in the very same Parliament where Charles I burst in and tried to have those members of Parliament arrested, it was he who was put on trial, found guilty, and sentenced to die. He was executed out on Whitehall, across the street from where today unknowing tourists line up to watch the changing of the Horse Guards, completely oblivious to the fact that England was once so pissed off at their king that they beheaded him right there. Charles I was such a dick that the British Monarchy almost came to a complete end because of him. England said, “Ugh, kings are terrible,” and became a commonwealth for 11 years after his execution.
37. Henry VI
This dude was King of England from 1422 to 1461, and again from 1470 to 1471. The fact that he was king twice should, in itself, should tell you a whole lot. But most importantly, it should tell you that he was enough of a fuckup to lose his throne at least once. Well guess what? He actually lost it both times. I mean it didn’t help Henry VI that he was living in the shadow of his awesome warrior king father, Henry V. Nor did it help that he came to the throne when he was nine months old. But those aren’t good excuses because other monarchs have been successful under similar circumstances. When he became old enough to rule on his own, he essentially abandoned typical kingly duties like fighting in war and instead let some of his crappy incompetent friends run the country. Which I guess is fine if you have a booming economy and live in an age of unprecedented peace and security. Alas, Henry VI instead lived in a time when there was a complete collapse in law and order, rampant corruption, troubled crown finances, and a steady loss of England’s territories in France. When the Duke of York returned from Ireland to challenge him, he had a complete mental breakdown and went cuckoo for cocoa puffs. He was eventually forced to flee to Scotland with his wife as his rival from the House of York, Edward IV, took the throne. Henry’s wife, the badass Queen Margaret, was actually much more competent and led a resistance movement that would eventually put him back on the throne. But that restoration only lasted for six months before he was deposed again, and this time he was imprisoned. Not long after his imprisonment, he died in mysterious circumstances as imprisoned kings and princes were wont to do in this time period.
36. James II
James II was the son of that total fuckup Charles I, so incompetence was already directly in his blood (although that gene skipped his older brother, Charles II). First James II had to deal with the Monmouth Rebellion, led by his nephew, and afterwards ordered a standing army to prevent another rebellion. That doesn’t sound that crazy, but actually it was something that was totally unprecedented in peacetime throughout all of English history prior to that point. Well, this only pissed off the people of England even more, not that they liked him much before that. And while Parliament initially supported James II in a number of his policies, they soon turned on him too. After that, James II decided to disband Parliament and demand that they never meet again in his reign. Because dicking with Parliament worked so well for his dad. Eventually, nobody could take his shit anymore and his own daughter, Princess Mary, sailed over from the Netherlands with her husband William to come over get him to forcibly abdicate the throne. His other daughter, the future Queen Anne, also betrayed him too. If your own children can’t stand your ass, how is the country supposed to like you? Getting rid of him was seen as so damn amazing that to this day it’s still known as the “Glorious Revolution.” By now you should be noticing a pattern in my list. If you don’t rule for long enough to even be crowned, of if you’re forced to abdicate from the throne because you suck so hard, there is a good chance you’re a pretty worthless monarch.
35. Stephen
Stephen’s reign coincided with a terrible civil war period in England known as “the Anarchy.” As previously noted, his rival was the Empress Matilda, who you already saw was pretty low in the royal rankings. But that’s not to say that Stephen was much better. For one, Matilda was the rightful heir to Henry I. Henry even got Stephen to agree to that all in public and everything. But when Henry died, Stephen called backsies and made up a story that Henry super secretly really wanted him to be the next king all along, for reals. He got the support of a large number of nobles and the Pope, but essentially his entire reign was defined by raging chaos, disorder, and civil war with Matilda and the barons loyal to her. History essentially comes out with a “meh” analysis of him, with the general conclusion that he was a good enough military commander, but had poor strategic judgment that ultimately undermined his rule. And poor Steven gets to be the monarch who ranks lowest without either (1) never being crowned or (2) abdicating, either willingly or forcefully.
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| Essentially, this is George I |
So how the hell did Georg Ludwig, a 54 German man and the son of somebody named “Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg,” become the King of freaking England? Well, that’s pretty complicated but it rests in the fact that there were over 50 much closer relatives (including actual English ones) who could have been heir to the throne after Anne… but the 1701 Act of Settlement, much like a country club in the Deep South, said “Sorry, no Catholics allowed!” Do you remember the flimsy premise of the 1991 film King Ralph, when a fat, slobby lounge singer winds up being the heir to the British throne? Well, delete the “flimsy premise” part of that sentence from your mind because that actually happened. George I is pretty much just the real life German King Ralph. George’s mother was Sophia of the Palatinate. Sophia’s mother was Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia. And Elizabeth’s father was James I. Got it? Well, I don’t actually care if you do or not. But if you want to talk about mediocre, this guy ruled for over 12 years and I really have nothing to say about him. He was (rightfully) ridiculed by his British subjects and largely thought to be wooden, uncouth, dull, awkward, unintelligent, and “too damn German.” He was so un-English of an “English” king (yeah, I know… technically “British” at this point) that he actually went on a trip back to Germany, died there, and they just buried him there in Germany rather than make even the slightest attempt to bring the body of the King of England back to England.
33. Mary I
Known as “Bloody Mary,” her most lasting legacy is that she shares a name with a drink that is only consumed by businessmen in first class on airplanes or by White people at brunch. Other than that, the eldest daughter of Henry VIII most famously enjoyed rounding up Protestants to burn them at the stake or behead them. I mean I don’t know if she actually enjoyed it, but she did it. Although her short rule eventually cooled down with all the beheading stuff, she still tried to roll back religious reforms to make Catholicism dominant when it was way too late for that comeback. But most stupidly in her efforts to reinforce Catholicism, she married Prince Philip of Spain under an act where Philip was to be called "King of England" – which led to great outrage and fear across England that it would be made subservient to the Hapsburg Empire. And then she went on to sort of become a laughing stock by constantly having false pregnancies. It became so much of a thing that students are most likely to hear their first fart joke as a part of official academic coursework in a Tudor England class given that Giovanni Michieli, the Venetian ambassador to England, famously joked that Mary’s pregnancies were more likely to “end in wind rather than anything else.” Fart jokes and tomato juice with vodka, this is your royal legacy Mary.
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| John (pictured) is also fondly remembered for his trusted Chief Justicar, Sir Ainsley Hiss of Gloucestershire. |
John is mainly remembered as that usurper jerk who tries to steal the crown away from his brother Richard the Lionheart in most Robin Hood movies and TV shows. And that depiction is 100% right because he absolutely was a usurper jerk. When Richard was arrested and jailed by the Holy Roman Emperor on the way back from the Third Crusade, John tried to pay the Emperor a crapload of gold in order that he just hold Richard in prison for even longer. Talk about brotherly love! And when Richard eventually returned and kicked John’s ass up in Nottingham (yeah, that part of the Robin Hood legend is actually based in fact), Richy instantly forgave John and was like, “Oh, he’s just a kid who made a mistake!” Only John was a grown-ass man around 30, so he was “just being a kid” in the same way that Ryan Lochte was just being a kid at the Rio gas station. But John eventually did become king on his own when Richard decided to accessorize his left shoulder with a crossbow bolt and gangrene. And that’s when John had to go and completely castrate the absolute power of the monarchy by bowing to the will of his barons at Runnymede and agreeing to the Magna Carta. And while I suppose that the Magna Carta is a good thing in the long run, what with it being the first important step in a long process that eventually led to constitutions and democracy, it totally sucks for John that he’s the one who was sort of the beginning of the end for the king being able to do whatever the hell he wanted. And if no other English monarch ever wants to use your name again (despite it being the most common name in the English language) because it’s tainted by your stench, there’s a good chance that you sucked. Oh, and did I mention that he got excommunicated by the Pope? Because that happened.
31. Lady Jane Grey
How great of a legacy can you establish if you only rule for nine days? It’s times like this when you really need to look at quality of rule rather than quantity, right? Well even then, nine days wasn’t enough time for a 16 year old girl who was just a confused political pawn to other power hungry assholes to do much. As often happens with pawns in a game of chess, this pawn was sacrificed when the Privy Council changed their minds about Edward VI’s wishes about her being his heir. She was promptly executed by her successor (Bloody Mary) for High Treason for pretty much no good reason at all. But should royal rankings be based on what happens AFTER your rule? What if the only legacy of a martyred innocent 16 year old is that she was a martyred innocent 16 year old? Jane Grey became a Protestant heroine for centuries after her death, and she emerged a romantic and tragic figure in popular culture including a number of novels, plays and even a frigging Helena Bonham Carter movie. Although Edward V had a similar terrible fate as one of the “Princes in the Tower,” he doesn’t even approach the epic legacy that poor Jane does. And that epic legacy after her death makes her rise well above several others who ruled for much longer but did shitty jobs during their reign. She deserves to be ranked above that bitch who had her executed. Is it unfair to Edward V that he had essentially the same tragic circumstances as Jane and yet he ranks as the worst monarch in my list while she’s several notches above him? Well sure, I guess it is a bit unfair. But maybe I’ll reassess the situation at a later point when they decide to make an awesome Edward V movie with Helena Bonham Carter. Until then…
30. Edward VI
We’re coincidentally working in reverse chronological order here for a bit. Which might surprise you, since wasn’t the Tudor dynasty supposed to be great or something instead of all in the "worst kings" section? Not really. The Tudors were famous, but other than Elizabeth they were sort of just bad. And oh Edward VI, continuing the tradition of mediocre Edwards. This sickly boy and only legitimate son of Henry VIII never had much of a chance. He had slight scoliosis of the spine, suffered from quartan fever (a form of malaria) that nearly killed him as a young child, became king at only 9 years old, then soon after suffered from another mysterious illness that almost killed him in 1550, got measles AND smallpox in 1552, and then finally succumbed to another fever in 1553 (possibly tuberculosis) that killed him at age 15 after a grand total of 6 years and 159 days on the throne. And those 6 years and 159 days weren’t exactly filled with great achievements either. For one, he never really got to rule on his own because he never reached the age of majority. His reign was marked by economic problems and social unrest that, in 1549, erupted into open riots and rebellion. He was also involved in “the Rough Wooing,” an awesomely named mini-war between England and Scotland where England kept doing douchey things to Scotland in an attempt to force a marriage alliance between Edward and the infant Mary, Queen of Scots. And the final gift of his terrible reign was a succession crisis that would lead to the beheading of 16 year old girl. Fun!
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| Pretty much just Ted Bundy with a crown |
When this ruthless, obese, gout-ridden, serial-killing, ginger sociopath wasn’t too busy executing his wives, he spent his free time executing his closest advisors and friends when they didn’t agree with him. Imagine if a petulant, tantrum-throwing little bitch like Robin Arryn grew up and was made king and you’ve essentially got Henry VIII. While other Protestant churches have some inspiring story about divine inspiration to separate them from the dogma of the Catholic Church, the whole basis for the Anglican Church is pretty much, “Well, Henry wanted to bang a younger girl and the Pope said no, so he created a new Church with himself as the head and said yes.” And that was accompanied by the Dissolution of the Monasteries, where essentially every ancient old Church and shrine in the country was destroyed. This makes Henry VIII like the greatest criminal in history to the UNESCO World Heritage Time Police Division, which don’t actually exist (as far as I know). Remember how the Taliban blew up the Buddha statues? Henry VIII did exactly that, but times 625 different monastic sites. So that he could fill his government coffers in order to… I dunno… probably execute some more wives and friends? And all of his wife swapping was to accomplish the goal of a male heir, something he couldn’t do well as beyond his daughters Mary and Elizabeth he only produced the sickly and doomed Edward VI to succeed him. Yes, it was definitely all those wives’ faults that you were an impotent gouty bitch who couldn’t shoot out Y chromosomes, Henry. And this is why we can never have a ginger King again (sorry Prince Harry, the further you fall down the succession line the better). Some people who have tried to list England’s greatest kings have actually included Henry VIII in those lists, which is just stupid and wrong. That’s confusing “famous” with “good.” Henry VIII was just an awful human being whose inherent flaws and quest for young booty led to centuries of religious strife.
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