The eldest daughter, Elizabeth, therefore took over as the monarch and is the current ruler. Though Elizabeth is married to Prince Philip, the law does not allow the husband to take the title of a king. The reason being Queen Elizabeth is queen regnant, having inherited the position thereby becoming a ruler in her own right.
Queen Elizabeth is currently the longest reigning British monarch having ascended to the throne in Upon the death of the queen, her firstborn, Charles, will take over the throne as long as he does not die before his mother or abdicate the position.
The second born of the queen is a daughter named Ann. She and her descendants come after Charles and his descendants as heir to the throne. Given that the monarch is also the head of the Anglican Church, heirs to the throne were effectively forbidden from marrying divorced people—or getting divorced themselves. Since the Royal Marriage Act of granted the monarch veto power over marriages in the royal family, for centuries, the stigma around divorce meant any proposed union between royalty and a divorced person was a non-starter.
In , King George IV went before a parliamentary panel in an attempt to divorce his wife, Caroline of Brunswick, whom he accused of being unfaithful. He was the last royal forced to choose between love and succession.
In addition to being Head of the Anglican Church, the British monarch is also Head of the Commonwealth, an association of 54 independent countries, most of which were once colonies or outposts of the British Empire.
But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Added to the somewhat comical figure he cut with his broad shoulders, barrel chest and thin spindly legs and his tendency to tell filthy jokes and argue with senior members of the clergy while at the banqueting table, and this was a king who was very, very different to his predecessor, the stately, witty and wise Elizabeth I.
Throughout his rule, he suffered from a severe and debilitating illness that often left him in crippling pain and unable to leave his bed. The disease renders sufferers incapable of carrying out everyday tasks, prone to frequent bouts of diarrhoea and, if left untreated, it can cause severe pain and even death.
So poor Alfred, the legendary king of Anglo Saxon England, had to suffer from a disease for twenty years that would today be carefully managed with drugs and surgery.
Poor old Edward II. Plus, if rumours are to be believed, he suffered the final indignity of being put to death in the most horrifying manner imaginable by having a red hot poker inserted up his rectum to burn out his innards. In the annals of English monarchs, Edward really did get a bum deal. However, what is lesser known about the king is what happened many centuries after his death.
The Victorians were notoriously prudish in public while being particularly lascivious behind closed doors. An amiable man with very little interest in the machinations of power, William IV became king after his brother, George IV, died at the age of sixty-seven leaving no heirs.
William was often seen as a rather silly man in his youth as he could be both erratic, over-excitable and tactless. Initially popular when he ascended the throne in , William became embroiled in the Reform Crisis of the s which turned many people against him, leading him to be described as out-of-touch, dithering and silly.
Mary attempted to enforce the wholesale conversion of England to Catholicism. She carried this out with the utmost severity. The place, in Broad Street Oxford, is marked by a bronze cross. The country was plunged into a bitter blood bath, which is why she is remembered as Bloody Mary. She died in at Lambeth Palace in London.
From first to last she was popular with the people and had a genius for the selection of capable advisors. The execution of Mary Queen of Scots marred what was a glorious time in English history. Shakespeare was also at the height of his popularity. Elizabeth never married. He was the first king to rule over Scotland and England. James was more of a scholar than a man of action. In the Gunpowder Plot was hatched: Guy Fawkes and his Catholic friends tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament, but were captured before they could do so.
He encountered difficulties with Parliament from the beginning, and this led to the outbreak of the English Civil War in The House of Commons tried Charles for treason against England and when found guilty he was condemned to death. His death warrant states that he was beheaded on 30th January Following this the British monarchy was abolished and a republic called the Commonwealth of England was declared.
He entered Parliament in and became active in events leading to the Civil War. A leading Puritan figure, he raised cavalry forces and organised the New Model Army, which he led to victory over the Royalists at the Battle of Naseby in In he finally expelled the corrupt English parliament and with the agreement of army leaders became Lord Protector King in all but name.
Unlike his father, Richard lacked military experience and as such failed to gain respect or support from his New Model Army. After the collapse of the Protectorate following the death of Oliver Cromwell and the flight of Richard Cromwell to France, the Army and Parliament asked Charles to take the throne. Although very popular he was a weak king and his foreign policy was inept. He had 13 known mistresses, one of whom was Nell Gwyn. He fathered numerous illegitimate children but no heir to the throne.
Many new buildings were built at this time. Although James converted to Catholicism in , his two daughters were raised as Protestants. James became very unpopular because of his persecution of the Protestant clergy and was generally hated by the people. William landed in England and James fled to France where he died in exile in Gathering local support, he marched his army, now 20, strong, on to London in The Glorious Revolution.
William and Mary were to reign jointly, and William was to have the Crown for life after Mary died in James plotted to regain the throne and in landed in Ireland. She had 17 pregnancies but only one child survived — William, who died of smallpox aged just A staunch, high church Protestant, Anne was 37 years old when she succeeded to the throne.
Anne was a close friend of Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough. The 54 year old George arrived in England able to speak only a few words of English with his 18 cooks and 2 mistresses in tow.
George spent little time in England — he preferred his beloved Hanover, although he was implicated in the South Sea Bubble financial scandal of He was more English than his father, but still relied on Sir Robert Walpole to run the country. George was the last English king to lead his army into battle at Dettingen in In the Jacobites tried once again to restore a Stuart to the throne.
His reign was one of elegance and the age of some of the greatest names in English literature — Jane Austen , Byron , Shelley, Keats and Wordsworth. It was also the time of great statesmen like Pitt and Fox and great military men like Wellington and Nelson. The American Colonies proclaimed their independence on July 4th George was well meaning but suffered from a mental illness due to intermittent porphyria and eventually became blind and insane.
He had a love of art and architecture but his private life was a mess, to put it mildly! He married twice, once in to Mrs. Fitzherbert, secretly as she was a Catholic, and then in to Caroline of Brunswick. Fitzherbert remained the love of his life. Caroline and George had one daughter, Charlotte in but she died in George was considered a great wit, but was also a buffoon and his death was hailed with relief! Before his accession he lived with a Mrs.
Jordan, an actress, by whom he had ten children. When Princess Charlotte died, he had to marry in order to secure the succession. He married Adelaide of Saxe-Coburg in He had two daughters but they did not live. He hated pomp and wanted to dispense with the Coronation.
The people loved him because of his lack of pretension. During his reign Britain abolished slavery in the colonies in
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