Determining the "most ruthless" English monarch is difficult as it depends on historical context, but Henry VIII, Mary I, King John, and William the Conqueror are consistently cited as the most brutal. Their ruthlessness manifested in different ways, from mass executions to devastating military campaigns and personal cruelty.
King Henry VIII
Vicious and increasingly volatile in his later years, Henry VIII demanded the execution of anyone who angered him or got in his way. He famously had two of his six wives executed—Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard — as well as Thomas Cromwell, one of his trusted ministers.
Richard III of England is one of medieval history's most controversial figures. Known to many as a tyrant, a sleazy, greedy king who even murdered his nephew.
Dutiful, intelligent and cultured, but cruelly labelled 'mad' George III is largely known as being the King who lost America, and his mind. He is also the longest-reigning male monarch in British history, reigning for almost 60 years.
Why did Henry VIII become a tyrant? During the 1500s the site of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London, was occupied by Greenwich Palace a favourite residence of The Tudor monarchs and the birthplace of King Henry VIII and his daughters Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I.
The first Black queen of England, widely believed to be, is Queen Charlotte (Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, 1744-1818), wife of King George III, due to her direct descent from a Black branch of the Portuguese royal family, Margarita de Castro y Sousa, though she was of German birth and European appearance. Her African ancestry was noted by contemporaries and traced through art historical research, leading to her association with the British monarchy and the naming of the American city of Charlotte, North Carolina, after her.
1. John (r. 1199-1216) Nicknamed 'Bad King John', John I acquired a villainous image that has been reproduced time and again in popular culture, including film adaptations of Robin Hood and a play by Shakespeare.
Dr. Manfred S. Guttmacher, an American psychiatrist, took this position in his 1941 book, America's Last King: An Interpretation of the Madness of King George III. Guttmacher believed the king's behavior reflected a manic-depressive psychosis that lasted throughout his life.
Æthelstan (king of England, 925–939)
He made his court a hub of learning; established a more efficient system of justice; and seems to have been genuinely popular with all who met him.
Until 1905, the tsars and emperors of Russia governed as absolute monarchs. Ivan IV ("the Terrible") was known for his reign of terror through the oprichnina.
A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” These are the famous last words of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth, at least according to William Shakespeare. Shakespeare's version of events and the image that the last Plantagenet king of England was a misshapen antichrist have always clouded the truth of Richard III's life.
Charles I remains the only English monarch to have been tried and executed for treason.
Charles II, the grandson of King James I, has been reckoned the most notorious womaniser of the English kings. His mistresses included: Elizabeth Killigrew. Lucy Walter.
Edgar (or Eadgar; c. 944 – 8 July 975), also known as Edgar the Peacemaker and the Peaceable, was King of the English from 959 until his death in 975. He became king of all England on his brother Eadwig's death. He was the younger son of King Edmund I and his first wife, Ælfgifu.
Henry VI, King of England, at age 19 founded Eton College and King's College, Cambridge. At 31 he had a sudden, dramatic mental illness in which he was mute and unresponsive. Before, he had been paranoid, grandiose, and indecisive.
Charles I
The king's stubbornness and disregard for Parliament led to the English Civil War in 1642, which eventually led to Charles's capture, imprisonment, trial and execution. The monarchy was abolished after Charles's death, which surely places him at the top of the list of worst English monarchs of all time.
King George the Third of England is most remembered as the king during the American Revolution. But he's also known as the mad king. A variety of theories were used to explain his bizarre behavior, but a new analysis confirms he did suffer from a mental illness.
The most famous royal to refuse to be king, or rather, to abdicate the throne, was Edward VIII of the United Kingdom in 1936, choosing to give up the crown so he could marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson, a union considered unsuitable for a monarch at the time. While he didn't refuse to be king initially, his decision to abdicate put his younger brother, Albert (later King George VI), in the position he never expected to hold.
The worst monarchs from history
Josiah was a righteous king, but his three descendants, Shallum (aka Jehoahaz), Jehoiakim, and Jehoiachin (aka Coniah) were not. Jehoiakim was probably king when God sent Jeremiah to go to the palace and announce God's judgment on it (v 1).
Caroline was a great supporter of science and medicine, and was one of the first Westerners to have her children innoculated against smallpox. Perversely, despite her pioneering role in public health, eighteenth-century medical science was eventually to kill her.
Some individuals of African or partial African descent were introduced to elite levels of society in the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Nathaniel Wells, a mixed-race British landowner and country gentleman, Dido Elizabeth Belle, the mixed-race child of a British colonial aristocrat, Martha Grey, Countess of Stamford, ...
While the British king and queen are very real figures, the six-episode interpretation of their romance is fictional.