In this piece, I will be providing ratings of each English royal dynasty. This will be a series, covering all dynasties from the House of Wessex to the Hanoverians.
As the Hanoverians were constitutional monarchs, I won’t rate them as their effects on governance was limited.
The first part will be with the Stuarts - a foundational royal house in terms of the contemporary British political structure. The Wars of the Three Kingdoms, Glorious Revolution, and Act of Union all still hold current relevance.
I will be grading monarchs on these accounts:
Political/economic stability
Foreign policy/war
Positive or negative legacy
James VI/I
The first Stuart monarch of the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, he succeeded Elizabeth I of England on her death in 1603.
As a believer in the divine right of kings, he received little opposition to his will in Scotland, but once he became King of England and Ireland, he needed to compromise with the stronger English Parliament.
Political/economic stability - 6/10
Foreign policy/war - Jamestown was founded in his name in Virginia, and was the first successful English colony in the Americas. His settlement of Protestants in Ireland led to centuries of conflict - 6/10
Positive or negative legacy - Overall, he was viewed as a good king, though he influenced his son and successor Charles I in endorsing the divine right of kings ideology. This led to the biggest wars to date that the British Isles has ever experienced - 5/10
Charles I
King Charles I succeeded to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland after his father’s death in 1625.
He was never intended to be king, as he had an older brother, Prince Henry, who died midway through their father’s reign.
Charles had some physical impediments as a child, and had a lifelong stutter. However, he overcame these challenges, but once he assumed the throne he proved stubborn, uncompromising and intransigent.
Political/domestic stability - 0/10
As a believer in his kingship being divinely imposed, he did not see a need to liaise with Parliament.
He held Parliaments in his first few years as sovereign. But he later dismissed them, and had 11 years of personal rule.
This period sowed the seeds of the later Wars of the Three Kingdoms, where England, Scotland and Ireland were ravaged by brutal wars.
The best known of these is the English Civil War. Though the initial conflict, following the imposition of the English Book of Prayer on Scotland, was the Bishops’ War. His Scots subjects invaded England, and routed his troops in battle. Forced to recall the English Parliament for money to fight the Scots, the tension between him and English Parliament grew. In 1642, he tried to arrest Five Members in Parliament unsuccessfully, and in August of that year he rose his Standard in Nottingham, thus declaring the English Parliament traitors. From 1642-1646, the Royalists fought Parliament for control of England, with some initial successes for him at Bristol. However, Parliament and the Scots formed an alliance to oppose him, as well as facing a New Model Army created by Parliament to more efficiently conduct their struggle.
In 1645, he lost terribly at Naseby, and in 1646 surrendered himself to the Scots.
Under English confinement, he escaped after clandestine communications with Scottish factions in his favour. A Second Civil War emerged, which was rapidly crushed at Preston.
Parliament was at a loss to what to do with the king. He had proven untrustworthy, and by 1648 Parliament had opted to try him for treason. Factions opposed to leniency against him were marginalised, and he was placed on trial for high treason by the leading factions of the Parliamentarian cause.
He defended himself rationally and eloquently at his trial. It was paradoxical to try the king for treason, since treason was defined as actions against his person. And Parliament knew this. But they wanted a forum to bring him to account, for causing the strife of the wars at that point.
The eventual verdict was the king’s execution. This was by no means a formality at the outset - had the king been conciliatory and even sorrowful for his cause he may have gained a less harsh sentence. Parliament may have been moved to negotiate with him, even if he may have lost powers. But he was stubborn and unable to yield, and thus Parliament felt no choice but to kill their king.
Charles was beheaded publicly outside Banqueting House, Whitehall, on 30th January 1649. He gave a speech prior, citing that he was not sorry for his actions, and that “a sovereign and subject are two different things”.
A republic was declared, with a Council of State drawn from Parliament running the country.
Foreign policy/wars - 2/10
The Anglo-Spanish and Anglo-French wars under Charles’s watch were disastrous.
They in part raised the ire of the English Parliament, thus causing the Civil War and his own downfall.
Legacy - Negative
King Charles I wasn’t an evil man. He seemed very stubborn, unwilling to compromise or yield, and this in turn made all three of his kingdoms to oppose him.
The Irish broke away from him to form the Confederacy. They accepted him as their king - though they were a self-governing entity not under his direct rule as King of Ireland.
The Scots were both his enemies and allies, though the fact they opposed him showed his arrogance.
Charles therefore stands amongst the worst kings of British history. If only for starting to date the biggest conflicts the British Isles as ever faced.
Charles II
After Charles I died in 1649, this act by the English “Roundheads” caused great ire amongst the Scots. The English had unilaterally killed their king - and he was King of Scots as much as King of England.
In response, they appointed Charles’s son to be King Charles II of Scots. They made him swear to uphold the Presbyterian Church, and thus not to repeat the errors of his father.
In 1651, Charles II was keen to regain his inheritance - the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland. He thus invaded England, causing a Third Civil War, though lost to the Roundhead forces of Oliver Cromwell at Worcester. Charles was lucky to escape the scene, notably hiding in an oak tree to evade the New Model Army.
After a time of exile in France and the Netherlands, and the fall of the Roundhead’s Protectorate in 1659, the remaining Roundheads invited him to be king in 1660. The conditions were that he would pardon those who fought against him and his father, though the persons who tried and executed Charles I were to be exempt.
As king, Charles showed a lot of the moderation and compromise that epitomised his grandfather’s rule (James VI/I). He knew the country needed to heal, and enabled growth in science and commerce such as the Royal Society, Greenwich Observatory, and the Chelsea Hospital.
The Great Fire of London in 1666 showed his care for the common people, as he personally supervised firefighting in the city. The resultant rebuilding saw the construction of the current St. Paul’s Cathedral, though many of the rebuilt items were destroyed centuries later in WWII’s Blitz.
The Exclusion Crisis was a noted event later in his reign, as his brother and successor, James, had become an open Catholic. For a strictly Protestant country, this was anathema. With no lawful heirs (though he had many children outside of wedlock), he acknowledged James as his heir.
Political stability - 6/10
Foreign policy/wars - 3/10
The wars with the Dutch, unlike under Lord Protector Cromwell, went poorly. The literal taking of the English flagship back to the Netherlands was a national humiliation.
Legacy - Positive (mostly)
The major negative of Charles’s reign was his apparently closet Catholicism. He had signed a treaty in secret with the King of France - the Sun King Louis XIV - to openly state his faith in the Catholic Church. It is said that he converted to Catholicism on his deathbed in 1685. Had this come to pass, it could well have led to a Fourth Civil War.
He also commenced English involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The Royal African Company held a monopoly on African trade, including slavery but also in legitimate goods. With settlement of what was to become the United States, and growing slave colonies in the Caribbean, it had become opportune to enter this market. This long-lasting effects of these actions are evidently telling.
His major positive though is that he kept England, Scotland and Ireland steady, and in prime ways was the opposite of his father.
James VII/II
Charles II had no legitimate heirs, thus leaving his brother James as the legal heir. As king, James was always up for trouble, given his open Catholicism.
After he had a son, who would become James the Old Pretender, the English Parliament moved to oust him. They made an appeal to William, Stadtholder of the Netherlands, to be their king and he in turn brought a large military force to accompany him.
King James had his own forces to match them, but many of the prime units deserted or joined William, leaving him to flee to France and abandon the throne.
Political/economic stability - 1/10
Foreign policy - 2/10 - The major wars James was involved in were against his successor, King William of Orange. This was typified in his Irish campaign, which saw William defeated him soundly at the Boyne.
Legacy - Negative
Whilst his older brother Charles II was like their grandfather, James VI/I, in terms of his moderation and tact, James VII/II was more akin to their father Charles I in his stubbornness and resoluteness.
His reign was doomed from the start, given that two of his kingdoms were staunchly Protestant.
His deposition also led to the Jacobite rebellions, which all ended in failure with defeats of his son the Old Pretender) and his grandson the Young Pretender.
William II/III and Mary II
William and Mary assumed the throne, following the Glorious Revolution of 1688. With King James’s open Catholicism, and it being inherently disapproved in Protestant England and Scotland, William and Mary were invited to be joint monarchs. Note that William in England was William III (following William the Conqueror and William Rufus), whilst in Scotland he was William II (following William the Lion). Mary would have been Mary II in either kingdom (following Mary I Tudor and Mary, Queen of Scots respectively).
Mary was a cousin of James, and was married to William, the Dutch Stadtholder.
Whilst William outlived Mary, their reign saw the Bill of Rights enacted, as well as the Act of Settlement. The latter limited the throne to Protestants only, whilst the former made Parliament sovereign with the capacity to make or unmake any law. It curbed the capacities of the sovereign, and balanced the sovereign’s role constitutionally vis a vis Parliament. Prior to the Bill of Rights, sovereigns could control what legislation was passed in Parliament, and could hold Parliaments whenever they desired.
Political stability - 6/10
William and Mary’s reign saw expansion in the American colonies and elsewhere around the world. They also saw similar in Ireland, though the effects of William’s acts there have lasting ramifications to the current day.
Foreign policy - 5/10
The English holdings in American had grown, whilst peace was achieved temporarily with France.
Legacy - positive
The joint monarchy was successful, in that it ensured there would only be Protestant monarchs, and that the strife of James VII/II’s reign had been curbed.
Anne
Queen Anne was the last Stuart monarch, the last sovereign of the independent kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, and first monarch of Great Britain.
Her reign was typified by foreign events, namely the war of the Spanish Succession and the heroics of the Duke of Marlborough, John Churchill.
By far the biggest domestic occurrence was the union of two of her kingdoms, via the 1707 Act of Union. As Queen of England and Queen of Scots, she had encouraged her ministers in either country to form a union. The Scottish colonial project in what is now Panama - the Darien Scheme - had failed, causing much hardship economically. This low state, together with English bribery during formal negotiations, sealed the deal between them. From 1707 to her death in 1714, Anne was Queen of the Kingdom of Great Britain and Queen of Ireland. Her great-grandfather, King James VI/I, had a dream of uniting England and Scotland, but it was her who eventually realised it.
Political stability - 7/10
Whilst the Darien Scheme hurt her Scottish kingdom, her English kingdom prospered economically and with the victory over the French in the Spanish Succession War, it had gained a new prestige in Europe.
The 1707 union had met initial protests in Scotland, but by the end of her reign it had proven successful for both former independent kingdoms.
Foreign policy - 9/10
The victories of Marlborough curbed the French greatly, though this led ultimately to enmity between England/Britain and France, lasting until the Napoleonic Wars a century later. The War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years War, and the American Revolution, all saw Britain and France pitted as enemies.
Legacy - Positive
Some sources have seen Queen Anne be disparaged, as dull, silly, or overly reliant on her ministers.
However, the United Kingdom as a union of England and Scotland still exists. And compared to other members of her family who held the throne, she ruled over a peaceful kingdom which had growing power in the world.
She may have been the last Stuart monarch - but she was far from the worst.
For good measure, even though they were not Stuarts nor kings, I’ve added in the Lords Protector, Oliver and Richard Cromwell:
Oliver Cromwell
Cromwell was born in 1599, as a member of an East Anglian gentry family.
He became an MP in the 1620s for Cambridge and Huntingdon, and by the end of King Charles I’s Personal Rule, had become an outspoken opponent in the House of Commons against him.
As a Puritan, he was naturally opposed to Charles, and a firm placement in the Parliamentarian/Roundhead camp. Once the Civil War broke out in 1642, he became a cavalry soldier, with the Earls of Essex and Manchester leading the Roundhead army.
The war initially faired poorly for the Roundheads, though they ultimately prevailed via controlling London’s finances, the English navy, and striking a greater accord with the common people. This was cemented via an alliance with the Scottish Covenanters, that saw Charles’s army ground down. Cromwell himself was pivotal in the victory at Marston Moor, and with the win at Naseby, King Charles’s efforts had fallen to naught.
The formation of the New Model Army was also critical. Parliament passed the Self-Denying Ordinance, where army personnel could not hold a seat in Parliament. Lord Thomas Fairfax was made leader of the new army, with Cromwell as his second-in-command. Cromwell personally trained troops, and the new discipline involved proved decisive in overall victory.
In the Second Civil War, Cromwell himself did well at Preston to defeat the Royalists, and in 1649 was one of the court presidents who tried King Charles and signed his death warrant.
The Battle of Worcester against Charles’ I’s son, Charles II, ended in another stunning win in 1651, though following a coup of Parliament that he staged he became Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1653.
As Lord Protector, he had the powers of a king, without the actual title. He was even offered the throne, but after deliberation, declined it. Nobody knows why he did this. It could have been his conscience - as he fought against a king and abolished the monarchy. Or he may have just felt he needed the army’s loyalty and could not potentially betray them.
After nearly five years in office as Lord Protector, he died in 1658, succeeded by his son, Richard.
Political stability - 6/10
Cromwell invited Jews back to England, to provide monies to help boost the economy. He also ensured peace, following years of war.
His rule of Major Generals was harsh, though he himself condemned the strong treatment his Puritan generals meted out.
It’s also a myth that he banned Christmas. This was done by Parliament early in the Civil War. He may well have voted in favour but he could not take sole responsibility for this, as he was just one MP out of many.
Foreign policy - 9/10
The Protectorate had taken new territories in the Caribbean (including Jamaica), defeated the Dutch, and with the New Model Army had become a respected military power in Europe.
The Battle of the Dunes saw the New Model Army gain respect of the French and Dutch.
Legacy - Positive
Cromwell stands as one of the finest military commanders in British history. Unlike warrior kings such as Edward I Longshanks, Alfred the Great, Athelstan, Robert the Bruce, or Edward III, he was not militarily trained. He also was not a career military officer like the Duke of Marlborough, or the Duke of Wellington. Whilst not low-born as such, as landed gentry, he rose from being a country gentleman to leading an army to victory over their king.
As Lord Protector, he was arguably the most powerful person in British history to that point. His defeated foe, Charles I, ruled the British Isles as three separate kingdoms. Under Cromwell, the entire archipelago was one unitary state. Charles could have only dreamed of that power.
Cromwell also declined being king - though for reasons unknown. However, the fact he did decline it shows moderation. A greedy man might not have cared of the ramifications, provided it gave him title and status.
The major blight of Cromwell’s career is the Irish campaign. Parliament wanted to pacify Ireland, as it had been allied to Charles I. However, pacification turned to near genocide. Many Irish towns were slaughtered, and thousands were taken as indentured servants to the Caribbean and North America. Of all the English injustices in Ireland, Cromwell’s battles and occupation remains the worst. To this day, Cromwell is a detested figure in Ireland.
His rule as Lord Protector saw religious tolerance, and pardoning of Royalists. His intention was to ensure peace, and this was largely achieved.
Cromwell’s corpse was unceremoniously dug up and strung, as he was one of the singers of King Charles I’s death warrant. This was on the order of King Charles II - partly in retribution for his father’s death, and also to give legitimacy to the Restoration.
Richard Cromwell
Richard succeeded his father in 1658.
His rule though was unlike that of Oliver Cromwell.
He lacked both the political and military acumen of Oliver, and fell foul of Parliament often. This earned him the moniker “Queen Dick”, denoting his ineptitude.
Richard was deposed in 1659, leading ultimately to the Restoration of Charles II as king in 1660.
Political stability - 1/10
Foreign policy - 1/10
Legacy - Negative.