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Mary I (Queen 1553 - 1558)

Mary I (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558), was Queen of England and Queen of Ireland from 19 July 1553 until her death. She was the eldest daughter of Henry VIII and only surviving child of Catherine of Aragon.

The fourth crowned monarch of the Tudor dynasty, she is remembered for restoring England to Roman Catholicism after succeeding her short-lived half brother, Edward VI, to the English throne.

In the process, she had almost 300 religious dissenters burned at the stake in the Marian Persecutions, earning her the sobriquet of "Bloody Mary". Her re-establishment of Roman Catholicism was reversed by her successor and half-sister, Elizabeth I.

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Elizabeth I (Queen 1558 - 1603)

Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603) was Queen of England and Queen of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called the Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. The daughter of Henry VIII, she was born a princess, but her mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed two and a half years after her birth, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. Her brother, Edward VI, bequeathed the crown to Lady Jane Grey, cutting his sisters out of the succession. His will was set aside, and in 1558 Elizabeth succeeded the Catholic Mary I, during whose reign she had been imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels.

Elizabeth set out to rule by good counsel, and she depended heavily on a group of trusted advisers led by William Cecil, Baron Burghley. One of her first moves as queen was to support the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the Supreme Governor. This Elizabethan Religious Settlement held firm throughout her reign and later evolved into today's Church of England. It was expected that Elizabeth would marry, but despite several petitions from parliament and numerous courtships, she never did. The reasons for this outcome have been much debated. As she grew older, Elizabeth became famous for her virginity, and a cult grew up around her which was celebrated in the portraits, pageants, and literature of the day.

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Mary II (Queen 1689 - 1694)

Mary II (30 April 1662 – 28 December 1694) reigned as Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1689 until her death. Mary, a Protestant, came to the thrones following the Glorious Revolution, which resulted in the deposition of her Roman Catholic father, James II and VII.

Mary reigned jointly with her husband and first cousin, William III and II, who became the sole ruler of both countries upon her death in 1694. Popular histories usually refer to the joint reigns as those of "William and Mary". Mary, the blood sovereign, wielded less power than William during the parts of her reign when William remained in England, ceding most of her authority to her husband, though he heavily relied on her.

She did, however, govern the realms alone when William was engaged in military campaigns abroad, proving herself to be a powerful, firm, and effective ruler. She was very active in the Church of England, which she ruled as its Supreme Governor. Though she shared the post with her husband, she largely exercised its power alone.

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Anne I (Queen 1702 - 1714)

Anne (6 February 1665 – 1 August 1714) became Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702, succeeding her brother-in-law, William III of England and II of Scotland. Her Catholic father, James II and VII, was deemed by the English Parliament to have abdicated when he was forced to retreat to France during the Glorious Revolution of 1688/9; her brother-in-law and her sister then became joint monarchs as William III & II and Mary II, the only such case in British history. After Mary's death in 1694, William continued as sole monarch until his own death in 1702.

On 1 May 1707, under the Acts of Union 1707, England and Scotland were united as a single sovereign state, the Kingdom of Great Britain. Anne became its first sovereign, while continuing to hold the separate crown of Queen of Ireland and the title of Queen of France. Anne reigned for twelve years until her death in August 1714. Anne was therefore the last Queen of England and the last Queen of Scots.

Anne's life was marked by many crises, both personally and relating to succession of the Crown and religious polarisation. Because she died without surviving issue, Anne was the last monarch of the House of Stuart. She was succeeded by her second cousin, George I, of the House of Hanover, who was a descendant of the Stuarts through his maternal grandmother, Elizabeth, daughter of James VI & I.

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Victoria I (Queen 1837 - 1901)

Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837, and the first Empress of India of the British Raj from 1 May 1876, until her death. Her reign as the Queen lasted 63 years and 7 months, longer than that of any other British monarch before or since, and her reign is the longest of any female monarch in history. The time of her reign is known as the Victorian era, a period of industrial, political, scientific and military progress within the United Kingdom.

Though Victoria ascended the throne at a time when the United Kingdom was already an established constitutional monarchy in which the king or queen held few political powers and exercised influence by the prime minister's advice, she still served as a very important symbolic figure of her time. Victoria's reign was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire; during this period it reached its zenith, becoming the foremost global power of the time.

Of mostly German descent, Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and granddaughter of George III and the niece of her predecessor William IV. She arranged marriages for her nine children and forty-two grandchildren across the continent, tying Europe together and earning her the nickname "the grandmother of Europe". She was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover; her son King Edward VII belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

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Elizabeth II (Queen 1952 - )

Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; born 21 April 1926) is the Queen of sixteen independent countries and their territories. She is the queen of each country separately, but she lives in the United Kingdom, her oldest "realm". Her family has ruled parts of the British Isles for more than a thousand years. She became Queen when her father, King George VI, died on 6 February 1952. She has reigned for 56 years (in 2008) and is the oldest reigning monarch in British history. (The longest reigning is Queen Victoria: 63 years.)

As well as the United Kingdom, Elizabeth II is Queen of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, and Saint Kitts and Nevis. She has a representative (someone to stand-in for her) in each of these countries. Her representative is known as the Governor-General. The 16 countries of which she is Queen are known as Commonwealth realms. Their total population is over 129 million.

Elizabeth II holds many other positions. She is the Head of the Commonwealth of Nations, Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Lancaster, Lord of Mann, and Paramount Chief of Fiji. She is also the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of many of her realms and Lord Admiral of the United Kingdom.

Queen Elizabeth II probably has a huge amount of power, but she does not use it. She has a very good understanding of politics, but she does not tell the government what to do. In the United Kingdom, she is very interested in the running of the nation, and has regular meetings with her government ministers.

Since 1947, the Queen has been married to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Prince Philip was born a prince of Greece and Denmark. Prince Philip became a citizen of the United Kingdom, and used the name Philip Mountbatten. Prince Philip became the Duke of Edinburgh on the day he married, and became a Prince of the United Kingdom in 1957. The Queen and Prince Philip have four children and eight grandchildren (in 2008).

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Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen

Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen (Adelaide Louise Theresa Caroline Amelia; later Queen Adelaide; 13 August 1792 – 2 December 1849) was the queen consort of the United Kingdom and of Hanover as spouse of William IV of the United Kingdom.

The Australian city of Adelaide is named after her. Adelaide was born on 13 August 1792 at Meiningen, Thuringia, Germany. Her father was George I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. Her mother was Luise Eleonore, the daughter of Prince Christian of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. She was styled Her Serene Highness Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, Duchess in Saxony from her birth until the Congress of Vienna, when the entire House of Wettin was raised to the style of Highness. Saxe-Meiningen was a small state, covering about 423 square miles (1,100 km). It was the most liberal German state and, unlike its neighbours, permitted a free press and criticism of the ruler.

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Alexandra of Denmark

Alexandra of Denmark (Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia; 1 December 1844 – 20 November 1925) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Empress of India from 1901 to 1910 as the consort of Edward VII.

Her family had been relatively obscure until her father was chosen with the consent of the great powers to succeed his distant cousin to the Danish throne. At the age of sixteen she was chosen as the future wife of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, the heir of Queen Victoria. They married eighteen months later. As Princess of Wales from 1863 to 1901, the longest anyone has ever held that title, she won the hearts of the British people and became immensely popular; her style of dress and bearing were copied by fashion-conscious women. Although she was largely excluded from wielding any political power, she unsuccessfully attempted to sway the opinion of ministers and her family to favour her relations who reigned in Greece and Denmark. Her public duties were restricted to uncontroversial involvement in charitable work.

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Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn (1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of King Henry VIII, the mother of Queen Elizabeth I, and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the start of the English Reformation. The daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard, Anne was of more noble birth than Catherine Parr, Henry VIII's later wife, but much less than her predecessor, Catherine of Aragon. She was educated in Europe, largely as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Claude of France. She returned to England in 1522. In 1525, Henry VIII became enamoured of Anne and began his pursuit of her. Anne resisted the King's attempts to seduce her and refused to become his mistress, as her sister, Mary Boleyn, had done. It soon became the one absorbing object of the King's desires to secure an annulment from his wife, Catherine of Aragon, so he could marry Anne. When it became clear that Pope Clement VII was unlikely to give Henry an annulment, the breaking of the power of the Roman Catholic Church in England began.

Archbishop of York and Cardinal, Thomas Wolsey, was dismissed from his archbishopric, allegedly at Anne Boleyn's instigation, and later the Boleyn family's chaplain, Thomas Cranmer, was appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury. The wedding between Henry and Anne took place on 25 January 1533. On 23 May 1533, Cranmer declared the marriage of Henry and Catherine null and void. Five days later Cranmer declared the marriage of Henry and Anne to be good and valid. Soon after, the Pope launched sentences of excommunication against Henry and the Archbishop. As a result of this marriage and these excommunications, the first break between the Church of England and Rome took place and the Church of England was brought under the King's sole control.

Anne was crowned Queen of England on 1 June 1533. Later that year, on 7 September, she gave birth to the future Elizabeth I of England. To Henry's displeasure, however, she failed to produce a male heir. Henry was not totally discouraged for he said he loved Elizabeth and that a son would surely follow. After 3 more miscarriages Henry was considerably more discouraged. By March 1536, he was paying court to Jane Seymour. In April and May 1536, Henry had Anne investigated for high treason: tried and found guilty, she was beheaded on 19 May. Historians view the charges against her, which included adultery and incest, as unconvincing. Following the coronation of her daughter, Elizabeth, as queen, Anne was venerated as a martyr and heroine of the English Reformation, particularly through the works of John Foxe. Over the centuries, she has inspired or been mentioned in numerous artistic and cultural works. As a result, she has retained her hold on the popular imagination. Anne has been called "the most influential and important queen consort England has ever had," since she provided the occasion for Henry VIII to divorce Catherine of Aragon, and declare his independence from Rome.

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Caroline of Ansbach

Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach (Wilhelmina Charlotte Caroline; 1 March 1683 – 20 November 1737) was the queen consort of King George II of Great Britain. Margravine Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach was born at Ansbach in Germany, the daughter of Johann Friedrich, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, and his second wife, Princess Eleanor Erdmuthe Louise of Saxe-Eisenach.

Orphaned at an early age, Caroline grew up an intelligent, cultured and attractive woman, and was much sought-after as a bride. When the opportunity to become wife of the future Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, presented itself, she turned it down because it would have meant renouncing her Protestant faith. Shortly afterwards, she met and married Georg August, son of the Elector of Hanover, who would later become heir to the throne of Great Britain and eventually George II of Great Britain.

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