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In less than 200 years, eight queens ruled the Kingdom of England. Among these queens were Matilda, Lady Jane Grey, Mary I, Elizabeth I, Mary II, Anne, Victoria, and Elizabeth II. Despite the tradition that heirs of the throne should be the eldest son of the monarch, the mentioned queens ruled competence and capability.

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Key Facts & Information

INTRODUCTION

The oldest form of government in the United Kingdom is the monarchy.
The king or the queen’s role is as Head of State, performing constitutional and representational duties.
Throughout history, the succession of the throne was based on religion and gender.
Only males could inherit the throne unless there were no eligible male heirs.
In 1952, due to the constitution, when Queen Elizabeth II took the throne, she had limited power.
In 2013, the UK Parliament passed legislation that removed gender-based restrictions on the succession of the throne.

THE QUEENS

MATILDA

Empress Matilda, also known as Empress Maud, was the eldest daughter of Henry I.
She was married twice, first to Henry V, then to Geoffrey V, the Count of Anjou.
Henry I had only two legitimate children.
He appointed his daughter, Matilda, his successor because his son, William Adelin, died during the White Ship Disaster.
Empress Matilda inherited the throne and prepared to become England’s first queen.
However, after being the queen for a short time, her cousin, Stephen of Blois, questioned her right to the throne and led a coup against her.
Stephen of Blois took the throne, which led to the 19-year civil war, called the Anarchy, between Matilda and her cousin, Stephen.
During the Anarchy, the King was captured and imprisoned and was overthrown, making Matilda a queen for a short time.
She referred to herself as the Lady of the English.
During the preparation for the coronation, the upcoming monarch must grant tax compromises and favors to the public.
It made the public angry and caused Matilda to run off to Oxford.
Stephen was released from prison in exchange for Matilda’s half-brother, Robert Gloucester, who was also imprisoned.
After Stephen was released, he called his forces and attacked Oxford in an attempt to capture Matilda.
Matilda escaped after three months, and the Anarchy continued for 10 more years.
When Matilda returned to Normandy, Stephen began promoting his son, Henry, as the heir to the throne.
Everyone wanted to establish long-term peace, so Matilda and Stephen agreed that the latter remain King until his death, while Henry would be heir to the throne.
The agreement was called the Treaty of Wallington.
When Stephen died, Henry became King Henry II of England.
In 1167, Matilda passed away, and her remains were placed at a cathedral in Rouen, France.
Although Matilda was never officially crowned, her persistence and effort made her son King.

LADY JANE GREY

One queen whom historians failed to acknowledge is Lady Jane Grey.
Lady Jane Grey was Henry Grey, the Duke of Suffolk’s daughter.
Lady Jane Grey, the youngest ruler of the British monarchy, ruled the shortest for just nine days.
Due to this, she earned the title Nine Days Queen.
Her father and John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland, arranged for Lady Jane Grey to be married to Guildford Dudley to strengthen the alliance and power of both families.
When King Edward VI was very ill, he put Lady Jane Grey on the throne even though she was fifth in the line.
Mary Tudor, his half-sister, was supposed to be next in line; however, she was a devout Catholic.
Lady Jane Grey was a Protestant, so despite being only 16 years old, she took the throne after King Edward VI died.
However, Mary Tudor had the public’s support. In an attempt to regain his position and make all his plans possible for his daughter, Lady Jane Grey’s father proclaimed Mary queen.
During Mary’s proclamation, Lady Jane Grey and her father were imprisoned in the Tower of London.
Her father was pardoned, but Lady Jane Grey and her husband were recaptured and imprisoned for high treason.
She pleaded guilty and was supposed to be sentenced to death, but it was suspended.
However, Jane was considered a threat due to the involvement of her father in the Wyatt Rebellion, an uprising against Mary marrying Philip of Spain and converting England into a strong Catholic state.
On February 12, 1554, Lady Jane Grey and Guildford Dudley were beheaded, while her father was executed just days later.

MARY I

Mary I was supposed to be crowned the queen when King Edward VI died.
However, King Edward VI did not want a Catholic to be his successor.
Nine days after the reign of Lady Jane Grey, she was imprisoned, making Mary I the queen in 1553.
Mary I, or Mary Tudor, was considered the very first official queen of England.
She was the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine Aragon.
Desperate for a Catholic heir, she married Prince Philip of Spain but it lasted for only four years.
Those who were against her decision plotted a rebellion known as Wyatt Rebellion.
She was called Bloody Mary because she was known for persecuting an estimated 280 Protestants in the Marian persecution.
During her five-year reign, Protestants who refused to convert to Catholicism were burned.
Moreover, her failure to keep Calais, the last English land in Europe, affected her reputation.
According to historians, Mary I suffered from uterine cancer during her marriage, so she did not produce heirs.
Due to this, Elizabeth I, her Protestant half-sister, took the crown.
Her illness led to her death when she was just 42.

ELIZABETH I

Elizabeth I was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.
She was the last Tudor monarch and is considered the most influential monarch in English history.
She was also known as Good Queen Bess.
Elizabeth I started her reign when she was 25 years old.
Her era was known as the Elizabethan era.
She had no heir because she was never married, earning her the title of the Virgin Queen of England.
There were claims that she did not marry because she aimed to be a great queen.
However, some rumors stated she had a long-term affair with Lord Robert Dudley, on whom she bestowed the title Earl of Leicester.
Her reign was one of the most historical since it reached 45 years.
She established the Church of England, where compromises between Catholic and Protestant doctrines were reached.
Elizabeth I had a sharp political judgment and could choose capable ministers.
Her trusted advisors, led by William Cecil, played a huge part in Elizabeth’s decisions.
During her reign, discoveries from different voyagers such as Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh, and Humphrey Gilbert helped prepare the country for trade expansions and the age of colonization.
Another field that flourished during her time was the arts.
Her success was also accompanied by danger and difficulties.
England received threats of invasions, rebellion happened, and plots endangering her life pushed her to create harsh laws.
Mary Queen of Scots had assassination plots for Elizabeth I, and one was the Babington plot.
Elizabeth I and her navy succeeded in the Spanish invasion known as the Armada.
The Spanish Armada was supposed to overthrow Elizabeth I and for Philip II to conquer the country and reinstate Catholicism.
Economic depression and price increases were also the downsides of her long reign.
Although there were efforts to control government expenditure, Elizabeth I still left a high amount of debt for her successor.

MARY II

The Stuart monarch, Mary II, was the only English queen with joint and equal power with her husband, Prince William of Orange, who was also her cousin.
She was only 15 when she married Prince William.
She was the daughter of James, Duke of York.
She and her husband ended the Glorious Revolution of 1688 by having joint sovereignty by order of parliament.
Her husband, William, was in charge of military campaigns in Ireland and on the continent, while Mary ran the government in her name but with advice from her husband.
She died from smallpox after just five years of her reign.
Mary II and Prince William of Orange had no heir during their 14 years of marriage.
Due to this, when Prince William of Orange died, he was succeeded by Mary II’s sister, Anne.

ANNE

Anne, the last Stuart monarch, ruled for five years.
She was married to Prince George of Denmark for 21 years.
During their marriage, Anne had 18 pregnancies, four of which were miscarriages, eight stillbirths, six live births that lasted less than two years, and an heir, Prince William, who unfortunately died at 11.
Anne was renowned for the Act of Union between the kingdoms of England and Scotland that she signed and for uniting the countries of England, Wales, and Scotland, known as Great Britain.
Despite not being as highly recognized as the other queens, Anne was considered a great queen.
She supervised the creation of the United Kingdom.
Britain’s military power strengthened and paved the way for the 18th-century Golden Age.

VICTORIA

The last monarch of the Royal House of Hanover was Queen Victoria.
Her parents were the Duke and Duchess of Kent.
She wasn’t born an heir to the throne.
Instead, she was picked when the monarchy was left without an heir for two generations.
She was crowned at 18 years old and was the second longest-reigning monarch.
She was famous for her love with her husband, Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg and Gotha.
During their 21 years of marriage, they had nine children, and one of them, King Edward VII, became a king.
When her husband died, she suffered from depression and wore black for the rest of her reign.
She created the tradition that a bride should wear white during her wedding while a widow wears black during mourning.
Victoria was known for her contributions to Britain’s great age of industrial and economic progress and expansion.
Two men were considered her greatest influencers, Prime Minister Lord Melbourne and his husband, Prince Albert.
They taught her to become a leader in a constitutional monarchy.
Her influence was widely used to support peace and reconciliation during the middle years of her rule.
During her reign, the British empire was said to be at its greatest and most dominant point.
Her era, known as the Victorian Era, brought advancements in the arts, inventions, and political reform.
She rebuilt the masses’ view of the monarchy.
Decorating Christmas trees was also popularized by her and Albert.
She died of a stroke at 81 and was buried alongside her husband.
Before her death, she had given very detailed instructions about what to include in her coffin.
Most of these things were from her late husband, Albert.
She was succeeded by Edward VII, her oldest son.

ELIZABETH II

Like Queen Victoria, Elizabeth II wasn’t born to be queen.
She was the daughter of the Duke of York (King George VI) and the Duchess of York (Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother).
After the abdication of his uncle, King Edward VII, Elizabeth II’s father was in line to take the throne, making Elizabeth II the next heir.
During World War II, Elizabeth was homeschooled and performed public duties.
She was only 19 when she was permitted to enter the military, enlisting in the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service and completing a six-week auto mechanic training program.
She was crowned when she was 25, and her coronation was the first ever to be televised across the world.
At this age, she was the head of the Commonwealth and led seven independent Commonwealth countries, Ceylon or Sri Lanka, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Pakistan, South Africa, and New Zealand.
She ruled a constitutional monarchy and maintained a reliable and stable monarchy.
Ruling for 70 years, she holds the record for the longest reign in the English/British monarchy and the longest verified female monarch in history.
She married Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and had four children, Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward.
Prince Philip always escorted Her Majesty on her occasions such. as Commonwealth tours, State occasions, Royal visits, and the Queen’s jubilees.
Since her accession in 1952, she had already established her role as the head of multiple independent states.
In the following year, she and her husband visited 13 countries in seven months.
Elizabeth II was the first reigning monarch of Australia and New Zealand to visit those countries.
She conducted many state visits and Commonwealth tours, making her the head of state who traveled the most.
The royal family has contended with several issues regarding their private lives, especially divorce and separations among their members.
In a speech to mark the Ruby Jubilee of her reign, she mentioned that 1992 was her annus horribilis, or horrible year.
In addition, a large fire broke out in one of her official residences, Windsor Castle.
Her charitable works were continuous, and she contributed to over 600 British organizations.
Queen Elizabeth II also modernized the monarchy by making the royal family website and having Instagram and Twitter accounts.
During her reign, the rules of succession also changed.
The Succession to the Crown Act emphasized that succession would not be gender-based; therefore, the eldest, regardless of gender, would accede to the crown.
It also removed the disqualification of a successor emerging from marriage with a Roman Catholic.
In 2011, she visited the Republic of Ireland, the first visit by a reigning British monarch.
She supported racial justice in the Commonwealth.
In February 2022, a four-day celebration marked the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II’s service to the British Commonwealth.
Her husband died on April 2021 at 99.
On September 8, 2022, Queen Elizabeth II died at 96 at her home in Balmoral Castle, Scotland.
Her eldest son, Prince Charles III, became her successor.

English Queens Worksheets

This fantastic bundle includes everything you need to know about English Queens across 32 in-depth pages. These ready-to-use worksheets are perfect for teaching kids about English Queens. In less than 200 years, eight queens ruled the Kingdom of England. Among these queens were Matilda, Lady Jane Grey, Mary I, Elizabeth I, Mary II, Anne, Victoria, and Elizabeth II.

Complete List of Included Worksheets

Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document.

English Queens Facts
English Queens
The Queens
Quote From The Queen
The Crown of Truth
Mary I
Choose the Right One
The Rules of the Queen
The Queen’s Speech
Women As Rulers
Admirable Queen

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was the first English queen?

The first English queen was Mary I, who ruled from 1553 until 1558.

Who was the longest-reigning English queen?

Queen Victoria was the longest reigning English queen, she ruled for 63 years, from 1837 until 1901.

Who was the first queen to rule England in her own right?

The first queen to rule England in her own right was Mary I, who became queen in 1553.

Who was the last English queen?

The last English queen was Elizabeth II, who ruled from 1952 until 2022.

Who was the only English queen to be executed?

The only English queen to be executed was Mary, Queen of Scots, who was beheaded in 1587 on the orders of Queen Elizabeth I.

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