Anne (
6 February 1665 –
1 August 1714) became Queen of
England,
Scotland and
Ireland on
8 March 1702, succeeding
William III of England and II of Scotland. Her
Roman Catholic father,
James II and VII, was forcibly deposed in 1688; 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
state, the
Kingdom of Great Britain. Anne became its first sovereign, while continuing to hold the separate crown of Queen of Ireland. Anne reigned for twelve years until her death in August 1714.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 I.Anne was born at
St. James's Palace,
London, the second daughter of James, Duke of York, (afterwards James II) and his first wife, the
Lady Anne Hyde. Her paternal uncle was King
Charles II and her older sister was the future Mary II.
Mary II (
30 April 1662 –
28 December 1694) reigned as Queen of
England and
Ireland from
13 February 1689, and as
Queen of Scots (as Mary II of Scotland) from
11 April 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, although a sovereign in her own right, did not wield power during most of her reign, instead ceding it to her husband. She did, however, govern the realms when William was engaged in military campaigns abroad.Mary, born at
St. James Palace in London on
30 April 1662, was the eldest daughter of James, Duke of York (the future
James II of England) and of his first wife,
Lady Anne Hyde.Mary's uncle was
Charles II; her maternal grandfather,
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, served for a lengthy period as Charles's chief advisor.The Duke of York converted to Roman Catholicism in 1668 or 1669, but Mary and Anne had a
Protestant upbringing, pursuant to the command of Charles II.At the age of fifteen, Lady Mary became betrothed to the Protestant
Stadtholder, William,
Prince of Orange.William was the son of her aunt,
Mary, Princess Royal, and
Prince William II of Nassau.
Gunnhildr konungamóðir (
mother of kings) or
Gunnhildr Özurardóttir (c. 900 – c. 980) was the wife of
Erik Bloodaxe (
king of Norway 930–34,
"king" of Orkney c. 937–54, and king of
Jórvík 948–49 and 952–54). Gunnhild is a prominent figure in many
Norse sagas, including
Fagrskinna,
Egil's Saga,
Njal's Saga, and
Heimskringla. Many of the details of her life are disputed, including her parentage. Gunnhild lived during a time of great change in Norway. Her father-in-law
Harald Fairhair had recently united much of Norway under his rule. Shortly after his death, Gunnhild and her husband were overthrown and exiled. She spent much of the rest of her life in exile in
Orkney,
Jorvik and
Denmark. A number of her many children with Erik became co-rulers of Norway in the late tenth century. What details of her life are known come largely from
Icelandic sources; because the Icelanders were generally hostile to her and her husband, scholars regard some of the more negative episodes reported in them as suspect.According to the
Heimskringla and
Egil's Saga, Gunnhild was the daughter of
Ozur Toti, a
hersir from
Halogaland in northern
Norway.Accounts of her early life vary between sources.
Egil's Saga relates that "Eirik fought a great battle on the
Northern Dvina in Bjarmaland, and was victorious as the poems about him record. On the same expedition he obtained Gunnhild, the daughter of Ozur Toti, and brought her home with him."
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,
The Faerie Queen 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 three years after her birth, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. Perhaps for that reason, her brother,
Edward VI, cut her out of the succession. His will, however, was set aside, as it contravened the
Third Succession Act of 1543, in which Elizabeth was named as successor provided that
Mary I of England, Elizabeth's half-sister, should die without issue. In 1558, Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister, 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 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, she never did. The reasons for this choice are unknown, and they have been much debated.
Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, later
Queen Elizabeth (Elizabeth Angela Marguerite;
4 August 1900 –
30 March 2002), was the
Queen Consort of King
George VI of the United Kingdom and the
British Dominions from 1936 until his death in 1952. After her husband's death, she was known as
Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter,
Elizabeth II (see
queen mother). Before her husband ascended the throne, from 1923 to 1936 she was known as the
Duchess of York. She was the last
Queen-consort of Ireland and
Empress-consort of India.Born into a family of
Scottish nobility (her
father inherited the
Earldom of Strathmore and Kinghorne in 1904), she came to prominence in 1923 when she married Albert, Duke of York, the second son of
George V and
Queen Mary. As Duchess of York, she – along with her husband and their two daughters Elizabeth and
Margaret – embodied traditional ideas of family and public service.In 1936, her husband unexpectedly became King when her brother-in-law,
Edward VIII,
abdicated in order to marry his mistress, the
American divorcée
Wallis Simpson.As Queen Consort, Elizabeth accompanied her husband on diplomatic tours to France and North America in the run-up to
World War II. During the war, her seemingly indomitable spirit provided moral support to the British public, and in recognition of her role as a
propaganda tool,
Adolf Hitler described her as "the most dangerous woman in Europe".
Anne of Denmark (
12 December 1574 –
2 March 1619) was
queen consort of
James VI of Scots, I of England. The second daughter of King
Frederick II of Denmark, Anne married James in 1589 at the age of fourteen and bore him three children who survived infancy, including the future
Charles I of England. She demonstrated an independent streak and a willingness to use factional Scottish politics in her conflicts with James over the custody of
Prince Henry and his treatment of her friend Beatrix Ruthven. Anne appears to have loved James at first, but the couple gradually drifted and eventually lived apart, though mutual respect and a degree of affection survived. In England, Anne shifted her energies from factional politics to patronage of the arts and constructed a magnificent court of her own, hosting one of the richest cultural
salons in Europe. After 1612, she suffered sustained bouts of ill health and gradually withdrew from the centre of court life. Though she was reported to have died a
Protestant, evidence suggests that she may have converted to
Catholicism at some stage in her life.Historians have traditionally dismissed Anne as a lightweight queen, frivolous and self-indulgent. However, recent reappraisals acknowledge Anne's assertive independence and, in particular, her dynamic significance as a patron of the arts during the famous
Jacobean age.
Mary of Teck (Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes;
26 May 1867 –
24 March 1953) was the
Queen Consort of
George V, and
Empress of India. Before her husband's accession, she was successively
Duchess of York,
Duchess of Cornwall and
Princess of Wales. By birth, she was a
princess of
Teck, in the Kingdom of
Württemberg, with the style
Her Serene Highness. To her family, she was informally known as
May, after her birth month. Her father, who was of German extraction, married into the
British Royal Family, and "May" was born and brought up in the United Kingdom. At the age of 24 she was betrothed to
Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, the heir to the British throne, but six weeks after the engagement was announced he unexpectedly died of pneumonia. The following year she became engaged to the new heir, Albert Victor's brother, George. As his Queen Consort from 1910, she supported her husband through
World War I, his ill-health, and major political changes arising from the
aftermath of the war and the rise of
socialism and
nationalism. After George's death in 1936, her eldest son
Edward became King-Emperor, but to her dismay he
abdicated the same year in order to marry twice-divorced
American socialite Mrs.
Wallis Simpson.
Hatshepsut (or
Hatchepsut,
IPA:
/hætˈʃɛpsʊt/),was the fifth
pharaoh of the
eighteenth dynasty of
Ancient Egypt. She is generally regarded by
Egyptologists as one of the most successful pharaohs, reigning longer than any other woman of an
indigenous Egyptian
dynasty.Although records of her reign are documented in diverse ancient sources, Hatshepsut was described by early modern scholars as only having served as a co-regent from
about 1479 to 1458 BC, during years seven to twenty-one of the reign previously identified as that of
Thutmose III. Now it is known widely that Hatshepsut assumed the position of pharaoh and her reign as king is usually given as twenty-two years since
Manetho assigns her a reign of 21 years and 9 months. Manetho was a historian who lived during the Ptolemaic era, during the third century B.C., and he had access to many records that are now lost. Her death is known to have occurred in
1458 BC, which implies that she became pharaoh
circa 1479 BC.Although it was uncommon for Egypt to be ruled by a woman, this situation was not unprecedented. Hatshepsut was the second known to have formally assumed power as "King of Upper and Lower Egypt" after Queen
Sobekneferu of the
Twelfth Dynasty.
Catherine de' Medici (
April 13,
1519 –
January 5,
1589) was born in
Florence, Italy, as
Caterina Maria Romula di Lorenzo de' Medici. Her parents,
Lorenzo II de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, and
Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, Countess of Boulogne, both died within weeks of her birth. In 1533, at the age of fourteen, Caterina married Henry, second son of
King Francis I of France and
Queen Claude. Under the
gallicised version of her name,
Catherine de Médicis.Throughout Henry II's reign, he excluded Catherine from influence and instead showered favours on his mistress,
Diane de Poitiers. Henry's death in 1559 thrust Catherine into the political arena as mother of the frail fifteen-year-old King
Francis II. When he too died in 1560, she was appointed
regent on behalf of her ten-year-old son
King Charles IX and was granted sweeping powers. After Charles died in 1574, Catherine played a key role in the reign of her third son,
Henry III. He dispensed with her advice only in the last months of her life.Catherine's three weak sons reigned in an age of almost constant civil and religious war in France. The problems facing the monarchy were complex and daunting. At first, Catherine compromised and made concessions to the rebelling Protestants, or
Huguenots, as they became known. She failed, however, to grasp the theological issues that drove their movement. Later, she resorted in frustration and anger to hard-line policies against them.
Portal:Monarchy/Selected queen/10
