Who was the greatest monarch in history? 9 experts have their say

Our team of historians, broadcasters and authors name kings and queens with a strong claim to greatness

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Published: May 29, 2026 at 4:00 PM

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Henri IV of France

Exemplar of empathy and tolerance

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In the 16th century, France was beset by the cruel Wars of Religion – an intractable conflict between Protestant Huguenots and French Catholics. In a half-hearted attempt to bring peace, in 1572 a marriage was arranged between Henri of Navarre – a royal cousin born a Catholic but raised a Protestant – and Marguerite de France, sister of the Catholic king. But not long after the wedding, the Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Day occurred, and between 5,000 and 30,000 people were killed.

Gold coin showing two profile portraits in relief, with a Latin inscription around the edge and a small loop at the top for wearing.

A 17th-century coin depicting Henri IV of France, who promoted the principle of religious tolerance (Image by Getty Images)

When Henri succeeded to the throne of France in 1589, suffering in the kingdom was at its peak. Almost four years later, at the gates of the capital, Henri IV famously declared: “Paris vaut bien une messe” – “Paris is worth a mass.” He realised he could assure his position and prevent further bloodshed by converting to Catholicism. He set aside religious difference to follow his conscience, and saved countless lives. After his coronation, he passed the Edict of Nantes in 1598, granting Huguenots amnesty, the ability to hold public office, freedom of conscience and the right to worship. Catholicism remained the state religion, but he enshrined the principle of religious toleration.

His letters reveal him as a wonderfully appealing character, with immense charisma and a wicked sense of humour. He cultivated an image of kingship with the wellbeing of all his people at its heart. Humane, tolerant and witty, Henri IV was the definition of a great monarch.

Hannah Skoda, associate professor of medieval history at the University of Oxford

Victoria

Reshaper of the monarchy, admired by republicans

As a historian of 19th-century Britain, I feel duty bound to make the case for Victoria. She reigned over a period of enormous change, embracing industrial growth, imperial expansion, technological innovation and major social and political reforms, which left Britain in 1901 looking vastly different from the country she had inherited in 1837.

Yet these transformations were not of her own making. Unlike earlier monarchs, Victoria neither led armies nor directed policy. Her real achievement was the creation of a new monarchy – one that not only survived but even flourished despite a dramatic reduction in royal power.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert depicted at home with their children, c1845. “Victoria established the template for the modern British monarchy,” says Bob Nicholson (Image by Getty Images)

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert depicted at home with their children, c1845. “Victoria established the template for the modern British monarchy,” says Bob Nicholson (Image by Getty Images)

Victoria came to the throne in an age of revolution, when monarchies across Europe were collapsing. In Britain, the crown’s popularity was at a dangerously low ebb thanks to the excesses of her predecessors. The public, however, warmed quickly to this young queen and to her seemingly sincere commitment to family life, charity and civic responsibility. Even radical movements such as Chartism – the first national mass workers’ movement in history, which often advocated violent revolution – were rarely hostile to Victoria herself.

Her visibility helped. She appeared frequently in public throughout the early years of her reign, while the expanding mass media of the day carried images and stories of the royal family to millions across Britain and its empire. Only after her husband Prince Albert’s death in 1861 at the age of 42, when Victoria withdrew from public life, did murmurs of republicanism start to resurface.

As a republican myself, I have to hand it to her. Victoria established the template for the modern British monarchy – one that, for better or worse, endures today.

Bob Nicholson, writer, broadcaster and historian at Edge Hill University

Edward I

Brilliant but brutal medieval ruler

“We should perceive him to surpass all the kings of the world who came before him,” wrote the chronicler at Westminster Abbey when Edward I was entombed there in 1307. Dying at the age of 68, Edward had lived longer, travelled further and accomplished more than any previous English monarch.

Before his accession, Edward had won a civil war against Simon de Montfort and gone on crusade. As king he had conquered Wales and Scotland and defended his duchy of Gascony from French invasion. He had also reformed England’s government, making parliament a permanent fixture, and enacted so many laws that in later centuries he was lauded as ‘the English Justinian’.

Medieval manuscript illustration of a king being crowned by two clerics, shown in simple red and green linework with Latin text above the scene.

“For his English subjects at the time, being terrible was integral to what made Edward great,” says Marc Morris (Image by Bridgeman)

Judged by modern standards, Edward might seem altogether less admirable. Nowadays we might admire the magnificent castles he constructed in Wales but lament the country’s violent conquest. We would certainly condemn Edward’s expulsion of the Jews from his realm in 1290. But people in the past had very different attitudes to our own.

Medieval Europe was a profoundly antisemitic place, and no corner of it more so than England. For the Westminster chronicler, the fact that Edward had invaded his neighbours and expelled “unbelievers” from his kingdom was part of his appeal. He was not only a great king (rex magnus), said the same writer, but also a terrible king (rex terribilis). To us that sounds like a contradiction. But for his English subjects at the time, being terrible was integral to what made Edward great.

Marc Morris, medieval historian, writer and broadcaster

Nanny of the Maroons

Guerilla general and scourge of slavery

Queen Nanny, or Nanny of the Maroons, was the spiritual and military leader of a community of enslaved people, the Windward Maroons, who escaped Jamaica’s plantations in the 18th century. She lent her name to the highland settlement they established, Nanny Town, and her acumen to the Maroon Wars fought against British troops in the 1720s and 1730s.

Close‑up of a purple‑toned banknote showing two engraved portraits with a coat of arms between them, surrounded by intricate patterned linework.

Nanny of the Maroons (left) helped more than 1,000 people flee slavery, says Adriane Lentz-Smith (Image by Shutterstock)

As is the case for many extraordinary black women, much of Nanny’s story is told outside the archives or filtered through British sources. Most likely she was Asante, born in the 1680s in west Africa and transported to Jamaica by the British. According to oral tradition, she helped more than 1,000 men and women flee slavery into marronage, establishing autonomous free communities. According to academic historians, she served as a skilled general of a guerrilla army in a period of black revolutionary action, and as a focus of cohesion for the multi-ethnic and multilingual maroon groups, who thought of her as “the mother of everybody in the state”, in the words of the scholar Edward Brathwaite.

In 1982, the Jamaican government conferred on Nanny the Order of the National Hero, and she remains a potent symbol of black women’s efficacy and power.

Adriane Lentz-Smith, associate professor of history at Duke University

Mansa Musa

Mali’s enlightened (and immeasurably wealthy) emperor

A monarch who seemed almost mythical in his power, wealth and vision was Mansa Musa, the 14th-century ruler of the Mali empire. What set him apart was not just the scale of his empire or the brilliance of his court but the astonishing fact that he remains, by every reasonable measure, the richest individual in recorded history.

Musa ascended the throne in 1307 or 1312, and presided over an empire that controlled some of the richest goldfields of the medieval world. A contemporary chronicler described his fortune as “immeasurable”. In 1324, he distributed so much gold in Cairo that the value of the precious metal collapsed for more than a decade.

Medieval map illustration showing a crowned figure seated on a throne holding a gold orb and sceptre, surrounded by stylised buildings, place names, and decorative details.

Mansa Musa’s reign saw the Mali empire flourish in many respects, says Jess Venner (Image by Getty Images)

But Musa’s most important legacy lies in what he built at home. Under his patronage, cities such as Timbuktu and Gao became centres of learning, trade and Islamic scholarship. He commissioned mosques, libraries and universities, and attracted scholars from across north Africa and the Middle East. His reign brought political stability, cultural flourishing and economic vibrancy to a region whose intellectual achievements are only now receiving the recognition they deserve. West Africa became a serious intellectual force in the medieval world.

The true measure of his eminence is not gold but the institutions and ideas in which he invested at home. If greatness is determined by lasting impact, Mansa Musa surely stands as one of history’s most compelling monarchs.

Jess Venner, ancient historian and author

Elizabeth I

Pragmatic patron of the arts and PR pioneer

The answer depends on how you measure greatness, but for a true all-rounder who battled enormous odds to become one of the most celebrated and revered sovereigns, the answer has to be Elizabeth I.

The younger daughter of Henry VIII, Elizabeth was declared a bastard when her mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed, and was barred from inheriting the crown. But her resilience and sheer force of will brought her to the throne in 1558, and she confounded all expectations. Rather than fight against the misogyny of her male advisers, she pretended to share their regret that she had been born “a weak and feeble woman”, and used her feminine wiles to dazzling effect.

Formal Renaissance‑era portrait of a richly dressed figure with curled red hair, a pearl‑studded headdress, a high lace ruff, and an elaborately embroidered gown set against a dark background.

“Elizabeth I established peace after one of England’s most turbulent half-centuries,” says Tracy Borman (Image by Getty Images)

A master of pragmatism, Elizabeth settled the vexed question of religion and established much-needed peace after one of England’s most turbulent half-centuries. During her long reign, England emerged as a world power, defeating the Spanish Armada and laying the foundations of an empire. An exceptionally intelligent and cultured woman, Elizabeth ushered in a golden age of the arts, patronising the likes of Shakespeare and Spenser.

More than any monarch before or since, Elizabeth appreciated the power of PR, crafting her public image so effectively that she was worshipped as the ‘Virgin Queen’ during her lifetime and for centuries after her death.

Tracy Borman, author, historian and broadcaster

Alfred the Great

Unlikely king who vanquished the Vikings – and took aim at ignorance

The youngest and sickliest of five sons of King Æthelwulf of Wessex, Alfred’s odds of making it to the throne were very long. But make it he did in 871, during a turbulent period when kingdoms were toppling all around him. After a Viking attack on his winter court at Chippenham in January 878, he fled into the Somerset marshes at Athelney, before winning the decisive battle of Edington. Under the terms of his surrender, the Viking leader Guthrum was baptised, renamed Æthelstan and allowed to rule East Anglia.

Ornate medieval gold pendant with a teardrop frame, featuring an enamelled figure in green surrounded by intricate gold filigree and coloured detailing.

Alfred commissioned the remarkable Alfred Jewel, which was likely a pointer used to follow text (Image by Bridgeman)

But there are plenty of successful war leaders knocking about. Alfred was a great monarch because he understood that there was more to ruling than military might. Under the depredations of the Vikings, monasteries had been destroyed, together with their books. Alfred established a widespread programme of literary regeneration, translating learned texts into Old English.

It is telling that the most remarkable artefact from his reign is the ‘Alfred Jewel’ – a raindrop-shaped piece of rock crystal decorated with an enamel figure and encased in gold. Words around the edge read: AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN – “Alfred ordered me to be made”. This seems to be an aestel, or text pointer – a reading aid of the sort that he had sent out to each bishopric during his programme of translation. As the Beowulf poet puts it, Þæt wæs gōd cyning (“that was a good king”).

Eleanor Barraclough, historian and author of Embers of the Hands (Profile, 2024)

Alexander the Great

Ambitious conqueror who redefined the Greek world

The clue is in the byname. In 336 BC, following the death of his father, Philip II, Alexander took over rulership of Macedon, a kingdom largely in what’s now northern Greece. He swiftly established rule over all Greece, then set about the most ambitious campaign of expansion in history – taking the fight to the Persian empire. Having completed that conquest, Alexander came to hold under his sway lands stretching from the Aegean to the river Indus in India. And he achieved all of this before he was far into his thirties.

Persian‑style miniature showing a figure in patterned robes standing beside a fantastical tree with green leaves and fruit shaped like animal and human heads, set against a bright blue background.

Alexander the Great, depicted here in a Persian manuscript, re-drew the map of the ancient Greek world and “defined it for centuries”, says Michael Scott (Image by Getty Images)

Alexander died in suspicious circumstances in Babylon in 323 BC. His empire was divided up between his generals, who established themselves as monarchs and created their own ruling households, ruling on and off for almost 300 years.

Alexander didn’t just re-draw the map of the ancient Greek world – he defined it for centuries to come. And Alexander’s bringing together of so many cultures and kingdoms had a fundamental effect on the spread of Greek culture into Asia, as well as the connecting of the Mediterranean and Asian worlds, which in later centuries became linked by the web of trade routes known as the Silk Roads.

Michael Scott, professor in classics and ancient history at the University of Warwick

None of them

Greatness isn’t goodness – and no monarch exemplified that either

There are many ways to judge a monarch. As we’ve read, Alexander the Great is much loved by historians because of his military prowess: in the fourth century BC he marched his army all the way from Macedonia to the foothills of the Himalaya. But nobody ever asked the ordinary people of Persia or Asia Minor how ‘great’ it was to be invaded. As the novelist Henry Fielding once observed: “Greatness consists in bringing all manner of mischief on mankind, and goodness in removing it from them.”

Painted portrait of an older person in an 18th‑century military uniform with a dark coat, red collar accents, a large medal on the chest, and a feathered tricorn hat, set against a plain brown background with a small eagle emblem to the side.

An absolute monarch, Frederick the Great said that a king should be “the first servant of the state” (Image by Getty Images)

So what about ‘goodness’, then? A few monarchs have been praised as ‘enlightened despots’, working only to serve the best interests of their people. Frederick the Great of Prussia, for example, famously said that a king should be “the first servant of the state”. He encouraged freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and promoted both the arts and scientific thought. As an absolute monarch, though, he alone got to say what was good for his people. If he wanted to go to war, everyone went to war. He was much admired by Hitler.

The problem with monarchs is that you never know what you’re going to get. It could be Frederick the Great, or it could be Ivan the Terrible. Far better to have a democratic system allowing ordinary people to choose their leaders and make decisions about their own lives. Which is another way of saying: the best monarch is probably no monarch at all.

Keith Lowe, author of The Fear and the Freedom: How the Second World War Changed Us (Viking, 2017)

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This article was first published in the May 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine

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