| Worst English King |
| Stephen |
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10% |
[ 5 ] |
| John |
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28% |
[ 14 ] |
| Henry III |
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2% |
[ 1 ] |
| Edward II |
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22% |
[ 11 ] |
| Richard II |
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6% |
[ 3 ] |
| Henry VI |
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6% |
[ 3 ] |
| Charles I |
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14% |
[ 7 ] |
| James II |
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12% |
[ 6 ] |
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| Total Votes : 50 |
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| Author |
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Roger Hooper
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 Posted: Sat 10 Mar, 2012 6:08 pm Post subject: Who was the worst King of England? |
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Who do you rate as the worst King of England? I am putting an arbitrary period of time between 1066 and 1700, which would exclude Ehthelred the Unready and George IV. If you have another candidate not mentioned in the poll, let us know who it is.
My choice - Charles I, a man who, if he had any sense, could have avoided his demise
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Lloyd Winter
Location: Los Angeles Joined: 27 Aug 2011
Posts: 201
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| Posted: Sat 10 Mar, 2012 6:25 pm Post subject: |
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tough choice, but they are all Plantagenets 
I've always blamed Richard I for John so lets start there and then move back to all the other problems with his reign.
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Jean Thibodeau
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| Posted: Sat 10 Mar, 2012 7:05 pm Post subject: |
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Worst would depend on " how worst ?
Most incompetent administrator.
Most incompetent war leader.
Most evil.
Most insane.
Most easily deposed and executed.
Then there is the " non- King " Oliver Cromwell: The High Protector , or whatever is official title was.
Some of the least savoury ones morally might have been very competent managers, war leaders and even loved by the people but hated by the nobles or in reverse loved by the nobles but hated by the people, but feared by all.
Hard to vote for the all around worst King or Queen.
You can easily give up your freedom. You have to fight hard to get it back!
Last edited by Jean Thibodeau on Sat 10 Mar, 2012 7:47 pm; edited 1 time in total
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William P
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| Posted: Sat 10 Mar, 2012 7:45 pm Post subject: |
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its a tough choice otherwise since i dont know anything about half of them.
me view of edward the longshanks has been coloured by braveheart so im not gonna select him..
i was initially gonna select mary quen of scots, although that was partly because i mixed her up with elizabeth bathory's habit of bathing in virgins blood, that and the fact she was the queen of SCOTLAND, and this ones about english rulers.
aside from that im going to go with charles 1st for the reasons already stated i.e he stupidly engineered his own demise by not trying to listen to cromwell and listen to the demands of the parliment
although cromwell i understand was never really accepted by the people and also did some nasty things to the irish...
hmm, decisions decisions.
people i wouldnt put on the list.
henry V (on this forum i dont think i need to elaborate why)
, henryVIII (had an unstable lovelife but he was an awsome warleader and fighter)
the black prince (see henry V)
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Rod Walker
Location: NSW, Australia. Joined: 05 Feb 2004
Posts: 230
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| Posted: Sat 10 Mar, 2012 10:58 pm Post subject: |
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As a worst King of England, I'm going for Richard I. He really seemed to have seen England as just a way to raise money. At least John wanted to be involved as a King of England.
Cheers
Rod
Jouster
www.jousting.com.au
"Come! Let us lay a lance in rest,
And tilt at windmills under a wild sky!
For who would live so petty and unblessed
That dare not tilt at something, ere he die?"
--Errantry, John Galsworthy
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Quinn W.
Location: Bellingham, WA Joined: 02 May 2009
Posts: 197
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| Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2012 12:36 am Post subject: |
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| Rod Walker wrote: | | He really seemed to have seen England as just a way to raise money. |
Good call. I said John, just because Richard did have a decent reputation all in all via his crusading. He did get a pretty cool nickname, after all. But England was very much a means to an end in his mind. So worst king, probably not. Worst king of England, however... yeah, he could well be.
"Some say that the age of chivalry is past, that the spirit of romance is dead. The age of chivalry is never past, so long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth"
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2012 5:42 am Post subject: |
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I'd vote for Richard I as well. John is seriously underrated as an English king. Richard didn't leave him much to work with. Cromwell was idealistic but he tried to do good things for the English people. His level of success is debatable but I wouldn't put him on the above list. Its good to see that Richard III is not on the list. I have had a soft spot for him since reading Penman's Sunne in Splendour
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Ken Speed
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| Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2012 6:16 am Post subject: |
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Edward the Confessor managed to alienate his Anglo Saxon subjects sufficiently and muddy up the succession to the throne badly enough to create the conditions that led to virtually a free for all for the English throne between Harold Hardrada, Harold Godwinson and William the Bastard and culminated in the Norman Invasion. In my opinion leaving your realm in a condition in which it is ripe for invasion is pretty hard to beat in the bad ruler category.
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Matthew Amt
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| Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2012 6:52 am Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | Cromwell was idealistic but he tried to do good things for the English people. |
"People"?? What do they have to do with anything? Why blame Charles for being God's annointed sovereign? It wasn't up to him to bow down to a *man*, a COMMONER, no less, just because some lower-class rabble got it in their heads that THEY had anything to say about how English government should work! Kings and nobles rule, commoners work. What's hard about this?
| Quote: | | Its good to see that Richard III is not on the list. I have had a soft spot for him since reading Penman's Sunne in Splendour |
Ha, it was "Daughter of Time" that did it for me!
| Ken Speed wrote: | | Edward the Confessor managed to alienate his Anglo Saxon subjects sufficiently and muddy up the succession to the throne badly enough to create the conditions that led to virtually a free for all for the English throne between Harold Hardrada, Harold Godwinson and William the Bastard and culminated in the Norman Invasion. |
Again, hardly his fault. As I understand it (though it's been a long time since I read up on this!), it was up to the Witan to choose the king, and they chose Godwinson. Invasion by usurpers is beside the point.
It is hard to choose a "winner" in this race! Were it not for the time limit, I'd be inclined to vote for the upcoming Charles III... Maybe Elizabeth will outlive him!
Matthew
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J.D. Crawford
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| Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2012 11:57 am Post subject: |
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Taking the Scottish point of view, I'll say Edward I. Bad neighbour.
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José-Manuel Benito
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| Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2012 12:57 pm Post subject: |
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| Rod Walker wrote: | | As a worst King of England, I'm going for Richard I. He really seemed to have seen England as just a way to raise money. At least John wanted to be involved as a King of England. |
I agree. IMO the worst king was Richard I…
| Winston Churchill wrote: | | “When Richard’s contemporaries called him ‘Cœur de Lion” they paid a lasting compliment to the king of beasts. Little did the English people owe him for his services, and heavily did they pay for his adventures. He was in England only twice for a few short months in his ten years’ reign; yet his memory has always stirred English hearts,...” |
…But I'm not British.
Ecce, iam meum patrem video
Ecce, iam meam matrem video
Ecce, iam meas sorores ac meos fratres video
Ecce, iam meam gentem totam ab initio video
Ecce illi me iam vocant
Et illi me rogant meum locum inter se accipere
Apud Averni portas sunt
Ubi viri fortes æterne vivant
Last edited by José-Manuel Benito on Wed 14 Mar, 2012 4:40 am; edited 2 times in total
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Kel Rekuta
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| Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2012 1:16 pm Post subject: |
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| J.D. Crawford wrote: | | Taking the Scottish point of view, I'll say Edward I. Bad neighbour. |
Interesting - He's not on the poll as I read it.
I voted for Edward II because he was completely ineffectual as sovereign and lost almost all the North that his father had worked so diligently to control. John may have lost most of the English crowns' continental possessions but Ed II did worse by losing control of most of Northern England and whatever Scottish lands were under the English heel during his childhood.
If he lived today we could compare him to the rich, lazy playboy sons of powerful industrial leaders. Or perhaps much of the Saudi Royal family? 
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Kel Rekuta
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| Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2012 1:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Lloyd Winter wrote: | | tough choice, but they are all Plantagenets |
Except for the last two, who were Stuarts.
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Lloyd Winter
Location: Los Angeles Joined: 27 Aug 2011
Posts: 201
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| Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2012 3:30 pm Post subject: |
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I meant my personal picks, not the whole list
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Roger Hooper
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| Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2012 3:44 pm Post subject: |
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I guess I should have put Richard I on the list, but, while I don't like him much, he could be an effective leader. He was really more the Angevin emperor than the King of England, and he spent much of his time (except for the Crusade) keeping it under his control. England, for him, was mainly a source of money for the Crusade and for war against Philip Augustus. I sure got tired of him being depicted as Good King Richard in most of the versions of Robin Hood that I've seen. I remember Thomas Costain characterizing him as having more the attitude of the Knight, than a King.
Another person who should be on the list is Mary Tudor, who made mid 16th century England a very chancy and unpleasant place to live..
I'm surprised that nobody as yet has selected Henry VI. He was a nice guy, but his incompetance and insanity led to the loss of all the land in France (except Calais) and then the Wars of the Roses.
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José-Manuel Benito
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| Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2012 4:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Jean Thibodeau wrote: | | Hard to vote for the all around worst King or Queen. |
What do you think about Bloody Mary? 
Ecce, iam meum patrem video
Ecce, iam meam matrem video
Ecce, iam meas sorores ac meos fratres video
Ecce, iam meam gentem totam ab initio video
Ecce illi me iam vocant
Et illi me rogant meum locum inter se accipere
Apud Averni portas sunt
Ubi viri fortes æterne vivant
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GG Osborne
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| Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2012 6:02 pm Post subject: |
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You missed my number one "bad king:" George III. If he had had the sense to listen to his best advisors the whole loss of America could have been avoided. Changed the course of world history, of course, but maybe for the better...who knows? Spot of tea anyone?
"Those who live by the sword...will usually die with a huge, unpaid credit card balance!"
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Michael Curl
Location: Northern California, US Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 487
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| Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2012 6:15 pm Post subject: |
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Surely not, Parliament caused the loss of America, not George III
I voted for John, while Richard may have screwed him over, I can't help but think that if he had been as competent as Richard, he never would have lost so much land to Philip.
E Pluribus Unum
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Lafayette C Curtis
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| Posted: Wed 21 Mar, 2012 12:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | John is seriously underrated as an English king. |
Amen to that. In fact, from my subjective point of view, I tend to see John as a king who was a little bit too far ahead of time in that he wanted to regularise the administration of the state and impose order upon to headstrong, turbulent nobility. Too bad he forgot that he (or the state) didn't quite have the power to pull it off just yet.
Richard, on the other hand, was quite energetic and seemed rather competent at running the state as it was, but he didn't appear to have had much of a forward-looking vision (at least according to the Whig viewpoint on history).
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David Lewis Smith
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| Posted: Wed 21 Mar, 2012 4:39 pm Post subject: |
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I am a second generation American, my grand parents are Irish and Polish on my mothers side and Scots on my fathers side.
I vote for All of them as worst.
sort of a visceral reaction. People go on and on about 400 years in the USA and while I will not detract from that horrid event for the last 2000 everything south of the wall has expanded into the kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland
Alba gu bràth
Erin go Bragh
David L Smith
MSG (RET)
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