Kings

King of the West Saxons who halted the Viking advance at the battle of Edington in 878 and fortified a network of burhs across...

The Scourge of God, who built a Hunnic empire from the Rhine to the Caspian and extracted gold from Constantinople. He ravaged...

Rama IX of Thailand, on the throne for 70 years and 126 days, the longest reigning living monarch at his death in 2016. He backed...

King of Sweden since 1973, descendant of the Napoleonic marshal Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, elected crown prince in 1810. Under the...

His eleven year personal rule without parliament and religious reforms ignited civil war. Defeated twice by parliamentary armies...

The oldest person to accede to the British throne, at 73, after more than seven decades as heir. He was crowned in Westminster...

Viking king of Denmark who conquered England in 1016 and ruled a North Sea empire of England, Denmark, Norway and parts of...

Conqueror of Wales, where his castles at Caernarfon, Conwy and Beaumaris remain among the finest medieval fortresses. He codified...

Launched the Hundred Years War, claiming the French crown, and celebrated victories at Sluys and Crecy. He founded the Order of...

King of Spain since the abdication of Juan Carlos in June 2014. An Olympic sailor at Barcelona 1992, he has steered the monarchy...

Philosopher king of Prussia, flute player and correspondent of Voltaire, who seized Silesia and held it through the Seven Years...

The first Hanoverian king born in Britain and to speak English as his first language, he reigned 59 years, a record until his...

The Lion of the North, who turned Sweden into a great power and entered the Thirty Years War in 1630 to defend the Protestant...

King of Denmark and Norway who converted to Christianity and raised the Jelling stones with his father, monuments called the...

King of Norway, of the Danish Glucksburg line invited to the Norwegian throne in 1905. A keen yachtsman, he sailed for Norway at...

First Plantagenet king, ruler of an empire from Scotland to the Pyrenees. He reformed royal justice, extending circuits of...

First Bourbon king, a Protestant who converted to Catholicism with the famous remark that Paris was worth a mass. The Edict of...

Immortalized by Shakespeare, he renewed the Hundred Years War and won the battle of Agincourt in 1415 with an outnumbered army of...

Married six times and broke with Rome when the pope refused an annulment, making himself supreme head of the Church of England...

Elected king after the last Carolingian died, founding the Capetian dynasty. His direct and cadet lines, Capet, Valois and...

First Stuart king of England, already king of Scots for 36 years, uniting the crowns in 1603. He sponsored the King James Bible...

The great Buddhist king of Angkor, who drove out the Chams, built the walled city of Angkor Thom with its Bayon temple of serene...

Lost Normandy to Philip II of France, quarreled with the pope and his own barons, and in June 1215 was forced to seal Magna Carta...

Canonized within thirty years of his death, the only French king made a saint. He bought the crown of thorns and built the...

The Sun King, whose reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any monarch of a sovereign state that can be verified to the...

Well meaning but indecisive king whose support for the American revolution strained finances and brought France to bankruptcy...

Ruler of the Mali empire, remembered for his 1324 pilgrimage to Mecca with a caravan of thousands and camels of gold, whose...

Transformed the French monarchy from a weak principality into the strongest power in western Europe. He took Normandy from King...

Warrior king who spent barely six months of a ten year reign in England, financing and leading the Third Crusade. He won the...

The founder of the Zulu kingdom who revolutionized warfare with the short stabbing spear and the buffalo horns formation. He...

Builder of Angkor Wat, the vast temple mountain dedicated to Vishnu, the largest religious monument on earth. He united the Khmer...

Duke of Normandy who won the throne of England at Hastings in October 1066. He built the Tower of London, ordered the Domesday...