History of the monarchy of the United Kingdom

To gain the consent of the political community, English kings began summoning Parliaments to approve taxation and to enact statutes.

Following the installation of William III and Mary II as co-monarchs in the Glorious Revolution, a constitutional monarchy was established with power shifting to Parliament.

In the years after the Second World War, the vast majority of British colonies and territories became independent, effectively bringing the Empire to an end.

George VI and his successors, Elizabeth II and Charles III, adopted the title Head of the Commonwealth as a symbol of the free association of its independent member states.

Henry chose his daughter Empress Matilda as his heir, sparking controversy and forcing the nobility to swear oaths of allegiance to her.

[48] These tensions led to a series of events including the exile and eventual execution of the king's favorite, Piers Gaveston, and later the rise of Hugh Despenser the Younger, who further destabilized the kingdom.

[60][61] King Henry V (r. 1413–1422) sought to unify England by making conciliatory gestures towards his father's enemies and honoring the deceased Richard II.

[61] His reign was largely free from domestic strife, allowing him to focus on the last phase of the Hundred Years' War with France.

[62] Henry's legendary victory at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 boosted national pride, and he continued to achieve military success, conquering Normandy in 1419 and being recognized as heir and regent of France in 1420 as part of the Treaty of Troyes.

Afterward he captured Margaret of Anjou, eventually sending her into exile, but not before killing Henry VI while he was held prisoner in the Tower.

Ultimately, the conflict culminated in success for the Lancastrian branch led by Henry Tudor, in 1485, when Richard III was killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field.

Through skill and ability, Henry re-established absolute supremacy in the realm, and the conflicts with the nobility that had plagued previous monarchs came to an end.

[75] Henry VIII's son and successor, the young Edward VI, continued with further religious reforms, but his early death in 1553 precipitated a succession crisis.

He pursued disastrous wars in France and she attempted to return England to Roman Catholicism (burning Protestants at the stake as heretics in the process).

During the reign of Alexander III, Norway launched an unsuccessful invasion of Scotland; the ensuing Treaty of Perth recognised Scottish control of the Western Isles and other disputed areas.

Having paid a large ransom, James returned to Scotland in 1424; to restore his authority, he used ruthless measures, including the execution of several of his enemies.

James II continued his father's policies by subduing influential noblemen but he was killed in an accident at the age of thirty, and a council of regents again assumed power.

James V led another disastrous war with the English in 1542, and his death in the same year left the Crown in the hands of his six-day-old daughter, Mary.

Since she had no children, she was succeeded by the Scottish monarch James VI, who was the great-grandson of Henry VIII's older sister and hence Elizabeth's first cousin twice removed.

He provoked opposition by ruling without Parliament from 1629 to 1640, unilaterally levying taxes and adopting controversial religious policies (many of which were offensive to the Scottish Presbyterians and the English Puritans).

When James succeeded Charles, he pursued a policy of offering religious tolerance to Roman Catholics, thereby drawing the ire of many of his Protestant subjects.

Many opposed James's decisions to maintain a large standing army, to appoint Roman Catholics to high political and military offices, and to imprison Church of England clerics who challenged his policies.

As a result, a group of Protestants known as the Immortal Seven invited James II & VII's daughter Mary and her husband William III of Orange to depose the king.

[94] In 1714, Queen Anne was succeeded by her second cousin, and Sophia's son, George I, Elector of Hanover, who consolidated his position by defeating Jacobite rebellions in 1715 and 1719.

The Victorian era was marked by great cultural change, technological progress, and the establishment of the United Kingdom as one of the world's foremost powers.

However, her reign was also marked by increased support for the republican movement, due in part to Victoria's permanent mourning and lengthy period of seclusion following the death of her husband in 1861.

[103][104][105][106] George V's death in 1936 was followed by the accession of Edward VIII, who caused a public scandal by announcing his desire to marry the divorced American Wallis Simpson, even though the Church of England opposed the remarriage of divorcees.

[107] George served as a rallying figure for the British people during World War II, making morale-boosting visits to the troops as well as to munitions factories and to areas bombed by Nazi Germany.

The position is purely ceremonial, and is not inherited by the British monarch as of right but is vested in an individual chosen by the Commonwealth heads of government.

[109] In the 1990s, republicanism in the United Kingdom grew, partly on account of negative publicity associated with the Royal Family (for instance, immediately following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales).