King of England

This list of kings and queens of the Kingdom of England begins with Alfred the Great,King of Wessex, one of the petty kingdoms to rule a portion of modern England. While Alfred was not the first king to lay claim to rule all of the English, his rule represents the first unbroken line of Kings to rule the whole of England, the House of Wessex. The last monarch of a distinct kingdom of England was Queen Anne, who became Queen of Great Britain when England merged with Scotland to form a union in 1707. For monarchs after Queen Anne, see List of British monarchs.

Arguments are made for a few different kings deemed to control enough of the ancient kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons to be deemed the first King of England. For example, Offa, king of Mercia, and Egbert, king of Wessex, are sometimes described as kings of England by popular writers, but not by all historians. In the late eighth century Offa achieved a dominance over southern England that did not survive his death in 796. In 829 Egbert conquered Mercia, but he soon lost control of it. By the late ninth century Wessex was the dominant Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Its king, Alfred the Great, was overlord of western Mercia and used the title King of the Angles and Saxons, but he never ruled eastern and northern England, which was then the Danelaw. His son Edward the Elder conquered the eastern Danelaw, but Edward's son Æthelstan became the first king to rule the whole of England when he conquered Northumbria in 927, and he is regarded by some modern historians as the first king of England.

The Principality of Wales was incorporated into the Kingdom of England under the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284, and in 1301 King Edward I invested his eldest son, the future King Edward II, as Prince of Wales. Since that time, except for King Edward III, the eldest sons of all English monarchs have borne this title. After the death of Queen Elizabeth I without issue, in 1603, the crowns of England and Scotland were joined in personal union under King James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England. By royal proclamation, James styled himself "King of Great Britain", but no such kingdom was created until 1707, when England underwent legislative union with Scotland to form the new Kingdom of Great Britain, during the reign of Queen Anne.

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