Rate the Tudor Monarchs

Which Tudor monarchs were the best? Which were the worst?

  • Total voters
    70
Stolengood

Stolengood

Banned
...so, this is just a fairly self-explanatory exercise. Of course. ;)

(Oh, and you must explain WHY you chose as such in posts below. Multiple choice is for the fun of it.)
 
Dragos Cel Mare

Dragos Cel Mare

Banned
Elizabeth I; true, she was a tyrant in Ireland, the North of England, and killed Mary Queen of Scots, but on the other hand, she reversed the devaluation of the currency, restored the nation's collective morale, caused Spain, France, and the HRE to fear her, as a Pope would later admit, and prevented Spain from overrunning England and France. She also helped Henry IV of France come to power.
 
Jonathan

Jonathan

His is my list of where I rate the Tudor Monarchs

1st Henry VII as the founder of the dynasty and winner of the War of the roses goes here, he produced an heir and spare (which came in handy) married off his daughter to strong nations.

2nd Elizabeth I is here as although she brought about patriotic pride and a golden era of music, literature, culture and discovery, her inability to produce an heir caused the succession of the Stuarts.

3rd Edward and Jane are joint here as there reigns are too short to comment on.

5th Henry VIII, split from Rome abruptly, instead of slowly and left England with more enemies then allies.

6th Mary I was the worst, in my eyes, due to her murderous ways and almost linking England with a union to Spain.
 
Maeglin

Maeglin

Henry VIII was responsible for more destruction of priceless artwork than any other person in English history.

And for those praising Elizabeth - the last part of her reign was not pleasant.
 

mcdnab

Well my number one would be Henry VII (only slightly over Elizabeth)
Established his dynasty through an unsettled decade or so, continued and reformed Yorkist administration to improve public governance, and in a rare move left the country in far better financial condition than before.
His critics tend to dismiss him because he falls between two other monarchs whose reputations (both bad and good) tend to overshadow him.

Elizabeth would be my number two - she took a bankcrupt nation at war and turned things around with the help of great advisors - an uncanncy knack for picking the right men to support her in her rule. She was authoritarian, with strong absolute tendency's but tempered with a pragmatic approach particular with regard religion. Much of her reign is her reacting to outside forces rather than leading from the front - her religious settlement offered an uneasy peace but only really satisfied the middle. Her last decade was a bit of a mess with a corrupt court, an expensive war with Spain and failling harvests - but by then her reputation was established.

I would put the tyrant Henry VIII thrid best- a reign began in optimism that ended in terror! Much of his lasting benefits were unintentioned and would have horrified him - The split with Rome despite its devestating effect on art and culture offered vast tracts of land that translated the landowning gentry (the main beneficiaries of much of the land) into a class that would dominate parliament for the next five centuries. The need for legislation to back reform and Henry's authority significantly increased the importance of Parliament - despite his impact on centuries of art by abandoning monastic institutions he built and created an impressive artistic legacy of his own. I don't think you can underestimate how one man's desire to sleep with a woman not his wife can change a nation for the better.

The rest are negligible - Edward VI was a protestant bigot in the making had he lived England would have emerged closer to the Lutheran German and Scandinavian powers and nearer to the Calvinism of the Scots. Thank goodness he died young.
Mary a genuine woman whose natural temperament was distorted by decades of frustrated desires and fear of her father - that made her unwilling to compromise and burn with a desire to return her country to the one of her childhood - complete with smells and bells

Jane - a nonentity who should not really be on the list.
 
Ditzy Vixen (RossN)

Ditzy Vixen (RossN)

Very difficult to say but I'll reluctantly go with Elizabeth for worst. She was a good queen of England but a dreadful queen of Ireland, perhaps the worst of all of the English rulers of Ireland (yes, worse than Cromwell - he was an Anglo-centric tyrant but at least he could reasonably say he inherited a mess; Elizabeth actively made things worse.) As I say it is a difficult choice because her English record was good, but she let down one of her kingdoms very badly.

Best would probably be Henry VII for steering his country out the disaster of civil war and leaving the kingdom in better shape than he found it.
 

usertron2020

Donor
Good Queen Bess
I do not blame her for the Tudor line petering out. Damn laws about exogamy.

Bloody Mary
Made a mockery of her own piousness
 

Just a Rube

usertron2020 said:
Off with his head!
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Don't be silly. We'll imprison him, trick him into entering into treasonous correspondence that we are monitoring, and then use that as evidence to take his head off. There has to be a process, after all.

More seriously, I chose Henry VII. As noted, he not only stabilized the throne after decades of civil wars (note that his son was able to go through all his religious turmoil without any real threat of usurpation), breaking private armies and enhancing royal power. He mostly avoided the sorts of costly, doomed foreign policy adventures that his predecessors and successors were so fond of (correctly realizing that conquering France was impossible). Yes, he was notoriously stingy, but that just meant that the Treasury ended up in decent state, essentially uniquely among monarchs (compare with Henry VIII's or Edward VI's expensive invasions of France, or with Elizabeth I, who repeatedly attempted to intercept the Spanish Treasure Fleet, only to be unable to afford to keep a fleet on station long enough to intercept).

Mary is the worst, both for her loss of Calais and failed attempts to restore Catholicism (which not only failed, but killed several leading Protestant theologians, and helped poison Protestant-Catholic relations in England even further). She might have been a decent queen in other circumstances, but not the ones she actually found herself in.
 
Stolengood

Stolengood

Banned
Clandango said:
She did help get the Stuart line set up by negotiating ahead of time to get her cousin on the throne.
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True. But there was still an enormous amount of worry about the Queen not having an heir beforehand, and it's all because she wanted to be a QUEEN, not Queen consort. Hence, the direct Tudor line died out.
 

Kerney

Henry the VII and VIII for best and worst.
7 United the realm, balanced the budget, left heirs and spares, and basically built up the country. 8 bankrupted his country, destroyed the monasteries and created the religious instability that haunted all future Tudors. As a father to Mary, he helped make her the queen she became. The last is decisive in making him worse than Mary.

The evidence suggests that Edward would have been as fanatically protestant as Mary was Catholic. But he never had the chance so Mary goes below her.

Jane should not be counted, other than to say John Dudley earned his place in hell for putting her on the throne.
Elizabeth did much to restore England's stability, but she took some dangerous risks for the country. Something Henry 7 never did.
How was that.
 

Kerney

usertron2020 said:
Shouldn't getting the Stuarts on the throne be a point against her?:p
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Read a bit about Catherine Grey (Jane's little sister). She made Mary Queen of Scots look like a model of stability. Had Elizabeth died early, she would have become queen due to Henry the 8th's will being remembered.
 

Matteo

Kerney said:
Henry the VII and VIII for best and worst.
7 United the realm, balanced the budget, left heirs and spares, and basically built up the country. 8 bankrupted his country, destroyed the monasteries and created the religious instability that haunted all future Tudors. As a father to Mary, he helped make her the queen she became. The last is decisive in making him worse than Mary.

The evidence suggests that Edward would have been as fanatically protestant as Mary was Catholic. But he never had the chance so Mary goes below her.

Jane should not be counted, other than to say John Dudley earned his place in hell for putting her on the throne.
Elizabeth did much to restore England's stability, but she took some dangerous risks for the country. Something Henry 7 never did.
How was that.
Click to expand...

I do entirely agree with you.
 
Stolengood

Stolengood

Banned
Do you think Edward VI would have made a better or worse king, had he lived longer? Especially factoring in his evangelical (although that may not quite be the right term) Protestantism...
 
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