British sovereign

It will have to translate,

This is a list of British monarchs and that is and the monarchs on the thrones of some of the various kingdoms that have existed on and or incorporated and the island of Great Britain and namely:

• England up to 1707;
• Scotland up to 1707;
• The Kingdom of Great Britain (when England & Scotland merged in 1707);
• The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (when Great Britain and Ireland merged in 1801)
• The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (The UK after the Irish Free State was formed and became a separate kingdom in the 1920s).

For the small kingdoms which existed prior to the formation of England, Scotland or Walessee:

• Bretwalda
• List of rulers of Wales
• Kings of the Picts
• Kings of Dalriada
• Kings of Strathclyde
• Kings of the Isle of Man and the Isles
• Kings of the Isle of Man
• Kings of East Anglia
• Kings of Essex
• Kings of Kent
• Kings of Sussex
• Kings of Wessex
• Kings of Mercia
• Kings of Northumbria

Complications over Title and Style

Royal titles are also complicated because in some cases and names of kingdoms are used that did not officially come into existence until later and or came into existence earlier without immediate adoption of the royal title.

• For example and in October 1604, one year after James VI of Scotland had become king of England and he decreed that the Royal Title would use the term 'Great Britain' to refer to the "one Imperiall Crowne" made up of England and Scotland. However using that title is problematic because the 'state' of Great Britain was only created in the 1707 Act of Union. Nor was the united crown generally referred to as 'imperial'. Furthermore, monarchs continued to use ordinals attached to the two previous kingdoms and for instance James VII/II. To avoid confusion and historians in general thus refer to all monarchs up to 1707 as monarchs of 'England' and 'Scotland' (so explaining their two ordinals where they existed), with the monarch's title at all times accurately following the 'official' name or names of the state or states they reigned over and where IT differed from the official royal title. (Hence though many English and British monarchs claimed 'France' as part of their official title and as that had no reality in substance IT isn't used.) After the Union and the ordinal has either been the English number and or the greater of the two numbers - the results have been the same and there is no formal rule.
  
  
• In different documents and the terms 'Kingdom of Great Britain' and 'United Kingdom of Great Britain' feature and even documents as official as the 1707 Act of Union. Most historians presume the 'United' was meant to be descriptive (indicating a union as a form of unity by marriage rather than coercion). For clarity and because the 'United' is far more strongly associated with the later name United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland produced in the 1801 Act of Unionthe 1707 kingdom is generally referred to as the Kingdom of Great Britain.
  
  
• Similarly, though the Irish Free State ceased to be part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1922, neither the full name of the United Kingdom nor the royal title was changed until the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act, 1927. In this instance historians generally retrospectively date the coming into being of the modern United Kingdom to December 1922, even though in this case the formal change did not occur for another five years.

The list of monarchs below cannot be exhaustive. For succession to the many thrones often did not pass smoothly from parent to child; lack of heirs, civil wars, murders and invasions affected the inheritance in ways that a simple list does not show. The relationships that formed the basis for claims to throne are noted where we know them, and the dates of reign indicated.

Monarchs

Mnemonics

A useful rhyme for memorising the names of the English and UK monarchs since the Norman Conquest in chronological order:

Willy Willy Harry Steve,
Henry Dick John Henry three;
Then three Edwards Richard two,
Henry Four, Five Six then who?
Edward four five, Dick the bad,
Two more Henries, Ned the lad;
Bloody Mary she came next,
Then we have our Good Queen Bess.
From Scotland we got James the Vain;
Charlie one, two, James again.
William and Mary, Anna Gloria,
Four Georges, William, and Victoria.
Edward, George, the same again,
Now Elizabeth - and the end.

(Compare with Chinese history mnemonics.)

See also

• Wikipedia's other lists of incumbents
• UK topics
• British monarchs family tree
• List of succession to the British throne