Royal coat of arms of the Kings of England, 1399–1603

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. Alfred styled himself King of
the Anglo-Saxons and while he 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.[1] The
last monarch of a distinct kingdom of England was Anne, who became Queen of Great Britain when
England merged with Scotland to form a union in 1707.

Family tree of monarchs of England and Great Britain since the Norman Conquest in 1066

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.[citation needed] 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 known as the Danelaw, having
earlier been conquered by the Danes from Scandinavia. 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
true king of England.[2][3] The title "King of the English" or Rex Anglorum in Latin, was first used to
describe Æthelstan by one of his charters in 928.
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, King
James VI of Scotland also became James I of England, joining the crowns of England and Scotland
in personal union. By royal proclamation, James styled himself "King of Great Britain", but no such
kingdom was actually created until 1707, when England and Scotland united to form the
new Kingdom of Great Britain, with a single British parliament sitting at Westminster, during the reign
of Queen Anne.