Greatest Ruler of England

I vote Queen Elizabeth the First of England because of her accomplishments in her almost 50 year reign. She rebuilt the English economy that was ruined under Mary the First, she kept the Spanish Empire and its Armada out of English territory, and she was able to manipulate every single person that was needed in the name and benefit of the People of England.

I Concur with Voltage for the same reasons, bar the fact I am not related to Cromwell, although I would have been a Parliamentarian.

Difficult question. I know Cromwell was a great general but I don't know enough about him as a statesman.

I'll vote for Athelstan even though he is not listed. He's the one who created England in the first place. He also managed to briefly rule the whole island of Britain, something not even the Romans had done and something that did not happen again until centuries later.

By far, King Arthur.

I suspected it

Four of these names shouldn't be on your list. Since the Act of Union in 1707 there have been no leaders of England and it's rather silly to include people who lived nearly 2,000 years ago.

Boudica, queen of the Iceni tribe, and the Roman emperor Constantine lived long centuries before the state of England came into existence. Neither were leaders of England. King Alfred, undoubtedly was a great man, but it could be argued that he was king of Wessex and not a united England. England and English consciousness as a national identity came much later with the fusion of Anglo-Saxon, Dane and Norman.

Winston Churchill was Prime Minister of the nation-state of Great Britain - not England - while Victoria was head of a toothless constitutional monarchy. (Perhaps you meant that great soldier, John Churchill, victor of Blenheim?)

So that leaves credible leaders of the nation of England as opposed to Britain or tribal identities within Britain:

Oliver Cromwell was a religious bigot and detested dictator, posthumously executed.

Henry V gained nothing for the nation except inspiration for Shakespeare.

Likewise Richard I did nothing for England, being absent on fruitless military quests.

William the Conqueror was capable but very cruel. He is still detested for laying waste much of the north of England. He also destroyed Anglo-Saxon England and supplanted it with Norman Feudalism.

Henry II is a good contender for the title, transforming the legal system of England. From your list, however, Elizabeth I towers above the rest. At a time when monarchs had real power Elizabeth was possessed of wisdom, courage, intelligence, uncanny female intuition and, above all, common sense. Her reign is still remembered here as a Golden Age.