What makes a Good King? (Or Queen)

While still reading through the Oxford book (I know, still on the same book), I came upon a section talking about "Royal Brood and Royal Blood." It deals with talking about the fight for the crown between the Lancasters and Yorks, and the training of kings, specifically from the Middle Ages (Tudors, etc.). It also talked about where the different kings were born, the nationalities of their children's spouses, and how much it factored into how they ruled and how much they believed that they had a right to the throne. 


While reading this section, I started thinking about what makes a good King or a Queen. Is it their education? Is it their drive? Is it their desire to make sure their children take over the throne? Or is the skill to lead a nation effectively something that only some monarchs were born with; a natural born talent?  I know before I was talking about how a monarchy was driven by a King's or Queen's desire (or lack thereof) of producing offspring, but now I think that's it's much more complicated than that. Sure, some rulers really want their kids to take over, and sometimes those kids fight with each other to get what they want, but it's definitely more than that. Some Kings just believe that they should be where they are because a higher power put them into the position to rule the people (Divine Right of Kings). They could also just think that since their father was a King, they would automatically be a good King as well. 




I think if I want to have a successful seminar presentation, I'll need to go much deeper than just looking at the offspring of a King or Queen who fought over the throne. I'll also need to look at where they were born, their education, who trained them, how many siblings they had, how healthy they were, and a multitude of other pieces of information that would transform them into the monarch they became. 


Realistically, I know that I won't be able to do this in the fullest amount of detail. I'm sure that there are students focused on entirely studying the monarchy that would need to take a whole school year to even skim the top of the complexities and interesting relationships that surrounded the English monarchy from the 1300's to now. 


I'm going to try my best to look generally at each house and specific monarchs to try and find a similar pattern, or at least some trend that I can turn into a nice, understandable thesis. A lot of reading and research will need to occur between now and the 13th of June for this to happen!