The Most Famous

COMPANIONS from United Kingdom

This page contains a list of the greatest British Companions. The pantheon dataset contains 784 Companions, 61 of which were born in United Kingdom. This makes United Kingdom the birth place of the 3rd most number of Companions behind Germany, and France.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary British Companions of all time. This list of famous British Companions is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of British Companions.

1. Anne Boleyn (1501 - 1536)

With an HPI of 80.96, Anne Boleyn is the most famous British Companion. Her biography has been translated into 81 different languages on wikipedia.

Anne Boleyn (; c. 1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and execution, by beheading for treason, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that marked the start of the English Reformation. Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn (later Earl of Wiltshire), and his wife, Elizabeth Howard, and was educated in the Netherlands and France. Anne returned to England in early 1522, to marry her cousin James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond; the marriage plans were broken off, and instead, she secured a post at court as maid of honour to Henry VIII's wife, Catherine of Aragon. Early in 1523, Anne was secretly betrothed to Henry Percy, son of Henry Percy, 5th Earl of Northumberland, but the betrothal was broken off when the Earl refused to support it. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey refused the match in January 1524. In February or March 1526, Henry VIII began his pursuit of Anne. She resisted his attempts to seduce her, refusing to become his mistress, as her sister Mary had previously been. Henry focused on annulling his marriage to Catherine, so he would be free to marry Anne. After Wolsey failed to obtain an annulment from Pope Clement VII, it became clear the marriage would not be annulled by the Catholic Church. As a result, Henry and his advisers, such as Thomas Cromwell, began breaking the Church's power in England and closing the monasteries. Henry and Anne formally married on 25 January 1533, after a secret wedding on 14 November 1532. On 23 May 1533, the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer declared Henry and Catherine's marriage null and void. Five days later, he declared Henry and Anne's marriage valid. Clement excommunicated Henry and Cranmer. As a result of the marriage and excommunications, the first break between the Church of England and the Catholic Church took place, and the King took control of the Church of England. Anne was crowned queen on 1 June 1533. On 7 September, she gave birth to the future Queen Elizabeth I. Henry was disappointed to have a daughter, but hoped a son would follow and professed to love Elizabeth. Anne subsequently had three miscarriages and by March 1536, Henry was courting Jane Seymour. Henry had Anne investigated for high treason in April 1536. On 2 May, she was arrested and sent to the Tower of London, where she was tried before a jury, including Henry Percy, her former betrothed, and her uncle Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. She was convicted on 15 May and beheaded four days later. Historians view the charges, which included adultery, incest with her brother George, and plotting to kill the King, as unconvincing. After her daughter, Elizabeth, became queen in 1558, Anne became venerated as a martyr and heroine of the English Reformation, particularly through the works of George Wyatt. She has inspired, or been mentioned in, many cultural works and retained her hold on the popular imagination. She has been called "the most influential and important queen consort England has ever had", as she provided the occasion for Henry to declare the English Church's independence from the Vatican.

2. Jane Seymour (1508 - 1537)

With an HPI of 74.17, Jane Seymour is the 2nd most famous British Companion. Her biography has been translated into 57 different languages.

Jane Seymour (; c. 1508 – 24 October 1537) was Queen of England as the third wife of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 30 May 1536 until her death the next year. She became queen following the execution of Henry's second wife, Anne Boleyn, who was accused by Henry of adultery after failing to produce the male heir he so desperately desired. Jane, however, died of postnatal complications less than two weeks after the birth of her only child, the future King Edward VI. She was the only wife of Henry to receive a queen's funeral; and he was later buried alongside her remains in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.

3. Victoria, Princess Royal (1840 - 1901)

With an HPI of 73.07, Victoria, Princess Royal is the 3rd most famous British Companion. Her biography has been translated into 46 different languages.

Victoria, Princess Royal (Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa; 21 November 1840 – 5 August 1901) was German Empress and Queen of Prussia as the wife of Frederick III, German Emperor. She was the eldest child of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and was created Princess Royal in 1841. As the eldest child of the British monarch, she was briefly heir presumptive until the birth of her younger brother, the future Edward VII. She was the mother of Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor. Educated by her father in a politically liberal environment, Victoria was married at the age of 17 to Prince Frederick of Prussia, with whom she went on to have eight children. Victoria shared with Frederick her liberal views and hopes that Prussia and the later German Empire should become a constitutional monarchy, based on the British model. Criticised for this attitude and for her English origins, Victoria suffered ostracism by the Hohenzollerns and the Berlin court. This isolation increased after the rise to power of Otto von Bismarck, one of her most staunch political opponents, in 1862. Victoria was empress for only a few months, during which she had opportunity to influence the policy of the German Empire. Frederick III died in 1888 – 99 days after his accession – from laryngeal cancer and was succeeded by their son Wilhelm II, who had much more conservative views than his parents. After her husband's death, she became widely known as Empress Frederick (German: Kaiserin Friedrich). The empress dowager then settled in Kronberg im Taunus, where she built Friedrichshof, a castle, named in honour of her late husband. Increasingly isolated after the weddings of her younger daughters, she died of breast cancer in August 1901, less than 7 months after the death of her mother, Queen Victoria, in January 1901. The correspondence between Victoria and her parents has been preserved almost completely: 3,777 letters from Queen Victoria to her eldest daughter and about 4,000 letters from the empress to her mother are preserved and catalogued. These give a detailed insight into life at the Prussian court between 1858 and 1900.

4. Mary Boleyn (1499 - 1543)

With an HPI of 72.62, Mary Boleyn is the 4th most famous British Companion. Her biography has been translated into 44 different languages.

Mary Boleyn, also known as Lady Mary, (c. 1499 – July 1543) was the sister of English queen consort Anne Boleyn, whose family enjoyed considerable influence during the reign of King Henry VIII. Mary was one of the mistresses of Henry VIII for an unknown period. It has been rumoured that she bore two of the King's children, though Henry did not acknowledge either. Mary was also rumoured to have been a mistress of Henry VIII's rival, King Francis I of France, for some period between 1515 and 1519. Mary Boleyn was married twice: in 1520 to William Carey, and again, secretly, in 1534, to William Stafford, a soldier from a good family but with few prospects. This secret marriage to a man considered beneath her station angered King Henry VIII and her sister, Queen Anne, and resulted in Mary's banishment from the royal court. She died seven years later, having spent the remainder of her life in obscurity.

5. Catherine Parr (1512 - 1548)

With an HPI of 72.17, Catherine Parr is the 5th most famous British Companion. Her biography has been translated into 52 different languages.

Catherine Parr (she signed her letters as Kateryn; c. August 1512 – 5 September 1548) was Queen of England and Ireland as the last of the six wives of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 12 July 1543 until Henry's death on 28 January 1547. Catherine was the final queen consort of the House of Tudor, and outlived Henry by a year and eight months. With four husbands, she is the most-married English queen. She was the first woman to publish in print an original work under her own name in England in the English language. Catherine enjoyed a close relationship with Henry's three children, Mary, Elizabeth and Edward. She was personally involved in the education of Elizabeth and Edward. She was influential in Henry's passing of the Third Succession Act in 1543 that restored his daughters Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession to the throne. Catherine was appointed regent from July to September 1544 while Henry was on a military campaign in France; in the event that he lost his life, she was to rule as regent until Edward came of age. However, he did not give her any function in government in his will. Following the King's death, she assumed the role of guardian to her stepdaughter, Elizabeth, and took Henry's great-niece Lady Jane Grey into her household. On 25 April 1544, Catherine published her first book, Psalms or Prayers, anonymously. Her book Prayers or Meditations became the first original book published by an English queen under her own name on 2 June 1545. She published a third book, The Lamentation of a Sinner, on 5 November 1547, nine months after the death of King Henry VIII. On account of her Protestant sympathies, she provoked the enmity of anti-Protestant officials, who sought to turn the King against her; a warrant for her arrest was drawn up, probably in the spring of 1546. However, she and the king soon reconciled. After Henry's death on 28 January 1547, Catherine was allowed to keep the queen's jewels and dresses as queen dowager. About six months after Henry's death, she married her fourth and final husband, Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley. Seymour was an uncle of Henry's successor, King Edward VI (Catherine's stepson) and the younger brother of Lord Protector of England Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, and of Jane Seymour, Henry's third wife. Catherine's fourth and final marriage was short-lived, for she died on 5 September 1548 due to complications of childbirth. Her funeral was held on 7 September 1548 and was the first Protestant funeral in England, Scotland or Ireland to be held in English.

6. Catherine Howard (1523 - 1542)

With an HPI of 72.16, Catherine Howard is the 6th most famous British Companion. Her biography has been translated into 58 different languages.

Catherine Howard (c. 1523 – 13 February 1542) was Queen of England from July 1540 until November 1541 as the fifth wife of King Henry VIII. She was the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard and Joyce Culpeper, a cousin to Anne Boleyn (the second wife of Henry VIII), and the niece of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. Thomas Howard was a prominent politician at Henry's court. He secured her a place in the household of Henry's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, where Howard caught the King's interest. She married him on 28 July 1540 at Oatlands Palace in Surrey, just 19 days after the annulment of his marriage to Anne. He was 49, and it is widely accepted that she was about 17 at the time of her marriage to Henry VIII. Catherine was stripped of her title as queen in November 1541 and beheaded three months later on the grounds of treason for committing adultery with her distant cousin, Thomas Culpeper.

7. Princess Helena of the United Kingdom (1846 - 1923)

With an HPI of 71.83, Princess Helena of the United Kingdom is the 7th most famous British Companion. Her biography has been translated into 37 different languages.

Princess Helena (Helena Augusta Victoria; 25 May 1846 – 9 June 1923), later Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, was the third daughter and fifth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Helena was educated by private tutors chosen by her father and his close friend and adviser, Baron Stockmar. Her childhood was spent with her parents, travelling between a variety of royal residences in Britain. The intimate atmosphere of the royal court came to an end on 14 December 1861, when her father died and her mother entered a period of intense mourning. Afterwards, in the early 1860s, Helena began a flirtation with Prince Albert's German librarian, Carl Ruland. Although the nature of the relationship is largely unknown, Helena's romantic letters to Ruland survive. After her mother discovered the flirtations, in 1863, she dismissed Ruland, who returned to his native Germany. Three years later, on 5 July 1866, Helena married the impoverished Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein. The couple remained in Britain, in calling distance of the queen, who liked to have her daughters nearby. Helena, along with her youngest sister, Princess Beatrice, became the queen's unofficial secretary. However, after Queen Victoria's death on 22 January 1901, Helena saw relatively little of her surviving siblings. Helena was the most active member of the royal family, carrying out an extensive programme of royal engagements. She was also an active patron of charities, and was one of the founding members of the British Red Cross. She was founding president of the Royal School of Needlework, and president of the Workhouse Infirmary Nursing Association and the Royal British Nurses' Association. As president of the latter, she was a strong supporter of nurse registration against the advice of Florence Nightingale. In 1916 she became the first member of her family to celebrate her 50th wedding anniversary, but her husband died a year later. Helena outlived him by six years, dying aged 77 in 1923.

8. Elizabeth of York (1466 - 1503)

With an HPI of 71.20, Elizabeth of York is the 8th most famous British Companion. Her biography has been translated into 52 different languages.

Elizabeth of York (11 February 1466 – 11 February 1503) was Queen of England from her marriage to King Henry VII on 18 January 1486 until her death in 1503. She was the daughter of King Edward IV and his wife, Elizabeth Woodville, and her marriage to Henry VII followed his victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field, which marked the end of the civil war known as the Wars of the Roses. Elizabeth's younger brothers, the "Princes in the Tower", mysteriously disappeared from the Tower of London shortly after their uncle Richard III seized the throne in 1483. Although the 1484 Act of Parliament Titulus Regius declared the marriage of her parents as invalid, Elizabeth and her sisters returned to court under Richard III, after spending ten months in sanctuary in Westminster Abbey. It was rumoured that Richard was plotting to marry Elizabeth. The final victory of the Lancastrian faction in the Wars of the Roses may have seemed a further disaster for the Yorkist princess. However, Henry Tudor knew the importance of Yorkist support for his invasion and promised to marry Elizabeth before he arrived in England. This may well have contributed to the haemorrhaging of Yorkist support for Richard, and her future husband had Titulus Regius repealed when he took the throne. Elizabeth seems to have played little part in politics, after coming to the throne. Her marriage appears to have been a successful and happy one, although her eldest son, Arthur, Prince of Wales, died aged 15 in 1502, and three other children died young. Her second and only surviving son became king of England as Henry VIII, while her daughters Margaret and Mary became the queens of Scotland and France respectively.

9. Mary Tudor, Queen of France (1496 - 1533)

With an HPI of 69.97, Mary Tudor, Queen of France is the 9th most famous British Companion. Her biography has been translated into 54 different languages.

Mary Tudor ( TEW-dər; 18 March 1496 – 25 June 1533) was an English princess who was briefly Queen of France as the third wife of King Louis XII. Louis was more than 30 years her senior. Mary was the fifth child of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York, and the youngest to survive infancy. Following Louis's death, Mary married Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. Performed secretly in France, the marriage occurred without the consent of Mary's brother Henry VIII. The marriage necessitated the intervention of Thomas Wolsey; Henry eventually pardoned the couple after they paid a large fine. Mary had four children with Suffolk. Through her older daughter, Frances, she was the maternal grandmother of Lady Jane Grey, the disputed queen of England for nine days in July 1553.

10. Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester (1901 - 2004)

With an HPI of 69.84, Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester is the 10th most famous British Companion. Her biography has been translated into 30 different languages.

Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester (born Lady Alice Christabel Montagu Douglas Scott; 25 December 1901 – 29 October 2004) was a member of the British royal family. She was the wife of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, the third son of King George V and Queen Mary. She was the mother of Prince William of Gloucester and Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester. The daughter of the 7th Duke of Buccleuch, Scotland's largest landowner, she became by marriage a princess of the United Kingdom, and a sister-in-law to Edward VIII and George VI. She was thus an aunt by marriage to Elizabeth II. Princess Alice was extremely well travelled, both before and after her marriage. At the time of her death at age 102, she was the longest-lived member of the British royal family.

People

Pantheon has 62 people classified as British companions born between 626 and 1988. Of these 62, 5 (8.06%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living British companions include Mordred, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and Sophie, Countess of Wessex. The most famous deceased British companions include Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, and Victoria, Princess Royal. As of April 2024, 1 new British companions have been added to Pantheon including John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan.