After reviewing all the monarchs of England from Alfred the Great to Elizabeth II, we bestowed 18 monarchs with the Rex Factor – but who is the greatest of them all?
To rule on this matter once and for all, we are conducting play-offs to answer this question and we will need YOU to help us decide who will win Rex Factor!
The 18 contestants in the royal rumble are:
- Alfred the Great
- Athelstan
- Cnut
- William the Conqueror
- Henry I
- Henry II
- Richard the Lionheart
- Edward I
- Edward III
- Henry V
- Edward IV
- Henry VIII
- Elizabeth I
- Charles II
- William III
- William IV
- Victoria
- George V
The play-offs will consist of three rounds:
The First Round
This will feature three groups of six monarchs, with each group receiving a dedicated episode. Ali and Graham will compare each monarch factor-by-factor before voting (in secret) at the end of the episode. Once the episode is published, a survey link will be shared giving YOU the chance to vote for your THREE favourite monarchs in that group. The three voting colleges will then be combined and the top three in each group will progress to…
The Semi-Finals
This will feature three groups of three monarchs, in which all the contests will be new (i.e. no monarch will be in the same group as any of their first round opponents). The process is exactly the same except this time you only select ONE monarch from each group to go through to…
The Grand Final
And this will be it! One episode, three monarchs and the winner of the vote will be crowned the Rex Factor champion!
Rex Factor 
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Hi guys! Really looking forward to this, and pleased there is another Edward III fan out there (see above!). Can’t see, from your criteria, that he can possibly lose, but hey let’s see. I will fight his battle strewn corner! (Probably a good idea to listen to his podcast, see where you’re at…)
Great fun, thanks!
We’ve already had quite a few people saying that a certain monarch must definitely win but they haven’t all been the same monarch! Will be really interesting to see how it pans out but Edward III is certainly in with a shout.
Rough draw for some of my favorites ! Is there a possibility of a visual of the brackets-I tried to envision something like our American March Madness for the college basketball, but can’t get it right :). anyway, thanks for so many great history lessons. I’m holding out for Ed3 or Henry2 🙂
No easy draws! We will get a graphic showing the draw up in the next week hopefully.
The playoffs sound fantastic, guys! My only problem is my top three monarchs are all in B! LOL
Thanks Deborah – never an easy draw but unfortunate when your personal favourites come together! Still, if they make it through to the semi-finals then they’ll be kept apart.
Hi Kristen, thanks a lot for the comment, really glad you’re enjoying the podcast. We have plans to do a Rex Factor play-off after Liz 2, so there’ll still be more to come!
I also have to get going with this website as well – as you’ll see, after a flurry of start-up excitement nothing has really happened! Too much time doing the Rex reading, but not too many monarchs to go now.
I kinda like the idea you guys tossed out about doing a Rex Factor for the PMs. I’d listen!
I just recently found the podcast, and I’ve been working on catching up with you. I’m addicted! I’ve been researching the monarchs in various ways for years, so most of this isn’t really new to me, but it’s just plain fun! I’ll be sorry to see it end with Lilibet.
Love you guys. Listening to your podcasts is how I spent my vacation. Happily. Started out watching a batch of movies about Henry II — both versions of “Lion In Winter” and “Becket” which led me to some recent movie (pretty bad) about King John attacking Rochester Castle. Paul Giamatti as King John? I don’t think so. Anyway, watched entire Starkey Monarchy series and then ran out, so I scoured iTunes until I found you. So happy. Can’t wait for Elizabeth R.
Hi there Patty, thanks so much for the lovely comment! Ironclad is the King John/Paul Giamatti film, I believe. Agree not too much thought involved in the film but I found it entertaining enough. To be fair to Paul Giamatti, while he does do a fair bit of scenery chewing, King John did have the notorious Plantagenet temper, so I imagine the real king would have seemed to be overdoing it a bit in real life.
And thanks for the comment on the blog – it’s not quite got going yet as the podcast research for the Tudors has been pretty intensive, but we will soon be updating the blog on a more regular basis, so do come back for more!