England has often fared better with queens on the throne. Will Elizabeth II be its last?

Pity the poor Brits. In the midst of a serious cost-of-living crisis driven by the shocks of COVID-19, Brexit and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they have lost the only monarch they have known: a genuinely revered figure whose mere name could bring Oxford dons and Labor members of Parliament to tears.

Pity them also for what comes next: a whole lot of men on the throne. Upon the death Thursday of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles became king. He is set to be succeeded by his son William, then his grandson George. If George, who turned 9 in July, lives to 86 and a half, the 21st century will elapse without another queen. That could be a problem.

King Charles III, stiff as a collar stay and blamed by many for the collapse of his marriage to the glamorous Princess Diana, probably won’t be as popular as his mother. Subsequent generations could restore some luster to the monarchy, but don’t count on it. Significant anti-royalist sentiments exist throughout the monarchies of Europe and could grow in the United Kingdom without a beloved monarch such as Elizabeth. What’s more, England has a long history of bad kings and pretty impressive queens.

Queen Elizabeth II has died: Britain now faces the unthinkable

A history of great queens and questionable kings

The kings include tyrants like Richard II and III, megalomaniacs like Henry VIII, the mentally unsound Henry VI and the deeply troubling Edward VIII, whose engagement to the American Wallis Simpson effectively ended his brief reign in 1936 (serendipitously, it turned out, as he harbored Nazi sympathies).

These are a few that stand out, but there are many more:

►The entire Plantagenet dynasty, which spanned more than 300 years beginning in 1154, was violent and plunderous, even by medieval standards.

►The Stuart kings who took over in 1603 brought instability and sectarian strife.

►The Hanoverian kings who began in 1714 were inconsequential. The first of them, the German-born George I, never even learned to speak fluent English.

In contrast, England has had just six sovereign queens – two Marys, two Elizabeths, Anne and Victoria. All of them except Mary I, sometimes called Bloody Mary for her heavy-handed efforts to reimpose Catholicism as the state religion, were outstanding:

►Elizabeth I is one of history’s greatest monarchs. During her 16th century reign, England was transformed from a European backwater into a major power, bustling with commerce and flowering in the arts.

►Less than a century later Mary II, with her co-ruling husband, William III, helped engineer the Glorious Revolution, which shifted considerable powers from crown to Parliament.

►Mary’s sister Queen Anne – sickly and emotionally fragile after multiple miscarriages – has long been pilloried, most recently in the 2018 film "The Favourite," which chronicles the infighting in her court. Nonetheless she was a stunningly effective monarch who, among other things, birthed a new nation by setting her minions to persuade, cajole (and bribe) the Scottish Parliament into voting itself out of existence and joining a new entity called the Kingdom of Great Britain.

►Victoria, whose 19th century reign spanned much of the industrial revolution, created the template for subsequent kings and queens trying to negotiate the buffeting winds of change.

Be kind to King Charles III: He'll help monarchy survive Queen Elizabeth's death

Great women leaders beyond the throne

If these sovereign queens were not enough, English history is full of queen consorts (wives of kings), queen mothers and other women who played extraordinary roles.

In the 12th century, Eleanor of Aquitaine pulled off one of history’s most impressive acts of chutzpa by effectively divorcing the king of France (Louis VII) to marry the king of England (Henry II). Later in life, she would be the de facto ruler of both as regent for her son Richard I, who dashed off to fight in the Crusades. Her effectiveness was made clear when this empire stretching from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees came apart soon after her death.

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More than two centuries after Eleanor, a 14-year-old mother named Margaret Beaufort would go on to play an extraordinary role in the Wars of the Roses, deposing the tyrant Richard III and launching England’s most consequential dynasty by persuading the nobility to back the impossibly thin claims to the throne held by her son, Henry Tudor, the future Henry VII.

It is in this context that the British quite rightly look to the future with heavy heart. Queen Elizabeth II reigned in an era of limited, constitutional monarchy, and often with finesse and restraint. But she still had an enormous impact, providing for the United Kingdom a sense of continuity and tradition even as their country underwent dramatic change.

The stories of her are many and moving. As a 14-year-old, she took to the airwaves to comfort the children who were being separated from their parents and sent to the countryside to avoid German bombing. On her 21st birthday, she pledged a life of service, then spent the next 75 years fulfilling that pledge.

It is not surprising that Elizabeth’s subjects would get emotional. She was a remarkable woman. But the truth is, she was just one of many who have graced English history for centuries.

Dan Carney is a former USA TODAY editorial writer.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Will Queen Elizabeth II's death mean only kings for England?