With the death of Prince Rainier, Europe lost its longest reigning monarch. Queen Elizabeth II now holds that title. Two questions:
How long until QEII breaks Victoria’s record?
Who is currently the world’s longest reigning monarch?
Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 until her death in 1901, so she regined for 63 years and change. That leaves Queen Elizabeth II with ten years to go before she ‘beats’ Queen Victoria.
And in reply to your second question This says the longest reigning monarch in the world is Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej. He has been on the throne since 1946
Queen Victoria: 1837 - 1901 ie 64 years.
Queen elizabeth II 1952 - present ie 53 years this year so the current Queen would have to rule until 2016 to break Queen Victoria’s record - which given the genes in the female Windsors is not completely out of the question. She would have to live as long as her Mum and her Aunt.
As to the World’s longest reigning Monarch - I think it may well be QE II. Certainly she is the longest reigning monarch of a real monarchy.
forget my previous post, just seen the date on that article. Back to the drawing board
the Thai monarchy certainly counts as a real monarchy - so it looks like it’s him.
wikipedia article confirms Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej as world’s longest reigning monarch.
Of course, they have a long way to go to beat the the record of Pepi II who became pharoah as a child and ruled for 92 years.
To be more precise: Victoria became Queen at the death of William IV, 06/20/1837.
She died 01/22/1901, making her reign 23,226 days.
Elizabeth became Queen at the death of George VI, 02/06/1952. As of 04/07/2005, she has reigned for 19,419 days. Thus she will tie the record in 3,807 days, or on 09/09/2015.
Le Roi soleil, Louis XIV, became King of France at the age of 5, and reigned for 72 years. His great-grandson became Louis XV on his death, also at the age of 5, and went on to reign for 59 years. So that is probably the record for consecutive reigns, a total of 131 years (1643-1774) during which France had only 2 kings.
In recent years, the Showa Emperor of Japan (Hirohito) reigned for 63 years. This is probably a record for emperors. (Victoria was Empress of India for only 25 years, from 1876-1901),
And, thanks to World War I and Woodrow Wilson, of European monarchs past and present, Louis XIV is the recordholder, as Giles notes in post #10 here. It is interesting, however, that there is a living pretender to a European throne whose reign, had they not gone to a republic after WWI, would have lasted from 1922 to the present. Details in my posts and in particular in Freddy the Pig’s post #12 in this recent thread.