Most competent monarch ever?

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He then kept William Pitt, the greatest strategist of his generation from the post of Prime Minister.

He did not. He appointed him PM in 1766, and kept him in 1768. And look what Pitt did in office!

And George III appointed Pitt the Younger against Parliamentary majority, supported Pitt the Younger through his efforts to reduce the National Debt, the French Revolutionary Wars, and the Napoleonic Wars.
 
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Hm...

Whoever made the Capet dynasty last for nine centuries.

Philip II of Macedon, who paved the way for Alexander.

Charles V and I, HRE and King of Spain, because the poor guy was able to handle the sheer stress of actually ruling a world-spanning empire more or less on his own.

Qin Shihuangdi, who transformed Chinese history forever, creating a system that would last two millennia...

Actually, nah. Make that Emperor Gaozu of Han. Going from peasant's son to emperor, he took the brittle foundation of the Qin and made it his own, establishing a dynasty that would last over four hundred years and set the pattern for the two thousand years of imperial continuity.
 
Genghis Khan was pretty effective, creating one of the largest countries in the world from scratch by the time of his death.
 
Ashoka the Great (Beloved of the Gods), Suleiman the Magnificent, Basil II (though Basil I could count too), Alfred the Great, Clovis, Karl the Great, Timur the Lame (his leg was lame, he was not), Temujin (Genghis Khan), Odaenathus (Palmyrean King of Kings), Cyrus the Great (Boy there are a lot of greats in this list), Huang Di (Yellow Emperor), Saladin, Sargon the Great (Akkadia), either Władysław III or Sigismund II Augustus and more that I've forgotten to mention.
 
Suleiman the Magnificent, also known as the Lawgiver; Frederick II the Great, Peter the Great, Maria Theresa of Austria, King Albert of Belgium, Cyrus the Great of Persia, Peter the Great of Russia, Phillippe Augustus, and an honorable mention to Frederick II of Sicily though his dynasty collapsed soon after his death, if he'd stayed king of Sicily and avoided the poison pill of the HRE, what could have been...

Date Masamune and Tokugawa Ieyasu were both very effective rulers, Nobunaga also counts given his record though he fumbled the finish on unifying Japan.
 
Does getting killed in battle disqualify you?
In my opinion, no. He liked to lead from the front instead of hanging back in the rear. It is an admirable quality. Unfortunately, it didn't help that he was near sighted, didn't wear plate due to a previous battle injury which left some fingers in one of his hands unusable, and the factors which lead to his untimely death in battle in 1632.

Some of the reforms that were carried out not only in the military but back in his home country helped make Sweden a major power.
 
Liu Bang or Emperor Gaozu of Han: Restore peace and stability by bringing order to a country that has been fragmented for over five centuries, after all previous attempts at Empire-building has failed. The system he established lasted, with a few ups and downs, for over four hundred years.

Tokugawa Ieyasu: Undoubtedly, the Shogunate was a de facto monarchy. He created an ingenious system with a balance between the central government (the shogun) and the local governments ( the daimyos), a system that was able to keep internal peace and adapt to changes.

Augustus: The Principate he created presided over the most peaceful and prosperous era in Roman history. He ended the violence of late Republican politics, and created an imperial system that could remain powerful for another two centuries.
 
In my opinion, no. He liked to lead from the front instead of hanging back in the rear. It is an admirable quality. Unfortunately, it didn't help that he was near sighted, didn't wear plate due to a previous battle injury which left some fingers in one of his hands unusable, and the factors which lead to his untimely death in battle in 1632.

Some of the reforms that were carried out not only in the military but back in his home country helped make Sweden a major power.
It's at least got to count against you; can't really stay competent after getting capped by Wallenstein's cuirassiers, after all, and without him at the helm, the Swedish army was ingloriously routed at Nördlingen, forcing many German princes to the negotiating table.
 
Liu Bang or Emperor Gaozu of Han: Restore peace and stability by bringing order to a country that has been fragmented for over five centuries, after all previous attempts at Empire-building has failed. The system he established lasted, with a few ups and downs, for over four hundred years.

Tokugawa Ieyasu: Undoubtedly, the Shogunate was a de facto monarchy. He created an ingenious system with a balance between the central government (the shogun) and the local governments ( the daimyos), a system that was able to keep internal peace and adapt to changes.

Augustus: The Principate he created presided over the most peaceful and prosperous era in Roman history. He ended the violence of late Republican politics, and created an imperial system that could remain powerful for another two centuries.

It says a lot about the system that Augustus created that it survived Caligula pretty much intact, and that it took a century of military anarchy for only half of it to finally collapse.
 
It says a lot about the system that Augustus created that it survived Caligula pretty much intact, and that it took a century of military anarchy for only half of it to finally collapse.
I suppose we have Uncle Clau-Clau to thank for restoring some measure of respectability to the Imperial system, whilst we're at it. If only he wasn't so oblivious to Messalina and Agrippina's scheming.
 
It's at least got to count against you; can't really stay competent after getting capped by Wallenstein's cuirassiers, after all, and without him at the helm, the Swedish army was ingloriously routed at Nördlingen, forcing many German princes to the negotiating table.
Yes, it is a given that competence goes out of the window once you get your ticket punched. However, I won't discount the man because of him getting wounded multiple times in battle and ultimately getting killed in battle.
 
Constantine the Eleventh did really well given the circumstances. Ruled well and fought until death.

Majorian of the WRE did his damnest to restore things, probably would have done even better if those barbarians didn't murder him.
 
Honestly I would put Pedro II on this list, led Brazil to the height of its power, faced down Great Britain when the British ambassador tried to bully them, made great leaps in industry, ended slavery, won two wars...but then his own personal life was tragic and caused him to allow an authoritarian coup to take power which managed to lead Brazil down the exact opposite path.
 
Liu Bang or Emperor Gaozu of Han: Restore peace and stability by bringing order to a country that has been fragmented for over five centuries, after all previous attempts at Empire-building has failed. The system he established lasted, with a few ups and downs, for over four hundred years.

Tokugawa Ieyasu: Undoubtedly, the Shogunate was a de facto monarchy. He created an ingenious system with a balance between the central government (the shogun) and the local governments ( the daimyos), a system that was able to keep internal peace and adapt to changes.

Augustus: The Principate he created presided over the most peaceful and prosperous era in Roman history. He ended the violence of late Republican politics, and created an imperial system that could remain powerful for another two centuries.
I found it surprising that Liu Bang's actually on this list.The guy pretty much stole credit from Xiang Yu for defeating Qin,got his arse beaten the crap out of by Xiang Yu numerous times(the most notable time was when he had an army of 560,000 but ended up losing nearly half of the army to Xiang Yu who only commanded 30,000).Dude also ended up being surrounded and forced into humiliating peace terms by the Xiongnu.His legacy isn't all that good either.He ended up passing the throne to his oldest son who was weak and incompetent(a fact he knew but still did it anyway) and pretty much left the empire in control of the Lu Clan.It was his other son,Emperor Wen,and those in his line(Emperor Jing and Emperor Wu) who ended up fixing Han and setting Han up as a superpower.
 
Making a list as well
-Ramses II
-Achaemene
-Qin Shi Huangdi
-Alexander the Great
-Augustus Caesar
-Trajan
-Constantine the Great (also a saint in the Orthodox Church)
-Khosrau II
-Clovis I (Clovis means the same thing as Louis, making Louis even more popular)
-Justinian
-Charles Martel just for his victory at Tours
-Charlemagne
-Basil (he started out as a peasant)
-Ælfred
-Harald Fairhair
-Harald Bluetooth
-Harald Sigurdsson
-Cnut the Great
-Vladimir the Great
-Richard Lionheart
-Saladin
-Genghis Khan
-Timurlane
-Mehmed II
-Mention to Ivan Kalita for being the Moneybag
-Ferdinand & Isabel
-Suleiman I
-Charles I
-Ivan the Great
-Ivan the Terrible
-Louis the Sun-King
-Tokugawa
-Moctezuma II (before Spanish conquest)
-Huayna Cupac (and most of the Inka really)
-Peter the Great
-Frederick the Great
-Catherine the Great
-Emperor Napoleon I the Great
-Alexander I
-Victoria
 
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