Eumenes

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Princess Diana yet. The new royal couple seem to be tracking to match her popularity too.

Whyte

Remember that this is before England became protestant. And more importantly, the people of England took a good long while to become protestants; many were devout catholics, like Katherine. Spanish really became the boogieman only later, with the Protestantism having taken root and Filip II being consider the foreign interloper who was pushing Mary to kill her own people.

Elena

I think her popularity (not love for her!) was a fad. When she was alive -- she was a "celebrity" with the usual mass psychosis around a celebrity.
But once she died, the "popular love" simply faded away...

Vezir

Actually, I don't think ''believing'' Peter the Great wasn't very loved by his people is not a very personal matter. I would suggest you to not trust the other informations from that source.

wittgenstein

Popularity is meaningless. Hitler was EXTREMELY popular. The sheeple are an irrational herd that is led from place to place by
Holocaust Understanding- Hitler's Popularity - by A.Kimel
Nuremberg Rally 1938 in Colour - YouTube

"By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise."
Adolf Hitler
Today’s politicians have learned to not respect the sheeple’s intellect. Better to use emotion. They care about perception and not substance. Substance and the issues have very little to do with who wins an election.That is understood by both Democrats and Republicans.

Toomtabard

And Scotland's national poet Robert ''Rabbie'' Burns is loved universally throughout the globe in a way that makes many of the political figures thus far indentified here look like poor relations.
Even George Washington never wrote an anthem-''Auld Lang Syne'' that is sung throughout the world on New Years Eve as Rabbie Burns did.
In 2006 I went into a bookshop in Kalmunda deep in the foothills of Western Australia and on the wall was a picture of Rabbie Burns whom the Australian book shop owner told me he loved. The pictures of none of the others named here were to be seen on the same bookshop wall.
Abraham Lincoln was a huge fan of Rabbie Burns too-lovingly reciting and quoting his poetry.

Elena

What "source"? A all-Russian poll on the most popular figure in the history of Russia?

Vezir

Peter the Great is loved by nearly all of the Russians today yes but what I'm saying is he was not loved at 18.century because of his stricked modernize policy.

Elena

And since there was no poll in the 18-s century, we can't take YOUR belief as a fact. All that we know is that during his reign the social lifts of Russian society brought lots of peasants and other common people to the top of Russia's political, economic and scientific elite (that can't be unpopular); we also know that he was universally loved by Russian soldiers as one of their own (if you remember, Peter started his military career as a common soldier, then sailor).

kbear

i think it was because she was a sweet and gentle lady and very devout. plus she put up with henry which had to be very difficult!