title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In "Twice Upon a Time", before regeneration the Twelfth Doctor states that no one would ever understand his name except for children saying 'if their hearts are in the right place and the stars are too, children can hear your name.' Peter Capaldi offered his own theory regarding the Doctor's real name, commenting "I don't think human beings could even really say his name. But I think we might be able to hear it, at a certain frequency. If the stars are in the right place, and your heart's in the right place, you'll hear it."


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: On occasion, the Doctor uses other aliases, such as "John Smith". In the Fourth Doctor serial "The Armageddon Factor", the Doctor runs into a former classmate of his named Drax. Drax calls the Doctor Theta Sigma or "Thete" for short, an alias which is clarified as the Doctor's nickname at the Prydon Academy on Gallifrey in "The Happiness Patrol" and referred to again in the 2010 episode "The Pandorica Opens". In the 2015 episode "The Zygon Inversion", The Doctor tells Osgood that his first name is "Basil".


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: "Doctor Who" spin-off media have suggested that the character uses the name "the Doctor" because his actual name is impossible for humans to pronounce. For instance in the novel "Vanderdeken's Children", it is told that the Doctor already told Sam his real name which is entirely alien and virtually unpronounceable. This is repeated by companion Peri Brown in the radio serial "Slipback". The Faction Paradox encyclopaedia "The Book of the War" states that all renegades from the Homeworld/Gallifrey abandon their names to symbolise how they leave their culture. Similarly, the novel "Lungbarrow" reveals that the Doctor's name has been struck from the records of his family and therefore cannot be spoken.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The character played by Peter Cushing in the films "Dr. Who and the Daleks" (1965) and "Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D." (1966) referred to himself as "Dr. Who". However, these films are not considered part of the same narrative continuity as the television programme, as they were rewritten from two television serials ("The Daleks" and "The Dalek Invasion of Earth", respectively) featuring William Hartnell, making considerable alterations to the characters of the Doctor and his companions.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Quite apart from his name, why the Doctor uses the title "The Doctor" has never been fully explained on screen. The Doctor, at first, said that he was not a physician, often referring to himself as a scientist or an engineer. However, he does occasionally show medical knowledge and has stated on separate occasions that he studied under Joseph Lister and Joseph Bell. In "The Moonbase" (1967), the Second Doctor mentions that he studied for a medical degree in Glasgow during the 19th century. The Fourth Doctor was awarded an honorary degree from St. Cedd's College, Cambridge in 1960. He has been mocked by his fellow Time Lords for adhering to such a "lowly" title as "Doctor", although in "The Armageddon Factor" (1979), Drax congratulates him on achieving his doctorate, indicating it was at least a somewhat respectable title. In "The Girl in the Fireplace" (2006), he draws an analogy between the title and Madame de Pompadour's.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In "The Mutants" (1972) an official asks the Third Doctor if he is, in fact, a doctor, to which the Doctor replies "I am, yes"; when asked what he is qualified in, the Doctor replies, "Practically everything." The Fourth Doctor states that his companion, Harry Sullivan, is a Doctor of medicine, while he is "a doctor of many things" ("Revenge of the Cybermen", 1975). The Fifth Doctor claims to be a doctor "of everything" in "Four to Doomsday" (1982), and a message to the same effect is related from the Tenth Doctor in "Utopia" (2007). In talking with Harry in "Robot" (1974–1975) the Doctor states "You may be "a" doctor, but I'm "the" Doctor. The definite article, you might say." In "The Ark in Space" (1975), aired later that year, the Doctor states that his doctorate is only honorary; the Tenth Doctor, however, considers the name to be his legitimate academic rank in "The Waters of Mars" (2009), describing his "name, rank and intention" as "The Doctor; doctor; fun." In an interview with "The Age" in 2003, Tom Baker mentioned that the Doctor is called so because he is "a doctor of time and relative dimension in space". Apart from being called a doctor of the TARDIS, the Doctor has been referred to as a "doctor of time travel."


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The revived programme establishes that Time Lords invent their own names. In "The Sound of Drums" (2007), the Tenth Doctor remarks to the Master that they both chose their names, with the Master calling him sanctimonious for identifying himself as "the man who makes people better." The Eleventh Doctor, in "The Name of the Doctor", and repeated in the next episode, "The Day of the Doctor", by the War Doctor, Tenth Doctor and Eleventh Doctor (collectively), elaborate that the name is a promise to be: "Never cruel or cowardly. Never giving up and never giving in." By contrast, the Eleventh Doctor had earlier spoke of the War Doctor as being the man who broke that promise, being the one to fight in the Time War before learning the actual fate of the Time Lords. Since contradicted by the television series, the 2003 Telos novella "Frayed" by Tara Samms, set prior to the programme's first episode in 1963, presents the alternative explanation that the Doctor was given that name by medical staff on a foreign planet and liked it.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: To make up for his lack of a practical name, the Doctor often relies upon convenient pseudonyms. In "The Gunfighters" (1966), the First Doctor uses the alias Dr. Caligari. In "The Highlanders" (1966–67), the Second Doctor assumes the name of "Doctor von Wer" (a German approximation of "Doctor Who"), and signs himself as "Dr. W" in "The Underwater Menace." He similarly poses as "the Great Wizard Quiquaequod" in "The Dæmons" ("qui", "quae" and "quod" being, respectively, the masculine, feminine and neuter Latin translation of the nominative form of "who"). The Master was utilising Latin translation in the same serial, posing as "Mr Magister". The Eighth Doctor's companion Grace briefly refers to him by the alias "Dr. Bowman" in the 1996 "Doctor Who" television movie.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In "The Wheel in Space" (1968), his companion Jamie McCrimmon, reading the name on medical equipment, tells the crew of the Wheel that the Doctor's name is "John Smith". The Doctor subsequently adopts this alias numerous times over the course of the programme, sometimes prefixing the title "Doctor" to it.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In the audio adventure, "The Sirens of Time", when the Fifth Doctor is asked his name, this conversation ensues:


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: To his greatest enemies, the Daleks, the Doctor is known as the "Ka Faraq Gatri," the "Enemy of the Daleks", the "Bringer of Darkness" or "Destroyer of Worlds". This is first mentioned in the novelisation of "Remembrance of the Daleks" by Ben Aaronovitch and subsequently taken up in the spin-off media, particularly the Virgin New Adventures books and the "Doctor Who Magazine" comic strip. Davros uses the title "Destroyer of Worlds" to describe the Doctor in "Journey's End" (2008). In the Virgin New Adventures novel "Love and War", the Doctor is referred to as "The Oncoming Storm" by the Draconians (whose word for it is "Karshtakavaar"); according to the episode "The Parting of the Ways" (2005), the same title is used by the Daleks. The Doctor refers to himself as "The Oncoming Storm" in "The Lodger" (2010). In "Asylum of the Daleks" (2012), it is stated that Daleks refer to the Doctor as "The Predator". The Virgin New Adventure "Zamper" establishes that the Chelonians refer to him as "Interfering Idiot".


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The programme has occasionally toyed with the Doctor's identity (or lack thereof). In the first part of "The Mysterious Planet" (1986), the Doctor suggests writing a thesis on "Ancient Life on Ravolox, by Doctor...", but is interrupted by his companion Peri. In "The Armageddon Factor", the Time Lord Drax addresses the Fourth Doctor as "Thete", short for "Theta Sigma". Later, in "The Happiness Patrol" (1988), this was clarified as a nickname from the Doctor's university days; he is called by this name again in the Paul Cornell novel "Goth Opera." In "Remembrance of the Daleks", the Seventh Doctor produces a calling card with a series of pseudo-Greek letters inscribed on it (as well as a stylised question mark). This may be a reference to "The Making of Doctor Who" (1972), by Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke, which claims that the Doctor's true name is a string of Greek letters and mathematical symbols.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The question mark motif was common throughout the 1980s, in part as a branding attempt. Beginning with season eighteen, the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors all sported costumes with a red question mark motif (usually on the shirt collars, except for the Seventh Doctor – it appeared on his pullover and in the shape of his umbrella handle). In the 1978 serial "The Invasion of Time", the Fourth Doctor is asked to sign a document; although the signature itself is not directly seen on screen, his hand movements clearly indicate that he signs it with a question mark. A similar scene occurs with the Seventh Doctor in "Remembrance of the Daleks."


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In the early years of the franchise, the character was credited as "Doctor Who" or "Dr Who", up to the final story of season 18, "Logopolis" (1981), which was the last story featuring Tom Baker as the then-incumbent Fourth Doctor. Beginning with the debut of Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor in "Castrovalva" (1982), the character was credited as "The Doctor", which he had been referred to in-universe since the tenure of William Hartnell. This credit remained from season 19 to season 26. In the television movie, the trend is continued, with Paul McGann's debuting Eighth Doctor credited as "The Doctor" and Sylvester McCoy's out-going Seventh Doctor as "The Old Doctor". The 2005 resurrection of the programme credited Christopher Eccleston – playing the Ninth Doctor – as "Doctor Who" again in series 1. "The Parting of the Ways", featuring the Ninth Doctor's regeneration into the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) credits Tennant as "Doctor Who". The credit reverted to "The Doctor" for 2005's Christmas special "The Christmas Invasion" and all subsequent stories at Tennant's request. Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi and Jodie Whittaker have continued to be credited as "The Doctor".


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: John Hurt plays a mysterious past incarnation of the Doctor in the 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor", with minor roles in "The Name of the Doctor" and mini-episode "The Night of the Doctor", created as a "mayfly Doctor" by Steven Moffat. In the television episodes, he is credited as "The Doctor", but he is introduced as "The War Doctor" in "The Night of the Doctor". The end of "The Name of the Doctor" closes with text superimposed over footage of Hurt introducing him, pictured to the left, which was unprecedented for the show. In "The Day of the Doctor", Hurt appears in a "multi-Doctor" special alongside Matt Smith and David Tennant as the Eleventh and Tenth Doctors, respectively. The three are collectively credited as "The Doctor" alongside Christopher Eccleston, Paul McGann, Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker, Peter Davison, Tom Baker, Jon Pertwee, Patrick Troughton and William Hartnell, although the latter nine appeared only through the reuse of archive footage. Tom Baker did reappear, but as "the Curator", an ambiguously different character who he was not credited for playing. A voice actor, John Guilor, recorded a line of audio impersonating the First Doctor, for which he was credited as "Voice Over Artist".


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In other multi-Doctor stories, the multiple actors are all credited as "The Doctor", the exception being "The Three Doctors" (1972–73), which credited William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee as "Doctor Who" as the 1972 serial preceded the practice of crediting the character as "The Doctor". In "Human Nature" (2007), the plot involves the Tenth Doctor altering his biology and becoming a human to avoid detection. As a human, he takes the name "John Smith". David Tennant is credited as "The Doctor/Smith" for the episode, although the two-parter's concluding episode, "The Family of Blood" (2007), credits him simply as "The Doctor".


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The recasting of actors playing the part of the Doctor is explained within the programme by the Time Lords' ability to regenerate after suffering illness, mortal injury or old age. The process repairs all damage and rejuvenates the Doctor's body, but as a side effect it changes the Doctor's physical appearance and personality. This ability was not introduced until producers had to find a way to replace the ailing William Hartnell with Patrick Troughton and was not explicitly called "regeneration" until Jon Pertwee's transformation to Tom Baker at the climax of "Planet of the Spiders" (1974). On screen, the transformation from Hartnell to Troughton was called a "renewal" and from Troughton to Pertwee a "change of appearance".


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The original concept of regeneration or renewal was that the Doctor's body would rebuild itself in a younger, healthier form. The Second Doctor was intended to be a literally younger version of the First; biological time would turn back, and several hundred years would get taken off the Doctor's age, rejuvenating him. In practice, however, since the Doctor stated his age in the Second Doctor serial "The Tomb of the Cybermen" (1967), his age has been recorded progressively (see below). In seven out of eleven transitions, the new actor was younger than their predecessor had been when they began the role. In the revived programme, the pattern is resumed with the transition of the Ninth to the Tenth, the Tenth to the Eleventh and the Twelfth to the Thirteenth Doctor, although Steven Moffat is on record stating the intention was to cast an actor in his mid-30s to 40s for the role of the Eleventh Doctor, despite casting Matt Smith, who is the youngest actor to ever have played the role.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The actors who have played the lead role of the Doctor in the programme and the dates of their first and last regular television appearances in the role, are:


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In addition to the above-listed actors, others have played versions of the Doctor for the duration of particular storylines. Notably, John Hurt guest starred as the War Doctor in the closing moments of the 2013 episode "The Name of the Doctor", the webcast "The Night of the Doctor" and the 50th Anniversary episode "The Day of the Doctor". The War Doctor is an incarnation existing between those of McGann and Eccleston. Hurt was never the programme's lead actor; his Doctor was retroactively inserted into continuity for the programme's 50th anniversary, and was written so as not to disturb the ordinal naming of the established Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors. In the 1986 serial "The Trial of a Time Lord", Michael Jayston played the Valeyard, an amalgamation of the Doctor's darker sides from between his twelfth and final incarnations. In the Series 12 episode "Fugitive of the Judoon", Jo Martin played a previous and unknown incarnation of the Doctor who existed at some point before the Time War. The capacity for the Doctor to have other previously-unknown regenerations prior to the First Doctor was introduced in "The Timeless Children" (2020), having previously been hinted at in the serial "The Brain of Morbius".


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: While the Doctor remains essentially the same person throughout their regenerations, each actor has purposely imbued the character with distinct quirks and characteristics, and the production teams dictate new personality traits for each actor to portray.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Several personality traits remain constant throughout the Doctor's incarnations, most notably a disarming or mercurial surface, concealing a deep well of age, wisdom, melancholy, and darkness. This duality is explored more overtly in the revived series (2005–present), which has described him as "fire and ice and rage, he's like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun, he's ancient and forever, he burns at the centre of time..." and "the man who can turn an army around at the mention of his name". Though the Doctor tends to present a jocular, even childlike, persona, when the stakes rise—e.g., in "Pyramids of Mars" (1975)—that mask tends to fall, revealing a Doctor who is cold, driven, at times callous.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: This dark side sits in contrast to the Doctor's deep compassion, which manifests to different strength and effect across their incarnations. The Doctor prefers a pacifist solution to most problems, and is an ardent champion of life and dignity over violence and war. Their pacifism runs deeply enough to, on many occasions, doubt the morality of destroying their worst enemies - the Daleks. Their compassion for their fallen friend, the Master, often runs against clear reason or self-interest, as when they urge a dying Master to regenerate ("Last of the Time Lords") or vows to watch over them for 1,000 years in order to avert their execution ("Extremis").


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The Doctor has a deep sense of right and wrong, and a conviction that it is right to intervene when injustice occurs, which sets them apart from their own people, the Time Lords, and their strict ethic of non-intervention.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Often the Doctor is critical of others who employ deadly force, be they their companions (Leela in "The Face of Evil" and "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" (1977); Jack Harkness in "Utopia" (2007)) or other supporting characters. In the episode "The Lodger" (2010), a member of the Doctor's football team offhandedly mentions annihilating the team they will play next week. The Doctor looks very angry and says, "No violence, not while I'm around, not today, not ever. I'm the Doctor, the oncoming storm... and you basically meant beat them in a football match, didn't you?"


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The Doctor has a particular dislike for ranged weapons such as firearms or rayguns and tends to make a special effort to avoid their use. The Tenth Doctor especially makes a show of his distaste, discarding guns while declaring "I never would!" ("The Doctor's Daughter") and asserting that he is unarmed: "That's me. Always." ("Doomsday"). On some rare occasions, the Doctor does make use of weapons (as in Day of the Daleks, The Talons of Weng Chiang, and Resurrection of the Daleks), but most of the time it is usually to bluff or employ for an alternative use, e.g., destroying a machine vital to their enemies' scheme ("The End of Time").


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Nonetheless, when brought to an extreme (e.g., "Earthshock," "Vengeance on Varos," "The Christmas Invasion") the Doctor may resort to violence—even deadly force—to protect those considered under the Doctor's care. In "Remembrance of the Daleks" (1988), the Doctor even contrives for the Daleks' homeworld, Skaro, to be destroyed, albeit manipulating the Daleks into doing it themselves after he sabotaged their equipment. Starting with the 2005 revival, the Doctor carries the weight of a Time War between the Daleks and his people, the Time Lords, in which he believes himself responsible for the genocide of both races, in aid of the greater good, but this burden was lessened after "The Day of the Doctor" revealed that the Doctor's thirteen incarnations joined forces to save Gallifrey and create the illusion of its destruction.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Bearing the strain of his wartime actions, the Ninth Doctor deliberately tortures a lone Dalek he encounters ("Dalek"), despite its pleas to "have pity," stating coldly, "you never did." The Tenth Doctor notably declares a "one chance only" policy when dealing with aliens invading the Earth, leading his companion Donna Noble to comment that he needs "someone" to keep his temperament in check. In "The Family of Blood" (2007), a defeated alien reflects that the Doctor "never raised his voice – that was the worst thing, the fury of a Time Lord". Through the course of his adventures, the Eleventh Doctor underwent significant personality shifts, becoming ever more ruthless when travelling alone; falling into a deep depression and inertia when his friends Amy and Rory were lost to him, and finally undergoing a manic change at the prospect that Clara Oswin Oswald was still alive. By contrast, the Twelfth Doctor became a lighter person over the course of his life, beginning with a grim mood where he may have dropped a man out of a hot air balloon and questioning his own nature ("Into the Dalek") but ending with a firm resolve that he would take the hard option just because it was right ("The Doctor Falls").


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Different actors have used different regional accents in the role. The first six Doctors spoke in Received Pronunciation or "BBC English", as was standard on British television at the time. Sylvester McCoy used a very mild version of his own Scottish accent in the role, and Paul McGann spoke with a faint Liverpudlian lilt. Only rarely is this even addressed in the programme. In the case of McGann's Doctor, who is identified by American characters as "British", he seems only slightly conscious of the way he sounds, responding with "Yes, I suppose I am." When the accent of Eccleston's Doctor is clearly described as "Northern", he responds with the line "Lots of planets have a North." Capaldi's portrayal of the Doctor explicitly identified his own accent as "Scottish" after commenting on the English accents of his friends, Jenny Flint and Clara Oswald, while experiencing post-regeneration amnesia ("Deep Breath"). Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor speaks with the actress' natural Yorkshire accent and is identified as British during a trip to America.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Another example is in "The Tomb of the Cybermen" when the Doctor is identified as "English" and, dissembling, plays along. Though David Tennant speaks with a natural Scottish accent, he played the Tenth Doctor with an Estuary accent (apart from when, in the Highlands-set episode "Tooth and Claw", the character is pretending to be a local). According to producer Russell T Davies, this was intended as a consequence of spending so much time with Rose. "The Christmas Invasion" would have alluded to this, but the line was cut. Davies also said that after Eccleston's accent, he did not want Tennant "touring the regions" with a Scottish one, and so asked Tennant to affect the same accent he used for the earlier BBC period drama "Casanova". In contrast, Peter Capaldi was explicitly allowed to continue using his native Scottish accent as the Twelfth Doctor.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In the Big Finish audio adventure "The Sirens of Time", the captain aboard a German U-boat assumes that he is English because of the way he pronounces his words: "So, you speak German ... but you speak it like an English gentleman."


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The Doctor's clothing has been equally distinctive, from the distinguished Edwardian suits of the First Doctor to the Second Doctor's rumpled, clown-like Chaplinesque attire to the dandyish frills and velvet of the Third Doctor's era. The Fourth Doctor's long frock coat, loose-fitting trousers, occasionally worn a wide-brimmed hat and trailing, multi-striped scarf added to his somewhat shambolic and bohemian image; the Fifth's Edwardian cricketer's outfit suited his youthful, aristocratic air as well as his love of the sport (with a stick of celery on the lapel for an eccentric touch, though in "The Caves of Androzani" (1984), it is revealed to turn purple when exposed to gases the Doctor is allergic to); and the Sixth's multicoloured jacket, with its cat-shaped lapel pins, reflected the excesses of 1980s fashion. The Seventh Doctor's outfit – a Panama hat, a coat with a scarve, a tie, checked trousers and brogues/wing-tips – was more subdued and suggestive of a showman, reflecting his whimsical approach to life. In later seasons, as his personality grew more mysterious, his jacket, tie and hatband all grew darker.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Throughout the 1980s, question marks formed a constant motif, usually on the shirt collars or, in the case of the Seventh Doctor, on his sleeveless jumper and the handle to his umbrella. The idea was grounded in branding considerations, as was the movement starting in Tom Baker's final season toward an unchanging costume for each Doctor, rather than the variants on a theme employed over the first seventeen years of the programme. When the Eighth Doctor regenerated, he clad himself in a 19th-century frock coat and shirt based on a Wild Bill Hickok costume, reminiscent of the out-of-time quality of earlier Doctors and emphasising the Eighth Doctor's more Romantic persona.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In contrast to the more flamboyant outfits of his predecessors, the Ninth Doctor wore a nondescript, weathered black leather jacket, V-neck jumper and dark trousers. Eccleston stated that he felt that such definitive "costumes" were passé and that the character's trademark eccentricities should show through his actions and clever dialogue, not through gimmicky costumes. Despite this, there is a running joke about his character that the only piece of clothing he changes is his jumper, even when trying to "blend into" a historical era. The one exception, a photograph of him taken in 1912, wearing period gentleman's clothing, resembles the style of the Eighth Doctor.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The Tenth Doctor sports either a brown or a blue pinstripe suit – usually worn with ties – a tan ankle-length coat and trainers, the latter recalling the plimsolls worn by his fifth incarnation. Also like that incarnation (and his first one), he occasionally wears spectacles. In the 2007 "Children in Need" "Time Crash" special he states that he does not actually need glasses to see, but rather wears them to "look a bit clever", as did the Fifth, whom he meets in the special. On occasions, he wears a black tuxedo with matching black trainers. In interviews, Tennant has referred to his Doctor's attire as geek chic. According to Tennant, he had always wanted to wear the trainers. The overall costume was influenced by an outfit worn by Jamie Oliver in a TV interview on the talk show "Parkinson".


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The Tenth Doctor says in "The Runaway Bride" that, like the TARDIS, his pockets are bigger on the inside. The Second, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors routinely carried numerous items in their coats without this being conspicuous.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The Eleventh Doctor's appearance has been described as appearing like "an Oxford professor", with a tweed jacket, red or blue striped shirt, red or blue bow tie, black or grey trousers with red or blue braces, and black boots. He maintains "Bow ties are cool" even when his companions do not agree, and is delighted to meet Dr Black, the first man who agrees with him, in the episode "Vincent and the Doctor" (2010). As a running gag, he exhibits attraction to unusual hats, like a fez, a pirate hat and a stetson, often only to have them destroyed by River Song shortly afterwards. Starting in the second half of series 7, the Eleventh Doctor reverted to wearing a frock coat, similar to those worn by his predecessors, with a waistcoat and black trousers, black braces, an off-white shirt, bow tie and brown boots. He also added round-rimmed glasses that belonged to former companion Amy Pond.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The Twelfth Doctor's costume has been described as looking like a magician. It echoes his third incarnation's look, specifically the red lining on the inside of his Crombie coat. It has been described as "no frills, no scarves, just 100% rebel Time Lord." The Twelfth Doctor wears a white shirt with no tie, with his top button fastened and no cuff links, a dark blue cardigan (sometimes replaced with a waistcoat), navy trousers and black boots.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The Thirteenth Doctor's costume features blue high-waisted culottes with yellow braces, a navy blue or burgundy shirt with a rainbow stripe across it, a lilac-blue coat, brown lace-up boots, blue socks and piercings on her left ear. During the clip where Whittaker was announced as the new Doctor, she wore a grey overcoat over a black hoodie, reminiscent of Capaldi's costume.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The Doctor has occasionally expressed distaste and confusion about his own fashion choices in other incarnations. The First Doctor referred to his third incarnation as a "Dandy", and his second incarnation as a clown. The Tenth Doctor cringed at his fifth self's choice of wearing celery on his lapel. The Eleventh Doctor, upon meeting his previous self, referred to his Converse trainers as "sand-shoes." The Twelfth Doctor believes his previous incarnation's long scarf "looked stupid" and his prior's love of bow-ties is "embarrassing."


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Each regeneration to date has been worked into the continuing story, and most regenerations (minus the Second-to-Third) have been portrayed on-screen, in a handing over of the role. Before permanently dying, a Time Lord can regenerate twelve times for a total of thirteen incarnations. The following list details the manner of each transition between incarnations:


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The Doctor's first (Hartnell to Troughton), ninth (Hurt to Eccleston), and thirteenth (Smith to Capaldi) regenerations occur due to natural causes – in all three cases, the Doctor shows increasing signs of age, and comments that his body is "wearing a bit thin," though in the First Doctor's case this is apparently exacerbated by the energy drain from Mondas. All of the other regenerations have been caused by external factors, such as radiation poisoning, infection or fatal injuries.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In the original programme, with the exception of the change from Troughton to Pertwee, regeneration usually occurred when the previous Doctor was near "death". The changeover from McCoy to McGann was handled differently, with the Doctor actually dying and being dead for a time before regeneration occurred. The Eighth Doctor comments at one point in the television movie that the anaesthesia interfered with the regenerative process and that he had been "dead too long", accounting for his initial amnesia. Kate Orman's novel "The Room with No Doors", set just before the regeneration, notes that this is one of the few regenerations in which the Doctor was not conscious and aware that he was dying.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The Second Doctor (Troughton), was the only Doctor whose regeneration was due to nothing more than a need to change his appearance. He was not aged, in ill health nor mortally wounded at the end of "The War Games" (1969). Prior to his exile, the Time Lords deemed that his current appearance was too well known on Earth and therefore forced a "change of appearance" on him. This method of changing appearance was a source of early speculation that the Second and Third Doctor were actually the same incarnation since the second was never seen to truly "die" onscreen. Continuity has since established that one of his allotted regenerations was indeed used up for this transition.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The 2005 series began with the Ninth Doctor already regenerated and fully stabilised, with no explanation given. In his first appearance in "Rose" (2005), the Doctor looked in a mirror and commented on the size of his ears, suggesting that the regeneration may have happened shortly prior to the episode, or that he has not examined his reflection recently. Russell T Davies, writer/producer of the new series, stated in "Doctor Who Magazine" that he had no intention of showing the regeneration in the series, and that he believed the story of how the Eighth Doctor became the Ninth is best told in other media. In "Doctor Who Confidential", Davies revealed his reasoning that, after such a long hiatus, a regeneration in the first episode would not just be confusing for new viewers but lack dramatic impact, as there would be no emotional investment in the character before he was replaced. The circumstances of the Eighth Doctor's regeneration were explored during the 2013 specials, with the revelation of the incarnation played by Hurt that existed between the Doctor's Eighth and Ninth incarnations.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In the 2013 mini-episode "The Night of the Doctor", a prelude to the 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor", it was revealed that the Eighth Doctor had been revived by the Sisterhood of Karn after dying in a spacecraft crash. The Sisterhood offered him an elixir that enabled him to choose the characteristics of his next regeneration, and he opted for "a warrior"; the final scene of the mini-episode shows him regenerating not into the Ninth Doctor, as had been widely assumed, but into the War Doctor, played in the final scene of "The Name of the Doctor" by John Hurt.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Davies's 2018 novelisation of his debut episode "Rose" states that the Doctor's future incarnations include "a tall, bald black woman wielding a flaming sword" and "a young girl or boy in a hi-tech wheelchair with what looked like a robot dog at their side".


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: It was established in "The Deadly Assassin" (1976) that a Time Lord can regenerate twelve times before permanently dying – a total of thirteen incarnations. The 20th Anniversary special, the 1996 television film and 2013 special "The Time of the Doctor" all confirm this with the latter showing that the Time Lords can circumvent the cap of 12 regenerations in total by giving a Time Lord extra regenerations. While many of the previous regeneration sequences were unique, the Doctor's regenerations of the revived programme were similar with each transition being an explosion of energy in a particularly violent fashion. This can be seen from the Tenth Doctor's regeneration damaging the TARDIS, to the Eleventh Doctor's causing a shock wave that devastated the countryside while obliterating a Dalek mother-ship.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In the BBC Series 4 FAQ, writer Russell T Davies made a joke that now the Time Lord social order has been destroyed, the Doctor may be able to regenerate indefinitely: "Now that his people are gone, who knows? Time Lords used to have 13 lives."


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In "The Christmas Invasion" (2005), it was stated the regenerative cycle creates a large amount of residual regeneration energy that suffuses the Time Lord's body. As demonstrated by the Tenth Doctor for the first time in that story, in the first fifteen hours of regeneration this energy is enough to even rapidly regrow a severed hand.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In the case of the Doctor, his regenerations are usually a result of a previous incarnation sustaining mortal injury, though he can regenerate from old age and was once forced to regenerate by the Time Lords. A common side effect the Doctor frequently experiences is a period of instability and partial amnesia following regeneration. Some post-regeneration experiences have been more difficult than others. In particular, the Fifth Doctor began reverting to his previous personalities and required the healing powers of the TARDIS's "Zero Room" to recuperate ("Castrovalva"). The Sixth Doctor experienced extreme paranoia and flew into a murderous rage, nearly killing his companion ("The Twin Dilemma"). The Eighth Doctor experienced amnesia due to the anaesthetics affecting his physiology (1996 "Doctor Who" television film). While his regeneration first appeared to be smooth ("The Parting of the Ways"), the Tenth Doctor began to experience spasms and became somewhat manic, frightening his companion as he pushed the TARDIS to dangerous extremes (). After crash-landing the TARDIS, the Doctor collapsed and remained unconscious for most of the next fifteen hours ("The Christmas Invasion"). The experience was traumatic enough to cause one of his hearts to temporarily stop beating.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The TARDIS appears to aid in the regenerative process, with few occasions where the Doctor regenerates outside it. Three of these are initiated by Time Lords: one forced on him before banishment to Earth ("The War Games"), one requiring a Time Lord to give the Doctor's cells a "little push" to start the process ("Planet of the Spiders"), and one needing the Watcher – which the Doctor's travelling companions believed to be some version of the Doctor himself ("Logopolis"). The Eighth Doctor's regeneration apparently occurred a few hours after he had actually "died", leaving him with temporary amnesia due to his body's adverse reaction to earth medicines.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In "Journey's End", the Tenth Doctor manages to avert his own regeneration by using some of the energy to heal himself, then channeling the remaining energy into his severed hand, thus retaining his appearance and personality. That regenerative energy was a key point in a "human–Time Lord biological metacrisis" inadvertently caused by Donna Noble that creates the Meta-Crisis Doctor while she obtains a Time Lord intellect. Later in the series, during the events of "The Time of the Doctor" the Eleventh Doctor revealed that it was considered a full regeneration; he just kept the same face due to "vanity issues", and that he was now in his final (13th) life (given that the Tenth Doctor counted as two regenerations and the revelation of the existence of the War Doctor, this made a total of 12 regenerations). However, during the same episode, the Doctor is given a new cycle of regenerations by the Time Lords, allowing him to regenerate for the thirteenth time into the Twelfth Doctor, with the Twelfth Doctor ("Kill the Moon") and Rassilon ("Hell Bent") each expressing uncertainty about how many regenerations the Doctor now has.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Due to time travel, it is possible for the Doctor's various incarnations to encounter and interact with each other, although supposedly prohibited by the First Law of Time (as stated in "The Three Doctors") or permitted only in the "gravest of emergencies" ("The Five Doctors"). In the 1963–1989 television programme, such encounters were seen on three occasions: in "The Three Doctors" (1972), "The Five Doctors" (1983) and "The Two Doctors" (1985). In "Day of the Daleks" (1972), the Third Doctor and Jo Grant very briefly met their future selves due to a glitch during a temporal experiment (the serial was supposed to end with the same scene depicted from the perspective of the "other" Doctor and Jo, but was excised because it was anticlimactic). In "Father's Day" (2005), the Ninth Doctor and Rose observed but did not interact with past versions of themselves; when Rose changed history, the earlier selves – after momentarily noticing Rose running past – vanished and a temporal paradox was created that attracted the extra-dimensional Reapers. The Tenth and Fifth Doctors met in the TARDIS in the mini-episode "Time Crash", which aired on 16 November 2007 as part of the BBC's annual "Children in Need" appeal. This marks the first time the Doctor has met a previous incarnation since the programme's revival. Although the scene aired outside the programme itself, it was established as taking place between the events of "Last of the Time Lords" and "Voyage of the Damned".


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In the Virgin New Adventures, the Seventh Doctor is shown briefly interacting with a man who may be the Third Doctor in the Sherlock Holmes crossover novel "All-Consuming Fire", but the scene is narrated from the perspective of Dr. Watson and thus the other man is never expressly identified. The Virgin Missing Adventures novel "Cold Fusion" is a unique twist on the traditional multi-Doctor story as it focuses on the Fifth Doctor's adventures before he meets the Seventh, where normal stories treat the later Doctor as 'the' Doctor.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The BBC novel "The Eight Doctors" was written by respected Doctor Who writer Terrance Dicks, the same author who wrote "The Five Doctors". In it, he tries to reconcile the continuity errors of the 1996 movie, while having the Eighth Doctor meet and interact with each of his previous selves, although the Eighth Doctor visited each incarnation one at a time rather than all eight of them appearing in the same place. Later Eighth Doctor novel "Interference – Book One" sees the Eighth Doctor briefly meeting the Third, although this occasion results in the Doctor unwittingly changing his own history so that the Third Doctor will regenerate ahead of schedule (A change that is later 'reset' in the novel "The Ancestor Cell" thanks to the TARDIS taking action to preserve the original history). In the Past Doctor Adventures, the novel "Heart of TARDIS" features the Second and Fourth Doctors dealing with two different ends of the same crisis, with the Second Doctor trapped in a dimensional anomaly created by a government experiment and the Fourth recruited to stop the experiment destroying the world, but although they are at one point both in the Second Doctor's TARDIS, the Fourth Doctor and his companion hide on the opposite side of the console from his past self and the Second is never aware of his future self. In "The Colony of Lies", the Second Doctor briefly interacts with the Seventh Doctor in a VR simulation, but it is unspecified if this is the actual Seventh Doctor or just a VR program he left to advise his past self. In "Wolfsbane", like in "Heart of TARDIS", the Fourth and Eighth Doctors deal with separate ends of the same crisis, the Eighth stopping the threat in November 1936 while the Fourth ties up loose ends in December of the same year, but the two incarnations never meet directly, and due to the Eighth Doctor's current amnesia none of the other characters realizes that the two Doctors are the same person.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Physical contact between two versions of the same person in the programme can lead to an energy discharge that shorts out the "time differential". This is apparently due to a (fictional) principle known as the Blinovitch Limitation Effect, and was seen when the past and future versions of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart touched hands in "Mawdryn Undead". The Doctor's incarnations do not appear to suffer this effect when encountering each other and shaking hands. This has never been explained. An essay in the "About Time" episode guides by Lawrence Miles and Tat Wood suggests that Time Lords are somehow exempt from the effect by their very nature. Rose Tyler is seen holding an infant version of herself in "Father's Day", with no visible energy discharge, but the contact does allow the Reapers to enter the church in which the Doctor and several others are taking refuge. While doing a live commentary on the episode at the 2006 Bristol Comic Expo, episode author Paul Cornell said that this is supposed to be due to the Blinovitch Limitation Effect, even though it is not mentioned by name. He suggested that the lack of a spark may be down to the fact that the Time Lords were no longer around to manage anomalies.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In the 2006 episode "School Reunion", the Tenth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith both seem to indicate in dialogue that they haven't seen each other since her departure from the TARDIS in "The Hand of Fear", although this contradicts their having met later during "The Five Doctors". In that story, she does not appear to realise that the Fifth Doctor is a later incarnation of the third and fourth Doctors with whom she had previously travelled. In "Time Crash", the Tenth Doctor remembers and reproduces what he saw himself do when he was the Fifth Doctor, a fact that seems to surprise the Fifth Doctor himself.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Russell T Davies has expressed a dislike for stories in which multiple incarnations of the Doctor meet, stating that he believes they focus more on the actors than on the story itself. In 2007, David Tennant showed enthusiasm for the idea of a multi-Doctor story but expressed doubts about the practicality of episodes involving multiple previous Doctors, given that three of the actors who played the character were deceased.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Since the programme's revival, there have been four multi-Doctor stories: the "Children in Need" special "Time Crash", the 50th-anniversary special, "The Day of the Doctor", the 2017 Christmas special "Twice Upon A Time", and the series 12 episode "Fugitive of the Judoon". Before that, the only references to past incarnations (from 1963 to 1996) have been in the aforementioned episode "School Reunion" (in which the Doctor acknowledges having regenerated "half a dozen times" since last seeing Sarah Jane) and in drawings that the Doctor (who has temporarily become human to hide from the Family Of Blood) makes based on dreams of his other life in the 2007 episode "Human Nature". Seen on screen are the First, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Doctors, but a fuller view briefly available on the BBC website depicted all ten incarnations. In the 2008 Christmas episode, The Next Doctor, the Tenth Doctor discovers an info stamp originally held by the Cybermen, which includes images of all his past selves. This is a clear affirmation of his past, and that the (then) current incarnation was indeed the Tenth. This was reaffirmed in the episode "The Eleventh Hour", when the Doctor asks the Atraxi whether this planet is protected. The Atraxi then shows 10 images, one of each Doctor from the first to the tenth, with the eleventh walking through the image of the tenth at the end. This is confirmed in the episode "The Lodger", when the Doctor, explaining to Craig who and what he is, points at his face and says, "Eleventh."


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Because each new Doctor is different from their previous incarnations, how their personalities interact varies when two or more different incarnations encounter each other. "Time Crash" featured Peter Davison returning as the Fifth Doctor. This event is explained as occurring due to the current Doctor having left his shields down when rebuilding the TARDIS following "Last of the Time Lords" and then accidentally crossing the Fifth Doctor's timeline, allowing the two TARDISes to merge. When the Tenth Doctor effortlessly averts the impending Belgium-sized hole in the Universe caused by this temporal anomaly, he reveals having known what to do because he saw himself do it as the Fifth Doctor and remembered. He goes on to tell the Fifth Doctor how fond he was of his incarnation and how he influences the current Doctor's personality. However, in their two meetings, the Second Doctor and Third Doctor had a degree of antagonism towards each other, with the patriarchal First Doctor critical of them both. During the Virgin New Adventures, the Seventh Doctor was occasionally at odds with his subconscious memory of his previous incarnation as his memory of his past self became increasingly associated with the Valeyard, his dark, future self, but he eventually accepted his dark side and 'reformed' his memory of his former self, although it was never established how the two Doctors would interact if they had met in person.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: On many occasions the Eleventh Doctor has actually encountered himself from a different point in his timeline – in "The Big Bang", the mini-episodes "Space" and "Time" and "Last Night" – and in "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS", at the end, the Doctor interacted with his past self to reset time. In all stories, multiple versions of the Eleventh Doctor from different timelines meet and carry on brief conversations. Additionally, the Eleventh Doctor encountered an artificial (though physically and mentally identical) copy of himself in "The Almost People"; fought against "Mister Clever", an artificial personality generated out of his own by the Cybermen in "Nightmare in Silver"; and was pitted against "The Dream Lord", a manifestation of his self-loathing and anger, in "Amy's Choice".


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Later, the Eleventh Doctor entered his own timeline in "The Name of the Doctor" to rescue his companion Clara Oswald, and while there observed a past incarnation portrayed by John Hurt, one whose actions caused him to be unworthy of the name "Doctor" and viewed as shameful by his future selves. In the 50th anniversary special, "The Day of the Doctor", the Eleventh Doctor encounters both the Tenth Doctor and the War Doctor (played by John Hurt). The Tenth and Eleventh Doctors are generally amicable towards each other, despite bickering, although the War Doctor treats them both as behaving too childishly. Despite this, he does come to admire both of his future incarnations, working together with them and eventually choosing to go through with the act of destroying Gallifrey because he knows it will help them become what they are. The Tenth and Eleventh are initially leery of the War Doctor, the Eleventh describing him as the "one life I have tried very hard to forget." However, both of them later recognise that the War Doctor followed what seemed to be the only course open to him, and are even willing to help him carry it out so that he won't have to suffer the guilt alone. Fortunately, with influence from the Moment – a sentient Time Lord weapon that brought about their meeting – the three are able to stumble upon an alternative: sending Gallifrey into a pocket universe, making it seem as though it has been destroyed. The three are then joined by the other nine previous Doctors and the future Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) in this act (the War, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors having evidently contacted them off-screen). The Eleventh Doctor is shown to have memories of these events but only recalls them after they have begun. This is explained in dialogue as an instability in the timeline, which causes the War and Tenth Doctors to forget their meeting, thus maintaining the continuity in which the Doctors from the War Doctor onwards believe themselves to have destroyed Gallifrey.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The Thirteenth Doctor meets a previously unknown incarnation of the Doctor portrayed by Jo Martin in "Fugitive of the Judoon". It is implied in "The Timeless Children" that Martin's Doctor was a previous incarnation that had been erased from the Doctor's memory by the Division.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: On a few occasions, previous actors to have played Doctor have returned to the role, usually guest-starring with the incumbent:


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In addition to the above, Tom Baker, Davison, Colin Baker, McCoy, McGann, Hurt, Eccleston and Tennant have reprised the role in audio dramas from Big Finish Productions.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In early production documents, the Doctor was said to be 650 years old, although this was never stated on screen. By the time the Doctor did cite his age ("Let me see, in human terms, 400, yes, 450 years" in the serial "The Tomb of the Cybermen" (1967); he kept a 500-year diary), he had already regenerated to a younger form. The intention at that time was that regeneration had turned back the Doctor's clock, making him younger both in appearance and in biological age. Since the Doctor's age had never previously been given, 450 Earth years became a starting point onto which further years would be progressively added as the series continued and the character lived out his further incarnations.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The Third Doctor implied in "Doctor Who and the Silurians" (1970) and in "The Mind of Evil" (1971) that he had a lifetime that covered "several thousand years". While the Doctor's age has never been a known quantity, these numbers are the most difficult to reconcile with the rest of the series.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: By the time of "The Brain of Morbius", the Fourth Doctor was stated to be 749 years old ("something like 750 years" in the prior "Pyramids of Mars", which prompts Sarah Jane Smith to joke that he will "soon be middle-aged"). In "The Ribos Operation" (1978), Romana said the Doctor was 759 years old and had been piloting the TARDIS for 523 years, making him 236 when he first "borrowed" it. When the Doctor encounters his old friend Drax in "The Armageddon Factor" (1979), Drax says it has been 450 years since their time together at the Academy, suggesting only that Drax was 450 years younger, but implying nothing about the Doctor's age, since it could have been a different amount of time for him. Drax implies that the Doctor got his doctorate after that. In "The Robots of Death" (1977), the Fourth Doctor states he is 750 years old.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In "Revelation of the Daleks" (1985), the Sixth Doctor said that he was "a 900-year-old Time Lord", and in "Time and the Rani" (1987), the Seventh Doctor's age was 953, the same as villainous Time Lady the Rani (in both serials, the Doctor's age is stated in dialogue). In "Remembrance of the Daleks" (1988), the Seventh Doctor said that he had "900 years' experience" rewiring alien equipment. At the beginning of the 1996 television movie, the Seventh Doctor was shown to have a 900-year diary in his TARDIS.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Amongst the works of spin-off prose fiction, in the Fourth Doctor comic "The Time Witch", after the Doctor and Sharon cross through the split in time which ages them four years, the Doctor says "I shall still think of myself as 743 ... or was it 730, I never can remember...". The Sixth Doctor celebrated his 991st birthday in the short story "Brief Encounter: A Wee Deoch an..?", written by Colin Baker, in "Doctor Who Magazine Winter Special 1991": "UNIT Exposed". The Seventh Doctor celebrated his 1,000th birthday in "Set Piece" by Kate Orman, and the Eighth Doctor declared his age to be 1,012 in "Vampire Science" by Orman and Jonathan Blum. The Eighth Doctor spent nearly a century on Earth during a story arc spread over several novels, and around 100 years asleep in "The Sleep of Reason" by Martin Day. In the Big Finish Productions audio play "Orbis", the Eighth Doctor says that he has spent 600 years living on the planet Orbis since the previous play. He states that he lost count of his true age long ago, and rounds it down, taking into account the varying lengths of a "year" in different locations.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In the 2005 series, the Ninth Doctor's age is stated in publicity materials as 900 years, and in "Aliens of London", he says, "Nine hundred years of time and space, and I've never been slapped by someone's mother." Rose follows up by asking him if he is 900 years old, and he replies affirmatively. He restates this in "The Empty Child" as "Nine hundred years of phone box travel and it's the only thing left that surprises me". In "Voyage of the Damned" (2007), the Tenth Doctor states that he is 903 years of age, the first time since "Time and the Rani" that an exact number has been stated in dialogue; previously, the Master indicated the Doctor's age to be about 900 in "The Sound of Drums"/"Last of the Time Lords" (2007) story arc.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In "The Sound of Drums", the Master ages the Doctor by 100 years using his laser screwdriver, leaving the Doctor with an elderly appearance. In "Last of the Time Lords", the Master states to the population of Earth that the Doctor is nine hundred years old, and informs his subjects he will show them the Doctor's true form, suspending his ability to regenerate. The Master proceeds to age the Doctor further with his laser screwdriver, reducing him to a tiny, wrinkled being, subsequently imprisoned inside a bird cage until reverted to his current form with the help of Martha Jones, 15 satellites and the entire population of Earth. However, as the resolution of that story is by means of a reversal of time, there is a suggestion that the events of that year never actually took place, and yet are present in the Doctor's memory.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In "The End of Time" (2009–10), the Tenth Doctor tells Wilfred Mott he is 906 years old. In "Flesh and Stone" (2010), the Eleventh Doctor tells Amy Pond that he is 907. "The Impossible Astronaut" (2011) depicts the Doctor from two different points in his life, one at age 909 and the other at 1103. In "The Doctor's Wife" (2011), the TARDIS, while embodied as Idris, says the Doctor has been travelling with her for 700 years. By the end of series six, the Doctor has reached the age of 1103, the older version that appeared in "The Impossible Astronaut". The next series ages the Doctor further, with "A Town Called Mercy" (2012) establishing that he is now approximately 1,200 years old. However, in "The Bells of Saint John" (2013), the Doctor says that he was "one thousand years old", whilst in "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS" (2013) commenting that he had piloted the TARDIS "for over 900 years".


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In the 50th anniversary special, "The Day of the Doctor" (2013), the Eleventh Doctor is queried about his age by his younger self, to which he replies "I dunno, I lose track. Twelve hundred and something I think, unless I'm lying. I can't remember if I'm lying about my age – that's how old I am." He makes several references to being 400 years older than the War Doctor, which would encompass the timelines of the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors. In the next episode, "The Time of the Doctor", the Doctor spends centuries defending the planet Trenzalore. After one interval, the Doctor states he has lived there for 300 years. Another long interval passes, during which the Doctor's age is not given, but he physically ages considerably before regenerating into the Twelfth Doctor. The 2014 e-book "Tales of Trenzalore" states the Doctor spent 900 years on Trenzalore.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In the following episode, "Deep Breath" (2014), the Twelfth Doctor states that he is over 2,000 years old. However, writer Steven Moffat has said, "He's lying. How could he know, unless he's marking it on a wall? He could be 8,000 years old, he could be a million. He has no clue. The calendar will give him no clues." In the episode "The Girl Who Died" the Doctor is shown to possess a 2000 Year Diary. Moffat later said that he believes the Doctor remembers all 4.5 billion years he spent dying and recreating himself in "Heaven Sent" (2015), and that the confession dial extracts the Doctor's memories of each iteration, feeding them back to him as a means of torture. In a subsequent interview with "SFX", Moffat confirmed, "Technically he's four and a half billion years old."


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The very first episode of the television programme established that Susan Foreman is the Doctor's granddaughter, but neither Susan nor the Doctor ever speaks of her parents.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The First Doctor did flirt with – and was accidentally engaged to – the character Cameca in "The Aztecs" (1964). Although this was part of a plot to get the TARDIS back, there was a hint of mutual attraction in Hartnell's performance (especially as he is ultimately unable to leave behind the love token she has given him).


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The Third Doctor expresses hurt feelings when his companion Jo Grant leaves him for an idealistic scientific adventurer whom she describes as "a younger version" of the Doctor ("The Green Death"). Jo kisses the Doctor on the cheek before she departs, the second time this form of affection had been shown on screen (the Second Doctor having similarly kissed Zoe in "The War Games").


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: There was on-screen chemistry between Fourth Doctor Tom Baker and his wife-to-be Lalla Ward's Second Romana. A 1980 television commercial broadcast in Australia for Prime Computers showed Baker and Ward romancing each other, in character as the Doctor and Romana, with the Doctor (prompted by the computer) proposing marriage.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In voiceovers on Peter Davison's DVDs, the matter of physical affection is discussed. According to Davison and Matthew Waterhouse (Adric), producer John Nathan-Turner had very strict rules laid down about how the companions were allowed to physically interact with the Doctor, and Adric was allowed more physical contact with the Doctor than the female companions to downplay potential romantic and/or sexual connotations.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Beginning in 2005 the programme has suggested that the Doctor has romantic feelings towards different people. This shift is satirised in "The Day of the Doctor" wherein the War Doctor, having witnessed a passionate kiss exchanged between his tenth incarnation and Queen Elizabeth I, asks of the eleventh, "Is there a lot of this in the future?" to which he replies, "It does start to happen, yeah."


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The series has played with the idea of a romantic relationship between the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler, with many characters assuming they were a couple. Rose's boyfriend Mickey Smith clearly views the Doctor as a romantic rival for whom Rose has left him. Each shows flashes of jealousy when the other flirts with other characters. In "The Parting of the Ways" (2005), the Doctor's male companion Jack Harkness kisses both the Doctor and Rose in what he believes is a last goodbye. In the same episode, the Doctor kisses Rose Tyler to get the time vortex energy that was killing her back into the TARDIS, subsequently "killing" him and causing his next regeneration.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In the New Series Adventures novel "Only Human" by Gareth Roberts, Rose asks the Doctor how he would know that marrying for love is overrated, to which he cryptically answers, "Who says I don't? You ask the Lady Mary Wortley Montagu." In a December 2005 interview on BBC Four, actor David Tennant, who had just taken the role of the Tenth Doctor, described the relationship between the Doctor and Rose as "basically a love story without the shagging". He later stated that Rose was the Doctor's girlfriend, though it was never explicitly stated on screen.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The Doctor's relationship with Rose intensifies after he regenerates into the Tenth Doctor. In "New Earth" (2006), Rose's body is temporarily inhabited by Cassandra, who kisses the Doctor romantically. This is one of the few scenes in the entire programme where the Doctor is kissed romantically by his companion. In "School Reunion" (2006), the arrival of the Doctor's previous companion Sarah Jane Smith and his reaction to seeing her again prompts jealousy and worry from Rose, and Sarah all but admits that she has long been in love with the Doctor. The Doctor also expresses dismay at having his companions age while he regenerates. In the episode, "The Girl in the Fireplace" (2006) (written by Steven Moffat), the Doctor develops a romantic relationship with Madame de Pompadour, with whom he shares a passionate kiss. She even takes him away to "dance", but how far the metaphor (coined in the episode "The Doctor Dances") is taken is not seen on screen. Rose does not openly exhibit jealousy towards Madame de Pompadour. In the novel "The Stone Rose", by Jacqueline Rayner, the Doctor kisses Rose after she saves him from being petrified, with it being described as "a kiss of gratitude and joy and unspeakable pleasure at being alive". In "The Impossible Planet" (2006), the Doctor and Rose share an awkward moment when they have to consider settling down in one time period and Rose suggests they do so together. She later plants a kiss for good luck on the Doctor's spacesuit prior to his descent into the pit. In "The Satan Pit" the Doctor, fearing for his life, tells someone "If you see Rose, tell her... tell her... oh, she knows." In "Doomsday", when the Doctor says his goodbye to Rose, she finally tells him that she loves him. He begins to reply, but the message is cut off, and he is unable to reciprocate; in the episode's audio commentary, executive producer Julie Gardner had stated that "he absolutely was going to say it... he was going to tell her he loved her."


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Executive producer Russell T Davies states in "Doctor Who Confidential" that the reunion between the Doctor and Rose in the 2008 episode "The Stolen Earth" is a parody of romantic film conventions because the heightened emotional content is abruptly interrupted by the Doctor being shot by a Dalek. In the next episode, "Journey's End", Rose challenges the Doctor to say what he did not get to say before, to which he replies, "Does it need saying?" His half-human duplicate, however, does whisper it into Rose's ear, and the two of them kiss; Rose gets an emphatically romantic resolution to her romance storyline, as the duplicate Doctor and Rose continue to live together on a parallel Earth. Gardner commented in "Confidential" that although the audience cannot hear, it is obvious that he is saying "I love you".


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Throughout series three (2007), companion Martha Jones pines for the Doctor's affection following a kiss between them which was only used as a "genetic transfer" to distract their pursuers. She is distraught when, temporarily turned into a human in "Human Nature", the Doctor's human persona, John Smith, falls in love with nurse Joan Redfern. She admits in "The Family of Blood" to Smith that "[the Doctor] is everything to me, and he doesn't even look at me, but I don't care, because I love him to bits, and I hope to God he won't remember me saying this". The Doctor tells Joan he is capable of everything that Smith was, but she rejects his attempt to establish a relationship with her as the Doctor. In the following episode, "Blink", he refers to being "rubbish at weddings, especially my own". Martha eventually quits as the Doctor's full-time companion in the series finale "Last of the Time Lords" because she is in love with the Doctor and he seems unable or unwilling to reciprocate; she received similar commiseration from Jack Harkness, who is also infatuated with him, in "The Sound of Drums".


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Subsequently, in the 2008 series, the Doctor's friendship with Donna Noble is strengthened, after the infatuations with Martha and Rose, by the knowledge that she has no romantic interest in him whatsoever. Davies' last clear allusion to the Doctor's romantic capacity occurs at the beginning of his last episode as showrunner, "The End of Time". The Tenth Doctor claims to have married "Good Queen Bess, and let me tell you, her nickname is no longer... (clears throat)", a reference to Elizabeth I of England's nickname "The Virgin Queen". The marriage, which is referred to as "a mistake", explained Queen Elizabeth's reaction to seeing the Tenth Doctor in an earlier episode, "The Shakespeare Code". Subsequent episodes have alluded to this romantic, possibly sexual relationship. This relationship, including the marriage and the "mistake" that led to it (a case of mistaken identity involving a Zygon commander in 1562), eventually unfolds on screen in "The Day of the Doctor".


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Episodes written by Steven Moffat have continued to hint at the Doctor's romantic capacity: his stories during the Russell T Davies tenure as showrunner included the admission of a sex life in "The Doctor Dances" and the romance with Madame de Pompadour in "The Girl in the Fireplace", past marriages in "Blink", and the introduction of recurring character River Song in the 2008 episodes "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead", who indicates she is a lover of the Doctor. In his tenure as showrunner (2010–2017), the series continued to imply that the Doctor will have a relationship with, and perhaps marry, River Song. Additionally, Moffat has companion Amy Pond attempt to seduce the Doctor in "Flesh and Stone", although he expresses shock at the idea, protesting that she was human. In "A Christmas Carol", the Eleventh Doctor finds himself accidentally engaged to film star Marilyn Monroe during a visit to 1950s Hollywood. The Doctor's past romantic relationship with Elizabeth I is alluded to in Moffat episodes "The Beast Below" and "The Wedding of River Song", as well as in "Amy's Choice" by Simon Nye.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In her 2010 appearances, River continues to hint at a relationship with the Doctor in her relative past and his relative future. In "The Big Bang", River suggests to the Doctor that she is married to him in his personal future. When River kisses the Doctor in "Day of the Moon", it becomes clear that whereas this is the Doctor's first kiss with her, it is to be her last with him and that she shall soon be heading to The Library where she dies. In "A Good Man Goes to War", River is seen returning from a date with the future Doctor, and repeatedly calls the present-day Doctor "my love". In "Let's Kill Hitler", a young River Song compares herself to Mrs. Robinson and kisses the Doctor; the first time in an attempt to kill him, the second to save his life. Later she resolves to study archaeology so that she can encounter the Doctor again. Because she loves him, she refuses to shoot him in "The Wedding of River Song", creating an alternate timeline. In this world, the Doctor marries River in a very brief ceremony witnessed by Amy and Rory, so that he may allow time to return to normal and go to his death, while secretly disclosing to River that he will fake his death. Although the alternate timeline is erased, all future episodes act as though the wedding was real. Later, when Dorium comments that River is incarcerated in the Stormcage for "all her days", the Doctor responds "Her days, yes, her "nights"...well...that's between her and me". After this episode, the banter and gentle sexual innuendo between them becomes less teasing and more serious.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Later, in "The Name of the Doctor" (2013), the Doctor kisses a holographic projection of River Song, based on the copy of her mind archived in the great Library of the 51st century. During this episode, both the Doctor and River call her his wife. He reveals that the reason he has avoided mentioning her since her death was for fear that the memory would hurt too much – as River notes to colleagues, "he hates endings". After this exchange, he bids her a final farewellbut at her requestphrasing it with the implication that they may meet again.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Despite this, the Doctor's limited understanding of human romance and sexuality has been the subject of many jokes. For example, in "Flesh and Stone", after being kissed by Amy Pond, his first response is to gasp, "But you're human!", and he later blithely mentions this embrace to her fiancé Rory in the following episode, "The Vampires of Venice", not realising this would upset Rory. In "The Doctor's Wife", when he tells Amy and Rory that he is redoing the TARDIS's guest room, they suggest, "Perhaps not bunk beds this time," and he does not understand why a married couple would not find bunk beds preferable to other furniture. In "A Good Man Goes to War", he is asked about Amy and Rory's sex life and refers to it as "private human stuff".


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In "The Time of the Doctor" (2013), it is revealed that the Doctor, in an unspecified prior incarnation to the Eleventh, engaged in a romance with a woman named Tasha Lem. Their attraction appeared to continue when the Eleventh encountered her again, even after Lem was technically killed and made into a Dalek-human hybrid.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: At first, the Twelfth Doctor explicitly rejected the idea of having a romantic relationship with his companion Clara Oswald. He implied that in his previous form, he had come to see himself as Clara's "boyfriend" in an attempt to avoid confronting his extreme age and alien nature. Initially it was reported that Peter Capaldi told tabloids there would be "no flirting" between him and Clara, likening such a potential relationship to Papa and Nicole, but the actor himself discarded that. The episode "Deep Breath" introduces a character named Missy who identifies the Doctor as her boyfriend. Missy is later revealed to be a female incarnation of the Master. As the character of the Twelfth Doctor evolved, so did his relationship with Clara. In a spring 2015 interview, Steven Moffat indicated that the Doctor had never stopped being "besotted" with Clara, and that he "loves them (companions) more than they love him." In a media roundtable interview at the 2015 San Diego Comic Con, Capaldi went further, saying the two were romantically involved, just not in the traditional sense, "It's romantic in the old sense. Two people who are really crazy about each other..." The narrative of series nine culminated in a three-part story arc in which Clara dies and the Doctor spends the next 4.5 billion years executing a gambit to change history and save her life. Further romance for the Twelfth Doctor was depicted in the 2015 Christmas special, "The Husbands of River Song", which had a romantic plot. In the special, the Twelfth Doctor meets his one-time wife, River Song, for the first (and, narratively, the last) time.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Later, now as a woman, the Thirteenth Doctor experienced her first on-screen same-sex romantic situation with companion Yasmin Khan. Yaz admits her feelings in "Eve of the Daleks" (2022). The Doctor confronts Yaz about them in "Legend of the Sea Devils", saying she reciprocated Yaz's affection while refusing to become involved with another human companion who will one day die.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The spin-off media both before and after the television movie have toyed with the idea in various ways. In the 1995 Virgin New Adventures novel "Human Nature" by Paul Cornell, the Seventh Doctor takes on the human guise of "Dr John Smith" and has a romance with a teacher named Joan in 1914, albeit as a means to understand the human condition and with the Doctor's own memories as a Time Lord suppressed. The relationship ended when the Doctor was restored to normal, admitting to Joan that he knows that Smith was fond of her but unable to reciprocate those feelings himself. This novel was adapted to the screen and comprised two episodes in the new programme: "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood", featuring the Tenth Doctor, with the Doctor implying that he retained Smith's feelings for Joan, although the more traumatic nature of the transformation may have impacted his feelings after he returned to normal.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In the Virgin novel "Death and Diplomacy", by Dave Stone, the Seventh Doctor implies that he intentionally creates an image of asexuality to keep things simple.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The concluding chapter of "The Dying Days", an Eighth Doctor novel by Lance Parkin, strongly implies intimacy occurring between the Doctor and Bernice Summerfield. This encounter was later confirmed in the audio drama "Benny's Story", a chapter of the Big Finish Productions release "The Company of Friends", marking the only time to date that a classic-era Doctor has been confirmed as sleeping with one of his companions.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: Writer Lawrence Miles has stated that he believes the Eighth Doctor has sex with I. M. Foreman between the events of his novels "Interference – Book One" and "Interference – Book Two". In "Book Two", the Doctor explains that he has become interested in romance and the idea of being close to someone in his current body, but that he is reluctant to explore these feelings with his companions because of the emotional baggage a relationship with him would bring.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In various novels – especially "Lungbarrow" – it is established that Time Lords do not reproduce sexually, but emerge from genetic Looms fully grown, though the same book hints that the Doctor's birth was an exception (unlike his cousins, he has a belly button). Lance Parkin's novels "Cold Fusion" (1997) and "The Infinity Doctors" (1998) suggest that "wombborn" families have survived in secret, and that the Doctor and the Master were born to these families. In the 1996 film "Doctor Who", the Doctor states he is "half-human, on [his] mother's side", which the Master also affirms. The revived programme portrays Time Lord children, with a child version of the Doctor appearing in the 2014 episode "Listen".


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In the Big Finish Productions audio play "Loups-Garoux", the Fifth Doctor reluctantly agrees to marry the werewolf Ileana De Santos and although he gets out of it later, as in Cameca's case, a degree of mutual attraction is present. In the audio plays involving the Eighth Doctor, his companion Charley confesses her romantic feelings for him in "Zagreus", but although he admits he loves her at the time, it is a highly dramatic moment and the relationship does not progress beyond the platonic.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The recurring novel and audio character Iris Wildthyme, created by Paul Magrs, is first introduced in the "Short Trips" story "Old Flames", is a past romantic interest of the Doctor's who continues to flirt with him whenever they meet. More of the Doctor's past relationships are explored in "The Infinity Doctors" and "Cold Fusion".


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The question of romance is sometimes sidestepped with plot devices in the spin-off media. In the 2001 BBC Books novel "Father Time" by Lance Parkin, the Doctor adopts an orphaned Gallifreyan-like alien called Miranda. It is implied in the book that Miranda is actually the daughter of the Doctor himself from the far future. Miranda returns in the novel "Sometime Never..." by Justin Richards, with her own daughter Zezanne. At that novel's end, a time-active being called Soul travels into the past accompanied by Zezanne, the two believing themselves to be the Doctor and Susan, respectively.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: In "The One Doctor", the Doctor kisses Sally-Anne Stubbins to bluff to the Sussyurat that he was not the Doctor but Banto Zane, but this kiss showed no affection.


title: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

text: The character has been generally well received by the public. In a 2001 poll conducted by Channel 4, the Doctor was ranked sixth on its list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters. In July 2008, the character's enduring popularity led "The Daily Telegraph" to dub him "Britain's favourite alien". UGO Networks listed the Doctor as one of their best heroes of all time.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: The House of Plantagenet () was a royal house which originated from the lands of Anjou in France. The family held the English throne from 1154 (with the accession of Henry II at the end of the Anarchy) to 1485, when Richard III died in battle.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: Under the Plantagenets, England was transformed. The Plantagenet kings were often forced to negotiate compromises such as Magna Carta, which had served to constrain their royal power in return for financial and military support. The king was no longer considered an absolute monarch in the nation—holding the prerogatives of judgement, feudal tribute, and warfare—but now also had defined duties to the kingdom, underpinned by a sophisticated justice system. A distinct national identity was shaped by their conflict with the French, Scots, Welsh and Irish, as well as by the establishment of the English language as the primary language.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: In the 15th century, the Plantagenets were defeated in the Hundred Years' War and beset with social, political and economic problems. Popular revolts were common-place, triggered by the denial of numerous freedoms. English nobles raised private armies, engaged in private feuds and openly defied Henry VI.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: The rivalry between the House of Plantagenet's two cadet branches of York and Lancaster brought about the Wars of the Roses, a decades-long fight for the English succession, culminating in the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, when the reign of the Plantagenets and the English Middle Ages both met their end with the death of King Richard III. Henry VII of legitimised Lancastrian descent became king of England; five months later, he married Elizabeth of York, thus giving rise to the Tudor dynasty. The Tudors worked to centralise English royal power, which allowed them to avoid some of the problems that had plagued the last Plantagenet rulers. The resulting stability allowed for the English Renaissance and the advent of early modern Britain.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, adopted Plantagenet as his family name in the 15th century. "Plantegenest" (or "Plante Genest") had been a 12th-century nickname for his ancestor Geoffrey, Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy. One of many popular theories suggests the blossom of the common broom, a bright yellow ("gold") flowering plant, called "genista" in medieval Latin, as the source of the nickname.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: It is uncertain why Richard chose this specific name, although during the Wars of the Roses (1455–1487) it emphasised Richard's status as Geoffrey's patrilineal descendant. The retrospective usage of the name for all of Geoffrey's male-line descendants was popular during the subsequent Tudor dynasty, perhaps encouraged by the further legitimacy it gave to Richard's great-grandson, Henry VIII. It was only in the late 17th century that it passed into common usage among historians.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: is French for "from Anjou". The three Angevin kings were the 12th-century Geoffrey of Anjou's son, Henry II, and grandsons Richard I and John. "Angevin" can also refer to the period of history in which they reigned. Many historians identify the Angevins as a distinct English royal house. "Angevin" is also used in reference to any sovereign or government derived from Anjou. As a noun, it refers to any native of Anjou or an Angevin ruler, and specifically to other counts and dukes of Anjou, including the ancestors of the three kings who formed the English royal house; their cousins, who held the crown of Jerusalem; and to unrelated members of the French royal family who were later granted the titles and formed different dynasties, such as the Capetian House of Anjou and the Valois House of Anjou. Consequently, there is disagreement between those who consider John's son, Henry III, to be the first Plantagenet monarch, and those who do not distinguish between Angevins and Plantagenets and therefore consider the first Plantagenet to be Henry II.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: The term "Angevin Empire" was coined by Kate Norgate in 1887. There was no known contemporary collective name for all of the territories under the rule of the Angevin Kings of England. This led to circumlocutions such as "our kingdom and everything subject to our rule whatever it may be" or "the whole of the kingdom which had belonged to his father". The "Empire" portion of "Angevin Empire" has been controversial, especially as these territories were not subject to any unified laws or systems of governance, and each retained its own laws, traditions, and feudal relationships. In 1986 a convention of historians concluded that there had not been an Angevin state, and therefore no "Angevin Empire", but that the term (French for "Plantagenet area") was acceptable. Nonetheless, historians have continued to use "Angevin Empire".


title: House of Plantagenet

text: The later counts of Anjou, including the Plantagenets, descended from Geoffrey II, Count of Gâtinais, and his wife Ermengarde of Anjou. In 1060 the couple inherited the title via cognatic kinship from an Angevin family that was descended from a noble named Ingelger, whose recorded history dates from 870.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: During the 10th and 11th centuries, power struggles occurred between rulers in northern and western France including those of Anjou, Normandy, Brittany, Poitou, Blois, Maine, and the kings of France. In the early 12th century Geoffrey of Anjou married Empress Matilda, King Henry I's only surviving legitimate child and heir to the English throne. As a result of this marriage, Geoffrey's son Henry II inherited the English throne as well as Norman and Angevin titles, thus marking the beginning of the Angevin and Plantagenet dynasties.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: The marriage was the third attempt of Geoffrey's father, Fulk V, Count of Anjou, to build a political alliance with Normandy. He first espoused his daughter, Alice, to William Adelin, Henry I's heir. After William drowned in the wreck of the "White Ship" Fulk married another of his daughters, Sibylla, to William Clito, son of Henry I's older brother, Robert Curthose. Henry I had the marriage annulled to avoid strengthening William's rival claim to Normandy. Finally Fulk achieved his goal through the marriage of Geoffrey and Matilda. Fulk then passed his titles to Geoffrey and became King of Jerusalem.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: When Henry II was born in 1133, his grandfather, Henry I, was reportedly delighted, saying that the boy was "the heir to the kingdom". The birth reduced the risk that the King's realm would pass to his son-in-law's family, which was possible if the marriage of Matilda and Geoffrey ended childless. The birth of a second son, also named Geoffrey, increased the likelihood of partible inheritance following French custom, in which Henry would receive the English maternal inheritance and Geoffrey the Angevin paternal inheritance. This would separate the realms of England and Anjou.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: In order to secure an orderly succession, Geoffrey and Matilda sought more power from Henry I, but quarrelled with him after the king refused to give them power that might be used against him. When he died in December 1135, the couple were in Anjou, allowing Matilda's cousin Stephen to seize the crown of England. Stephen's contested accession initiated the widespread civil unrest later called the Anarchy.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: Count Geoffrey had little interest in England. Instead he commenced a ten-year war for the duchy of Normandy, but it became clear that to bring this conflict to a successful conclusion Stephen would need to be challenged in England. In 1139 Matilda and her half-brother, Robert, invaded England. From the age of nine, Henry was repeatedly sent to England to be the male figurehead of the campaigns, since it became apparent that he would become king if England were conquered. In 1141 Stephen was captured at the Battle of Lincoln and later exchanged for Robert, who had also been captured. Geoffrey continued the conquest of Normandy and in 1150 transferred the duchy to Henry while retaining the primary role in the duchy's government.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: Of Henry's siblings, William and Geoffrey died unmarried and childless, but the tempestuous marriage of Henry and Eleanor, who already had two daughters (Marie and Alix) through her first marriage to King Louis, produced eight children in thirteen years:


title: House of Plantagenet

text: Henry also had illegitimate children with several mistresses, possibly as many as twelve. These children included Geoffrey, William, Peter and four children who died young by Alys, the daughter of Louis VII, while she was betrothed to his son Richard. William's many competencies and importance as a royal bastard led to a long and illustrious career.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: Henry reasserted and extended previous suzerainties to secure possession of his inherited realm. In 1162 he attempted to re-establish what he saw as his authority over the English Church by appointing his friend Thomas Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury upon the death of the incumbent archbishop, Theobald. Becket's defiance as Archbishop alienated the king and his counsellors. Henry and Becket had repeated disputes over issues such as church tenures, the marriage of Henry's brother, and taxation.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: Henry reacted by getting Becket and other English bishops to recognise sixteen ancient customs in writing for the first time in the Constitutions of Clarendon, governing relations between the king, his courts and the church. When Becket tried to leave the country without permission, Henry tried to ruin him by filing legal cases relating to Becket's previous tenure as chancellor. Becket fled and remained in exile for five years. Relations later improved, and Becket returned, but they declined again when Henry's son was crowned as coregent by the Archbishop of York, which Becket perceived as a challenge to his authority.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: Becket later excommunicated those who had offended him. When he received this news, Henry said: "What miserable drones and traitors have I nurtured and promoted in my household who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born clerk." Four of Henry's knights killed Becket in Canterbury Cathedral after Becket resisted a failed arrest attempt. Henry was widely considered complicit in Becket's death throughout Christian Europe. This made Henry a pariah; in penance, he walked barefoot into Canterbury Cathedral, where he was severely whipped by monks.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: From 1155 Henry claimed that Pope Adrian IV had given him authorisation to reform the Irish church by assuming control of Ireland, but Professor Anne Duggan's research indicates that the Laudabiliter is a falsification of an existing letter and that was not in fact Adrian's intention. It originally allowed Henry's brother William some territory. Henry did not personally act on this until 1171 by which time William was already dead. He invaded Ireland to assert his authority over knights who had accrued autonomous power after they recruited soldiers in England and Wales and colonised Ireland with his permission. Henry later gave Ireland to his youngest son, John.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: In 1172 Henry gave John the castles of Chinon, Loudun and Mirebeau as a wedding gift. This angered Henry's eighteen-year-old son, Henry the Young King, who believed these were his. A rebellion by Henry II's wife and three eldest sons ensued. Louis VII of France supported the rebellion. William the Lion, king of the Scots, and others joined the revolt. After eighteen months, Henry subdued the rebels.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: In Le Mans in 1182, Henry II gathered his children to plan a partible inheritance: his eldest surviving son, Henry, would inherit England, Normandy and Anjou; Richard (his mother's favourite) would inherit the Duchy of Aquitaine; Geoffrey would inherit Brittany; and John would inherit Ireland. This resulted in further conflict. The younger Henry rebelled again, but died of dysentery. Geoffrey died in 1186 after an accident in a tournament. In 1189, Richard and Philip II of France reasserted their various claims exploiting the aging Henry's failing health. Henry was forced to accept humiliating peace terms, including naming Richard his sole heir. The old King died two days later, defeated and miserable. French and English contemporary moralists viewed this fate as retribution for the murder of Becket; even his favourite legitimate son, John, had rebelled although the constantly loyal illegitimate son Geoffrey remained with Henry until the end.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: Following Richard's coronation he quickly put the kingdom's affairs in order and departed on a Crusade for the Middle East. Opinion of Richard has fluctuated. He was respected for his military leadership and courtly manners. He rejected and humiliated the sister of the king of France. He deposed the king of Cyprus and later sold the island. On the Third Crusade, he made an enemy of Leopold V, Duke of Austria, by showing disrespect to his banners as well as refusing to share the spoils of war. He was rumoured to have arranged the assassination of Conrad of Montferrat. His ruthlessness was demonstrated by his massacre of 2,600 prisoners in Acre. He obtained victories during the Third Crusade, but failed to capture Jerusalem. According to Steven Runciman Richard was "a bad son, a bad husband and a bad king". Jonathan Riley-Smith described him as "vain ... devious and self-centred". In an alternate view John Gillingham points out that for centuries Richard was considered a model king.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: Returning from the crusade with a small band of followers, Richard was captured by Leopold and was passed to Emperor Henry VI. Henry held Richard captive for eighteen months (1192–1194) while his mother raised the ransom, valued at 100,000 marks. In Richard's absence, Philip II overran large portions of Normandy and John acquired control of Richard's English lands. After returning to England, Richard forgave John and re-established his authority in England. He left again in 1194 and battled Philip for five years, attempting to regain the lands seized during his captivity. When close to complete victory, he was injured by an arrow during a siege and died ten days later.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: Richard's failure to provide an heir caused a succession crisis and conflict between supporters of the claim of his nephew, Arthur, and John. Guillaume des Roches led the magnates of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine declaring for Arthur. Once again Philip II of France attempted to disturb the Plantagenet territories on the European mainland by supporting his vassal Arthur's claim to the English crown. John won a significant victory while preventing Arthur's forces from capturing his mother, seizing the entire rebel leadership at the Battle of Mirebeau and his sister Eleanor, Fair Maid of Brittany.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: John disregarded his allies' opinions on the fate of the prisoners, many of them their neighbours and kinsmen. Instead he kept his prisoners so vilely and in such evil distress that it seemed shameful and ugly to all those who were with him and who saw this cruelty' according to the L'Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal. As a result of John's behaviour the powerful Thouars, Lusignan, and des Roches families rebelled and John lost control of Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and northern Poitou. His son, King Henry III, maintained the claim to the Angevin territories until December 1259 when he formally surrendered them and in return was granted Gascony as duke of Aquitaine and a vassal of the king of France.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: John's reputation was further damaged by the rumour, described in the Margam annals, that while drunk he himself had murdered Arthur and if not true it is almost certain John ordered the killing. There are two contrasting schools of thought explaining the sudden collapse of John's position. Sir James Holt suggests this was the inevitable result of superior French resources. John Gillingham identifies diplomatic and military mismanagement and points out that Richard managed to hold the Angevin territory with comparable finances. Nick Barratt has calculated that Angevin resources available for use in the war were 22 per cent less than those of Phillip, putting the Angevins at a disadvantage.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: By 1214 John had re-established his authority in England and planned what Gillingham has called a grand strategy to recapture Normandy and Anjou. The plan was that John would draw the French from Paris, while another army, under his nephew Otto IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, and his half-brother William attacked from the north. He also brought his niece Eleanor of Brittany, aiming to establish her as Duchess of Brittany. The plan failed when John's allies were defeated at the Battle of Bouvines. Otto retreated and was soon overthrown, William was captured by the French and John agreed to a five-year truce.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: From then on John also gave up the claim to Brittany of Eleanor and had her confined for life. John's defeat weakened his authority in England, and his barons forced him to agree to the Magna Carta, which limited royal power. Both sides failed to abide by the terms of the Magna Carta, leading to the First Barons' War, in which rebellious barons invited Prince Louis, the husband of Blanche, Henry II's granddaughter, to invade England. Louis did so but in October 1216, before the conflict was conclusively ended, John died. The official website of the British Monarchy presents John's death as the end of the Angevin dynasty and the beginning of the Plantagenet dynasty.


title: House of Plantagenet

text: All subsequent English monarchs were descendants of the Angevin line via John, who had five legitimate children with Isabella:


title: House of Plantagenet

text: John also had illegitimate children with several mistresses. These children probably included nine sons called Richard, Oliver, Henry, Osbert Gifford, Geoffrey, John FitzJohn or Courcy, Odo or Eudes FitzRoy, Ivo, Henry, Richard the constable of Wallingford Castle and three daughters called Joan, Matilda the abbess of Barking and Isabella la Blanche. Joan was the best known of these, since she married Prince Llewelyn the Great of Wales.