Portal:Monarchy
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The Monarchy Portal![]() ![]() A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch, is head of state for life or until abdication. The political legitimacy and authority of the monarch may vary from restricted and largely symbolic (constitutional monarchy), to fully autocratic (absolute monarchy), and can span across executive, legislative, and judicial domains. The succession of monarchs has mostly been hereditary, often building dynasties. However, elective and self-proclaimed monarchies (in the sense of monarchical states) have also often occurred throughout history. Aristocrats, though not inherent to monarchies, often function as the pool of persons from which the monarch is chosen, and to fill the constituting institutions (e.g. diet and court), giving many monarchies oligarchic elements. Monarchs can carry various titles such as emperor, empress, king, and queen. Monarchies can form federations, personal unions and realms with vassals through personal association with the monarch, which is a common reason for monarchs carrying several titles. Monarchies were the most common form of government until the 20th century, when republics replaced many monarchies, notably at the end of World War I. , forty-three sovereign nations in the world have a monarch, including fifteen Commonwealth realms that share King Charles III as their head of state. Other than that, there is a range of sub-national monarchical entities. Most of the modern monarchies are constitutional monarchies, retaining under a constitution unique legal and ceremonial roles for monarchs exercising limited or no political power, similar to heads of state in a parliamentary republic. Some countries have preserved the title of (say) "kingdom" while dispensing with an official serving monarch (note the example of Francoist Spain from 1947 to 1975) or while relying on a long-term regency (as in the case of Hungary in the Horthy era from 1920 to 1944). (Full article...)
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The royal wedding between Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, and Daniel Westling took place on 19 June 2010 in Stockholm Cathedral. Westling—now known as Prince Daniel, Duke of Västergötland—became the first commoner to obtain a new title or rank as the spouse of a Swedish princess since the Middle Ages. He is the first Swedish man to use his wife's ducal title.
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- Image 1Géza depicted on the lower part, or Corona Graeca, of the Holy Crown of Hungary with the Greek inscription ΓΕΩΒΙΤΖΑϹ ΠΙΣΤΟϹ ΚΡΑΛΗϹ ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑϹ ("Géza, faithful king of the land of the Turks").
Géza I (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈɡeːzɒ]; Hungarian: I. Géza; c. 1040 – 25 April 1077) was King of Hungary from 1074 until his death. He was the eldest son of King Béla I. His baptismal name was Magnus. With German assistance, Géza's cousin Solomon acquired the crown when his father died in 1063, forcing Géza to leave Hungary. Géza returned with Polish reinforcements and signed a treaty with Solomon in early 1064. In the treaty, Géza and his brother Ladislaus acknowledged the rule of Solomon, who granted them their father's former duchy, which encompassed one-third of the Kingdom of Hungary.
Géza closely cooperated with Solomon, but their relationship became tense from 1071. The king invaded the duchy in February 1074 and defeated Géza in a battle. However, Géza was victorious at the decisive battle of Mogyoród on 14 March 1074. He soon acquired the throne, although Solomon maintained his rule in the regions of Moson and Pressburg (present-day Bratislava, Slovakia) for years. Géza initiated peace negotiations with his dethroned cousin in the last months of his life. Géza's sons were children when he died and he was succeeded by his brother Ladislaus. (Full article...) - Image 2The relief stone of Darius the Great in the Behistun Inscription
Darius I (Old Persian: 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 Dārayavaʰuš; Greek: Δαρεῖος Dareios; c. 550 – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. He ruled the empire at its territorial peak, when it included much of Western Asia, parts of the Balkans (Thrace–Macedonia and Paeonia) and the Caucasus, most of the Black Sea's coastal regions, Central Asia, the Indus Valley in the far east, and portions of North Africa and Northeast Africa including Egypt (Mudrâya), eastern Libya, and coastal Sudan.
Darius ascended the throne by overthrowing the Achaemenid monarch Bardiya (or Smerdis), who he claimed was in fact an imposter named Gaumata. The new king met with rebellions throughout the empire but quelled each of them; a major event in Darius's life was his expedition to subjugate Greece and punish Athens and Eretria for their participation in the Ionian Revolt. Although his campaign ultimately resulted in failure at the Battle of Marathon, he succeeded in the re-subjugation of Thrace and expanded the Achaemenid Empire through his conquests of Macedonia, the Cyclades, and the island of Naxos. (Full article...) - Image 3
P. C. Regalianus (died 260/261), also known as Regalian, was Roman usurper for a few months in 260 and/or 261, during the Crisis of the Third Century, a period of intense political instability in the Roman Empire. Regalianus was acclaimed emperor by the troops along the Danube river, a region of the empire that frequently experienced barbarian raids, probably in the hope that he might be able to secure the frontier.
Accounts by surviving literary sources concerning Regalianus are brief and few in number, and are mostly considered unreliable. The Historia Augusta relates that he was of Dacian descent, and a descendant of the Dacian king Decebalus, but this is mostly rejected in modern scholarship. Regalianus was married to Sulpicia Dryantilla, a woman from a prestigious senatorial family, which instead points to Regalianus also being of high-ranking Roman descent. Regalianus' acclamation as emperor was in the wake of a previous usurpation attempt by Ingenuus, also proclaimed by the Danube troops, that had been defeated by emperor Gallienus (r. 253–268). Unlike Ingenuus, and revolutionary for an imperial claimant, Regalianus founded his own mint at Carnuntum, his seat of power. He minted coins of himself and his wife, though they were typically of poor quality. (Full article...) - Image 4
Hormizd IV (also spelled Hormozd IV or Ohrmazd IV; Middle Persian: 𐭠𐭥𐭧𐭥𐭬𐭦𐭣) was the Sasanian King of Kings of Iran from 579 to 590. He was the son and successor of Khosrow I (r. 531–579) and his mother was a Khazar princess.
During his reign, Hormizd IV had the high aristocracy and Zoroastrian priesthood slaughtered, whilst supporting the landed gentry (the dehqan). His reign was marked by constant warfare: to the west, he fought a long and indecisive war with the Byzantine Empire, which had been ongoing since the reign of his father; and to the east, the Iranian general Bahram Chobin successfully contained and defeated the Western Turkic Khaganate during the First Perso-Turkic War. It was also during Hormizd IV's reign that the Chosroid dynasty of Iberia was abolished. After negotiating with the Iberian aristocracy and winning their support, Iberia was successfully incorporated into the Sasanian Empire. (Full article...) - Image 5Nikephoros Komnenos (Greek: Νικηφόρος Κομνηνός; c. 1062 – after 1136) was a Byzantine aristocrat and high official. The youngest brother of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, he was appointed second-in-command of the Byzantine navy, but his life is otherwise obscure. (Full article...)
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Colonel Sir Augustus Charles Frederick FitzGeorge, KCVO, CB (12 June 1847 – 30 October 1933) was a British Army officer and a relative of the British royal family. FitzGeorge was born in 1847 to Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, and his wife Sarah Fairbrother. His parents' marriage contravened the Royal Marriages Act 1772 and therefore invalid, thus FitzGeorge was ineligible to inherit the Dukedom of Cambridge.
FitzGeorge graduated from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in 1864, and served as an officer in the British Army until his retirement in 1900. He served as an aide-de-camp, accompanied Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) during his visit to India (1875–1876), and served as private secretary and equerry to his father, who was the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces. In his later years, FitzGeorge served as the chairman of the Cobalt Townsite Silver Mining Company and the Casey Cobalt Mining Company, and as president of the National Health League. (Full article...) - Image 7Coin of Hyspaosines as King, minted at Charax Spasinu in 126/5 BC
Hyspaosines (also spelled Aspasine) was the founder of Characene, a kingdom situated in southern Mesopotamia. He was originally a Seleucid satrap installed by king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (r. 175 – 164 BC), but declared independence in 141 BC after the collapse and subsequent transfer of Seleucid authority in Iran and Babylonia to the Parthians. Hyspaosines briefly occupied the Parthian city of Babylon in 127 BC, where he is recorded in records as king (šarru). In 124 BC, however, he was forced to acknowledge Parthian suzerainty. He died in the same year, and was succeeded by his juvenile son Apodakos. (Full article...) - Image 815th-century portrait of Constantine, from the Mutinensis gr. 122 manuscript
Constantine Lekapenos or Lecapenus (Greek: Κωνσταντῖνος Λακαπηνός, translit. Kōnstantínos Lakapenós) was the third son of the Byzantine emperor Romanos I Lekapenos (r. 920–944), and co-emperor from 924 to 945. With his elder brother Stephen, he deposed Romanos I in December 944, but was overthrown and exiled by the legitimate emperor Constantine VII (r. 913–959) a few weeks later. Constantine Lekapenos was exiled to the island of Samothrace, where he was killed while attempting to escape sometime between 946 and 948. (Full article...) - Image 9
Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Muʿtazz bi-ʾLlāh (Arabic: أبو عبد الله محمد بن جعفر; 847 – 16 July 869), better known by his regnal title al-Muʿtazz bi-ʾLlāh (المعتز بالله, "He who is strengthened by God") was the Abbasid caliph from 866 to 869, during a period of extreme internal instability within the Abbasid Caliphate, known as the "Anarchy at Samarra".
Originally named as the second in line of three heirs of his father al-Mutawakkil, al-Mu'tazz was forced to renounce his rights after the accession of his brother al-Muntasir, and was thrown in prison as a dangerous rival during the reign of his cousin al-Musta'in. He was released and raised to the caliphate in January 866, during the civil war between al-Musta'in and the Turkish military of Samarra. Al-Mu'tazz was determined to reassert the authority of the caliph over the Turkish army but had only limited success. Aided by the vizier Ahmad ibn Isra'il, he managed to remove and kill the leading Turkish generals, Wasif al-Turki and Bugha al-Saghir, but the decline of the Tahirids in Baghdad deprived him of their role as a counterweight to the Turks. Faced with the assertive Turkish commander Salih ibn Wasif, and unable to find money to satisfy the demands of his troops, he was deposed and died of ill-treatment a few days later, on 16 July 869. (Full article...) - Image 10Isaac Komnenos or Comnenus (Greek: Ἰσαάκιος Κομνηνός, romanized: Isaakios Komnēnos; c. 1113 – after 1146), was the third son of Byzantine Emperor John II Komnenos by Irene of Hungary. He was bypassed by his father in favour of his younger brother Manuel I Komnenos for the succession, leading to a tense relationship between the two brothers after. He participated in the campaigns of his father and brother in Asia Minor, and was a fervent adherent of Patriarch Cosmas II of Constantinople, but little else is known about his life. (Full article...)
- Image 11Portrait by Godfrey Kneller, c. 1687
Mary of Modena (Italian: Maria Beatrice Eleonora Anna Margherita Isabella d'Este; 5 October [O.S. 25 September] 1658 – 7 May [O.S. 26 April] 1718) was Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland as the second wife of James II and VII. A devout Catholic, Mary married the widower James, who was then the younger brother and heir presumptive of Charles II. She was devoted to James and their children, two of whom survived to adulthood: the Jacobite claimant to the thrones, James Francis Edward, and Louisa Maria Teresa.
Born a princess of the northwestern Italian Duchy of Modena, Mary is primarily remembered for the controversial birth of James Francis Edward, her only surviving son. It was widely rumoured that he was smuggled into the birth chamber in a warming pan in order to perpetuate her husband's Catholic Stuart dynasty. James Francis Edward's birth was a contributing factor to the "Glorious Revolution", the revolution which deposed James II and VII, and replaced him with Mary II, a Protestant, James II's eldest daughter from his first marriage to Anne Hyde (1637–1671). Mary II and her husband, William III of Orange, would reign jointly over all three kingdoms. (Full article...) - Image 12Al-Malik al-Mansur Sayf ad-Din Abu Bakr (Arabic: الملك المنصور سيف الدين أبو بكر), better known as al-Mansur Abu Bakr (المنصور أبو بكر), (ca. 1321 – November 1341) was a Bahri Mamluk Sultan of Egypt in 1341. From an early age, Abu Bakr received military training in the desert town of al-Karak. His father, Sultan an-Nasir Muhammad (r. 1310–41), groomed him as a potential successor to the throne and made him an emir in 1335. He was consistently promoted in the following years, becoming the na'ib (governor) of al-Karak in 1339. In June 1341, he became sultan, the first of several sons of an-Nasir Muhammad to accede to the throne. However, his reign was short-lived; in August, Abu Bakr was deposed and arrested by his father's senior emir, Qawsun. Abu Bakr was imprisoned in the Upper Egyptian city of Qus, along with many of his brothers, and executed on Qawsun's orders two months later. He was formally succeeded by his younger half-brother, al-Ashraf Kujuk, but Qawsun was left as the strongman of the sultanate. (Full article...)
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Prince John (John Charles Francis; 12 July 1905 – 18 January 1919) was the fifth son and youngest of the six children of King George V and Queen Mary. At the time of his birth, his father was heir apparent to John's grandfather Edward VII. In 1910, John's father succeeded to the throne upon Edward VII's death, and John became fifth in the line of succession to the British throne.
In 1909, it was discovered that John had epilepsy. In 1916, as his condition deteriorated, he was sent to live at Sandringham House and kept away from the public eye. There, he was cared for by his governess, Charlotte "Lala" Bill, and befriended local children whom his mother had gathered to be his playmates. He died at Sandringham in 1919 after a severe seizure, and was buried at nearby St Mary Magdalene Church. His illness was disclosed to the wider public only after his death. (Full article...) - Image 14
Edwin (Old English: Ēadwine; c. 586 – 12 October 632/633), also known as Eadwine or Æduinus, was the King of Deira and Bernicia – which later became known as Northumbria – from about 616 until his death. He converted to Christianity and was baptised in 627. After he fell at the Battle of Hatfield Chase, he was venerated as a saint.
Edwin was the son of Ælle, the first known king of Deira, and likely had at least two siblings. His sister Acha was married to Æthelfrith, king of neighbouring Bernicia. An otherwise unknown sibling fathered Hereric, who in turn fathered Abbess Hilda of Whitby and Hereswith, wife to Æthelric, the brother of king Anna of East Anglia. (Full article...) - Image 15Andriamasinavalona (1675–1710), also known as Andrianjakanavalondambo, was a King of Imerina in the central highlands of Madagascar. He made significant and enduring contributions to the social, political and economic life of Imerina. Chief among these was the expansion of his territories and the pacification and unification of certain principalities that had become locked in violent conflict; Andriamasinavalona established and ruled over the largest extent of the Kingdom of Imerina. He gave the name of Antananarivo to the capital city that was rapidly expanding around the royal palace on the hill of Analamanga, created a large public square at Andohalo outside the gates of the city, and named a series of other locations within the city. He also took possession of a distant hill he renamed Ambohimanga as a lodging for his son Andriantsimitoviaminiandriana; the royal city that developed there has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The innovations of Andriamasinavalona were numerous and enduring. He created two additional noble castes and defined their associated rights, responsibilities and restrictions, and was responsible for introducing the tradition of the red parasol as an indicator of royalty; he also decreed that all women had the right to choose their husbands. Trade with the Sakalava kingdom enabled this king to increase the firearms, cannons and gunpowder available for the defense of the kingdom, and expanded the availability of luxury items like silver piastres and porcelain dishes. The dikes around the Betsimitatatra rice fields of Antananarivo were expanded and raised to help ensure against famine. (Full article...)
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Sālote Tupou III was the first Queen regnant and third Monarch of the Kingdom of Tonga from 1918 to her death in 1965. She reigned for nearly 48 years, longer than any other Tongan Monarch.
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— Charlemagne, quoted in T. H. Huxley's Science and Education, 1893 |
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