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. Some countries have preserved titles such as "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).
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A clay tessera bearing a possible depiction of Odaenathus wearing a diadem
Septimius Odaenathus (Palmyrene Aramaic: , ʾŌdaynaṯ; Arabic: أذينة, romanized: Uḏayna; c. 220 – 267) was the founder king (malik) of the Palmyrene Kingdom who ruled from Palmyra, Syria. He elevated the status of his kingdom from a regional center subordinate to Rome into a formidable state in South-West Asia. Odaenathus was born into an aristocratic Palmyrene family that had received Roman citizenship in the 190s under the Severan dynasty. He was the son of Hairan, the descendant of Nasor. The circumstances surrounding his rise are ambiguous; he became the lord (ras) of the city, a position created for him, as early as the 240s and by 258, he was styled a consularis, indicating a high status in the Roman Empire. (Full article...)
Alice began seeking contacts within her father's counties in France to bolster her claim to Champagne and Brie against her cousin, Theobald IV, but the kings of France never acknowledged her claim. After a dispute with Philip of Ibelin, she left the island in 1223. She married Bohemond, heir apparent to the Principality of Antioch and the County of Tripoli, but their marriage was annulled on grounds of consanguinity—they were too closely related according to canon law. In 1229, she laid claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem against the infant Conrad (the son of her niece Queen Isabella II of Jerusalem and the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II) who was absent from the kingdom, but the High Court of Jerusalem rejected her claim. When her son reached the age of majority in 1232, Alice abdicated her regency and departed for France to claim Champagne and Brie. She subsequently renounced her claim and returned to the Holy Land. (Full article...)
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Æthelwulf in the early fourteenth-century Genealogical Roll of the Kings of England
Æthelwulf (Old English:[ˈæðelwuɫf]; Old English for "Noble Wolf"; died 13 January 858) was King of Wessex from 839 to 858. In 825, his father, King Ecgberht, defeated King Beornwulf of Mercia, ending a long Mercian dominance over Anglo-Saxon England south of the Humber. Ecgberht sent Æthelwulf with an army to Kent, where he expelled the Mercian sub-king and was himself appointed sub-king. After 830, Ecgberht maintained good relations with Mercia, and this was continued by Æthelwulf when he became king in 839, the first son to succeed his father as West Saxon king since 641.
The Vikings were not a major threat to Wessex during Æthelwulf's reign. In 843, he was defeated in a battle against the Vikings at Carhampton in Somerset, but he achieved a major victory at the Battle of Aclea in 851. In 853, he joined a successful Mercian expedition to Wales to restore the traditional Mercian hegemony, and in the same year, his daughter Æthelswith married King Burgred of Mercia. In 855, Æthelwulf went on a pilgrimage to Rome. In preparation he gave a "decimation", donating a tenth of his personal property to his subjects; he appointed his eldest surviving son Æthelbald to act as King of Wessex in his absence, and his next son Æthelberht to rule Kent and the south-east. Æthelwulf spent a year in Rome, and on his way back he married Judith, the daughter of the West Frankish king Charles the Bald. (Full article...)
Æthelstan presenting a book to St Cuthbert, an illustration in a manuscript of Bede's Life of Saint Cuthbert, probably presented to the saint's shrine in Chester-le-Street by Æthelstan when he visited the shrine on his journey to Scotland in 934. He wore a crown of a similar design on his crowned bust coins. It is the oldest surviving portrait of an English king and the manuscript is the oldest surviving made for an English king.
When Edward died in July 924, Æthelstan was accepted by the Mercians as king. His half-brother Ælfweard may have been recognised as king in Wessex, but died within three weeks of their father's death. Æthelstan encountered resistance in Wessex for several months, and was not crowned until September 925. In 927, he conquered the last remaining Viking kingdom, York, making him the first Anglo-Saxon ruler of the whole of England. In 934, he invaded Scotland and forced Constantine II to submit to him. Æthelstan's rule was resented by the Scots and Vikings, and in 937 they invaded England. Æthelstan defeated them at the Battle of Brunanburh, a victory that gave him great prestige both in the British Isles and on the Continent. After his death in 939, the Vikings seized back control of York, and it was not finally reconquered until 954. (Full article...)
Charlotte's parents disliked each other from before their arranged marriage and soon separated. The Prince of Wales left most of Charlotte's care to governesses and servants, only allowing her limited contact with her mother, who eventually left the country. As Charlotte grew to adulthood, her father pressured her to marry William, Hereditary Prince of Orange (later King of the Netherlands). After initially accepting him, Charlotte soon broke off the intended match. This resulted in an extended contest of wills between her and her father, who finally permitted her to marry Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (later King of the Belgians). After a year-and-a-half of happy marriage, Charlotte died after giving birth to a stillborn son. (Full article...)
Richard II (6 January 1367 – c. 14 February 1400), also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. He was the son of Edward, Prince of Wales (later known as the Black Prince), and Joan, Countess of Kent. Richard's father died in 1376, leaving Richard as heir apparent to his grandfather, King Edward III; upon the latter's death, the 10-year-old Richard succeeded to the throne.
During Richard's first years as king, government was in the hands of a series of regency councils, influenced by Richard's uncles John of Gaunt and Thomas of Woodstock. England at that time faced various problems, most notably the Hundred Years' War. A major challenge of the reign was the Peasants' Revolt in 1381, and the young king played a central part in the successful suppression of this crisis. Less warlike than either his father or grandfather, he sought to bring an end to the Hundred Years' War. A firm believer in the royal prerogative, Richard restrained the power of the aristocracy and relied on a private retinue for military protection instead. In contrast to his grandfather, Richard cultivated a refined atmosphere centred on art and culture at court, in which the king was an elevated figure. (Full article...)
His reign was marked by multiple wars with the Lombards, a Germanic people who had arrived in the former Roman province of Pannonia under the leadership of their king, Audoin. Thurisind also had to face the hostility of the Byzantine Empire, which was resentful of the Gepid takeover of Sirmium and anxious to diminish Gepid power in the Pannonian Basin, a plain covering most of modern Hungary and partly including the bordering states. The Byzantines' plans to reduce the Gepids' power took effect when Audoin decisively defeated Thurisind in 551 or 552. The Byzantine Emperor Justinian forced a peace accord on both leaders so that equilibrium in the Pannonian Basin could be sustained. (Full article...)
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Head of Userkaf, recovered from his sun temple
Userkaf (known in Ancient Greek as Οὐσερχέρης, Usercherês; died c. 2491 BC) was a king of ancient Egypt and the founder of the Fifth Dynasty. He reigned for around seven years in the early 25th century BC, during the Old Kingdom period. He probably belonged to a branch of the Fourth Dynasty royal family, although his parentage is uncertain; he could have been the son of Khentkaus I. He had at least one daughter and very probably a son, Sahure, with his consort Neferhetepes. This son succeeded him as king.
His reign heralded the ascendancy of the cult of Ra, who effectively became Egypt's state god during the Fifth Dynasty. Userkaf may have been a high-priest of Ra before ascending the throne, and built a sun temple, known as the Nekhenre, between Abusir and Abu Gurab. In doing so, he instituted a tradition followed by his successors over a period of 80 years. The Nekhenre mainly functioned as a mortuary temple for the setting sun. Rites performed in the temple were primarily concerned with Ra's creator function and his role as father of the king. Taken with the reduction in the size of the royal mortuary complex, this suggests a more concrete separation between the sun god and the king than in the preceding dynasties. After Userkaf's death, his temple was the subject of four building phases, during which it acquired a large obelisk. (Full article...)
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Portrait, c. 1560
Catherine de' Medici (Italian: Caterina de' Medici, pronounced[kateˈriːnadeˈmɛːditʃi]; French: Catherine de Médicis, pronounced[katʁindəmedisis]; 13 April 1519 – 5 January 1589) was an Italian (Florentine) noblewoman born into the Medici family. She was Queen of France from 1547 to 1559 by marriage to King Henry II and the mother of French kings Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III. The years during which her sons reigned have been called "the age of Catherine de' Medici" since she had extensive, albeit at times varying, influence on the political life of France.
Catherine was born in Florence to Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, and Madeleine de La Tour d'Auvergne. In 1533, at the age of 14, Catherine married Henry, the second son of King Francis I and Queen Claude of France, who would become Dauphin of France upon the death of his elder brother Francis in 1536. Catherine's marriage was arranged by her cousin Pope Clement VII (Giulio de' Medici). During his reign, Henry excluded Catherine from state affairs, instead showering favours on his chief mistress, Diane de Poitiers, who wielded much influence over him. Henry's sudden accidental death in 1559 thrust Catherine into the political arena as mother of the frail 15-year-old FrancisII. When FrancisII died in 1560, she became regent on behalf of her 10-year-old son CharlesIX and thus gained sweeping powers. After Charles died in 1574, Catherine played a key role in the reign of her third son, HenryIII. He dispensed with her advice only in the last months of her life but outlived her by just seven months. (Full article...)
From 1643 to 1650, political power lay mostly in the hands of the prince regent Dorgon. Under his leadership, the Qing conquered most of the territory of the fallen Ming dynasty, chased Ming loyalist regimes deep into the southwestern provinces, and established the basis of Qing rule over China proper despite highly unpopular policies such as the "hair cutting command" of 1645, which forced all Qing male subjects to shave their forehead and braid their remaining hair into a queue resembling that of the Manchus. After Dorgon's death on the last day of 1650, the young Shunzhi Emperor started to rule personally. He tried, with mixed success, to fight corruption and to reduce the political influence of the Manchu nobility. In the 1650s, he faced a resurgence of Ming loyalist resistance, but by 1661 his armies had defeated the Qing's last enemies, Koxinga and the Prince of Gui, both of whom would succumb the following year. (Full article...)
Ælle's name is visible in this line from the Parker manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, written c. 890
Ælle (also Aelle or Ella) is recorded in much later medieval sources as the first king of the South Saxons, reigning in what is now called Sussex, England, from 477 to perhaps as late as 514.
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Ælle and three of his sons are said to have landed at a place called Cymensora and fought against the local Britons. The chronicle goes on to report a victory in 491, at present day Pevensey, where the battle ended with the Saxons slaughtering their opponents to the last man. (Full article...)
After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the subsequent Ottoman invasion of the Morea in 1460, Andreas's father fled to Corfu with his family. After Thomas died in 1465, the then twelve-year-old Andreas moved to Rome and, as the eldest nephew of Constantine XI, became the head of the Palaiologos family and the chief claimant to the ancient imperial throne. Andreas's later use of the imperial title, never claimed by his father, was supported by some of the Byzantine refugees who lived in Italy and he hoped to one day restore the empire of his ancestors. Andreas married a Roman woman called Caterina. Though some primary sources allude to the possibility that he had children, there is no concrete evidence that Andreas left any descendants. (Full article...)
... that Britain's King George IV specifically requested George Haden(pictured) to design and install the new heating system for Windsor Castle in 1826?
In 1130, Isaac and his sons fled to exile after becoming involved in a conspiracy against John. For several years, they wandered in Asia Minor and the Levant, trying to gain support from the local rulers, which was ultimately in vain. John's military successes forced Isaac to seek a reconciliation with his brother in 1138, although he did not give up his designs on the throne. In 1139, after his oldest son defected to the Seljuk Turks, Isaac was exiled to Heraclea Pontica. During the succession struggle that followed John's death in 1143, he supported the unsuccessful candidacy of his elder nephew, likewise named Isaac, over his younger nephew Manuel I Komnenos. (Full article...)
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Azarmidokht (Middle Persian: Āzarmīgdukht; New Persian: آزرمیدخت, Āzarmīdokht) was Sasanian queen (banbishn) of Iran from 630 to 631. She was the daughter of king (shah) Khosrow II (r. 590–628). She was the second Sasanian queen; her sister Boran ruled before and after her. Azarmidokht came to power in Iran after her cousin Shapur-i Shahrvaraz was deposed by the Parsig faction, led by Piruz Khosrow, who helped Azarmidokht ascend the throne. Her rule was marked by an attempt of a nobleman and commander Farrukh Hormizd to marry her and come to power. After the queen's refusal, he declared himself an anti-king. Azarmidokht had him killed as a result of a successful plot. She was, however, killed herself shortly afterwards by Rostam Farrokhzad in retaliation for his father's death. She was succeeded by Boran. (Full article...)
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Sir Ewan Forbes, 11th Baronet, MBChB (6 September 1912 – 12 September 1991), was a Scottish nobleman, general practitioner and farmer. Forbes was a trans man; he was officially registered as the youngest daughter of John, Lord Sempill. After an uncomfortable upbringing, he began presenting as a man in the 1930s, following a course of medical treatments in Germany. He formally re-registered his birth as male in 1952, changing his name to Ewan, and was married a month later.
In 1965, he stood to inherit the baronetcy of his elder brother William, Lord Sempill, together with a large estate. This inheritance was challenged by his cousin, who argued that the re-registration was invalid; under this interpretation, Forbes would legally be considered a woman, and thus unable to inherit the baronetcy. The legal position was unclear, and it took three years before a ruling by the Court of Session, which held him to be intersex, finally led to the Home Secretary recognising his claim to the title. The case was heard in great secrecy, with the effect that it was unable to be considered in other judgments on the legal recognition of gender variance, but has become more widely known since his death in 1991. (Full article...)
Yazdegerd I's largely-uneventful reign is seen in Sasanian history as a period of renewal. Although he was periodically known as "the Sinner" in native sources, Yazdegerd was more competent than his recent predecessors. He enjoyed cordial relations with the Eastern Roman Empire and was entrusted by Arcadius with the guardianship of the latter's son Theodosius. Yazdegerd I is known for his friendly relations with Jews and the Christians of the Church of the East, which he acknowledged in 410. Because of this, he was praised by Jews and Christians as the new Cyrus the Great (r. 550 – 530 BC, king of the Iranian Achaemenid Empire who liberated the Jews from captivity in Babylon). (Full article...)
Eutharic Cilliga (Latin: Eutharicus Cillica) was an Ostrogothic prince from Iberia who, during the early 6th century, served as Roman Consul and "son in weapons" (filius per arma) alongside the Byzantine emperorJustin I. He was the son-in-law and presumptive heir of the Ostrogoth king Theodoric the Great but died in AD 522 at the age of 42 before he could inherit Theodoric's title. Theodoric claimed that Eutharic was a descendant of the Gothic royal house of Amali and it was intended that his marriage to Theodoric's daughter Amalasuintha would unite the Gothic kingdoms, establish Theodoric's dynasty and further strengthen the Gothic hold over Italy.
During his year of consulship in 519 relations with the Eastern Roman Empire flourished and the Acacian schism between the Eastern and Western Christian churches was ended. Whilst Eutharic was nominally a statesman, politician and soldier of the Roman Empire, he was also an Arian, whose views clashed with the Catholic majority; as consul enforcing Theodoric's tolerant policy towards the Jewish people, he incurred resentment from the local Catholics, whose traditions were less than tolerant. Following disturbances in Ravenna, where Catholics burnt down a number of synagogues, Eutharic's siding with the Jewish people of Ravenna was reported with resentment in a fragmentary contemporary chronicle. (Full article...)
Marcus (Greek: Μᾶρκος; died August 476) was the son of the Eastern Roman general and usurper Basiliscus and Zenonis. He was acclaimed caesar in 475 and later promoted to augustus, ruling as junior co-emperor to his father. When Zeno reoccupied Constantinople in late August 476, Marcus, with his parents, hid in a church. Zeno swore he would not spill their blood, and instead had them exiled to Limnae in Cappadocia, where they were then starved to death. (Full article...)
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Gold solidus with of Symbatios Constantine, marked: constant(inos) desp(ot)e(s)
Symbatios (Greek: Συμβάτιος, from the ArmenianՍմբատ), variously also Sabbatios (Σαββάτιος) or Sambates (Σαμβάτης) in some sources, was the eldest son of the Byzantine emperorLeo V the Armenian (r. 813–820). Soon after the coronation of his father, he was crowned co-emperor and renamed Constantine (Κωνσταντῖνος, Kōnstantînos). He reigned nominally along with his father until the latter's assassination in 820, after which he was exiled to Prote, one of the Princes' Islands, as a monk. (Full article...)
Vardanes I was a king of the Parthian Empire from 40 to 46 AD. He was the heir apparent of his father Artabanus II (r. 12–40), but had to continually fight against his brother Gotarzes II, a rival claimant to the throne. Vardanes' short reign ended when he was assassinated while hunting at the instigation of a party of Parthian nobles . (Full article...)
Abu’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Muʿtamid ʿalā’Llāh (Arabic: أبو العباس أحمد بن جعفر; c. 842 – 14 October 892), better known by his regnal nameal-Muʿtamid ʿalā 'llāh (المعتمد على الله, 'Dependent on God'), was the caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate from 870 to 892. His reign marks the end of the "Anarchy at Samarra" and the start of the Abbasid restoration, but he was largely a ruler in name only. Power was held by his brother al-Muwaffaq, who held the loyalty of the military. Al-Mu'tamid's authority was circumscribed further after a failed attempt to flee to the domains controlled by Ahmad ibn Tulun in late 882, and he was placed under house arrest by his brother. In 891, when al-Muwaffaq died, loyalists attempted to restore power to the Caliph, but were quickly overcome by al-Muwaffaq's son al-Mu'tadid, who assumed his father's powers. When al-Mu'tamid died in 892, al-Mu'tadid succeeded him as caliph. (Full article...)
Henry brought radical changes to the Constitution of England, expanding royal power and ushering in the theory of the divine right of kings in opposition to papal supremacy. He frequently used charges of treason and heresy to quell dissent, and those accused were often executed without a formal trial using bills of attainder. He achieved many of his political aims through his chief ministers, some of whom were banished or executed when they fell out of his favour. Thomas Wolsey, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, and Thomas Cranmer all figured prominently in his administration. (Full article...)
Esarhaddon, also spelled Essarhaddon,'Assarhaddon and Ashurhaddon (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒀭𒊹𒉽𒀸, also 𒀭𒊹𒉽𒋧𒈾Aššur-aḫa-iddina, meaning "Ashur has given me a brother"; Biblical Hebrew: אֵסַר־חַדֹּן ʾĒsar-Ḥaddōn) was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 681 BC to 669 BC. The third king of the Sargonid dynasty, Esarhaddon is most famous for his conquest of Egypt in 671 BC,' which made his empire the largest the world had ever seen, and for his reconstruction of Babylon, which had been destroyed by his father.'
After Sennacherib's eldest son and heir Aššur-nādin-šumi had been captured and presumably executed in 694, the new heir had originally been the second eldest son, Arda-Mulissu, but in 684, Esarhaddon, a younger son, was appointed instead. Angered by this decision, Arda-Mulissu and another brother, Nabû-šarru-uṣur, murdered their father in 681 and planned to seize the Neo-Assyrian throne. The murder, and Arda-Mulissu's aspirations of becoming king himself, made Esarhaddon's rise to the throne difficult and he first had to defeat his brothers in a six-week long civil war. ('Full article...)
Potemkin was born into a family of middle-income noble landowners. He first attracted Catherine's favor for helping in her 1762 coup, then distinguished himself as a military commander in the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774). He became Catherine's lover, favorite and possibly her consort. After their passion cooled, he remained her lifelong friend and favored statesman. Catherine obtained for him the title of Prince of the Holy Roman Empire and gave him the title of Prince of the Russian Empire among many others: he was both a Grand Admiral and the head of all of Russia's land and irregular forces. Potemkin's achievements include the peaceful annexation of the Crimea (1783) and the successful second Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792), during which the armed forces under his command besieged Ochakov. (Full article...)
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Tui Manu'a Matelita, born Margaret Young, and also known as Makelita, Matelika or Lika (31 December 1872 – 29 October 1895) was the Tui Manu'a (paramount chief or queen) of Manu'a, a group of islands in the eastern part of the Samoan Islands (present day American Samoa), from 1891 to 1895. During her tenure, she served largely a ceremonial role at her residence on Ta'ū where she received British writer Robert Louis Stevenson. Matelita never married, because she would not marry any of the eligible native chieftains and no other men were regarded as having the proper rank to marry her. She died of illness in 1895, although later reports claimed she died by a more violent means. She was buried in the Tui Manu'a Graves Monument. (Full article...)
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Burial site of Kaʻiminaʻauao, Kalakaua Crypt, Mauna ʻAla Royal Mausoleum
An oil on canvas portrait of George IV of the United Kingdom as the Prince Regent, by Sir Thomas Lawrence. In 1814, Lord Stewart, who had been appointed ambassador in Vienna and was a previous client of Thomas Lawrence, wanted to commission a portrait by him of the Prince Regent. He arranged that Lawrence should be presented to the Prince Regent at a levee. Soon after, the Prince visited Lawrence at his studio in Russell Square. Lawrence wrote to his brother that: To crown this honour, [he] engag'd to sit to me at one today and after a successful sitting of two hours, has just left me and comes again tomorrow and the next day.
I'd like to be a queen of people's hearts, in people's hearts, but I don't see myself being Queen of this country. I don't think many people will want me to be Queen.
Image 3British India and the princely states within the Indian Empire. The princely states (in yellow) were sovereign territories of Indian princes who were practically suzerain to the Emperor of India, who was concurrently the British monarch, whose territories were called British India (in pink) and occupied a vast portion of the empire. (from Non-sovereign monarchy)
Image 5The constituent states of the German Empire (a federal monarchy). Various states were formally suzerain to the emperor, whose government retained authority over some policy areas throughout the federation, and was concurrently King of Prussia, the empire's largest state. (from Non-sovereign monarchy)
Image 6Dinzulu kaCetshwayo, the last king of an independent Zulu state, in 1883 (from Non-sovereign monarchy)
Image 7Contemporary European monarchies by type of succession
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