Monarchy

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Louis XIV, the longest reigning monarch in history. Also ancestor of Weird Al.

"I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species."

– Voltaire

"Intelligence has always under a monarchical government a much better chance against its irreconcilable and ever-present foe, stupidity."

– Arthur Schopenhauer

Technically speaking a Monarchy is a system of government in which someone holds the formal title of Head of State until their death or abdication as a Monarch. Typically the title of Monarch is passed down in a family from parent to child, though there are exceptions. Related to Monarchy is Monarchism, the belief that Monarchy is the best form of government. Unlike other political ideologies (the various flavors of Capitalism, Communism, Democracy, Fascism, etc) Monarchism typically arises to justify an existing structure rather than propose and advocate a new one.

Monarchy has been the most common form of government for much of human history since the Bronze Age at least, though it has not been the case for all of human history. Going by our studies of hunter-gatherer peoples the way things were handled in Stone Age bands rules, matters of policy and other such collective action would be dealt with by having a meeting, talking it out and coming to a consensus. In larger tribes you'd have "Big Men" who'd win influence and some ceremonial roles through strength, ability, charisma, deal-making and generosity but didn't technically have the power to actually order anyone around. But once tribes began to grow beyond a certain point and you don't know everyone, these informal set ups don't really work. Monarchy was common as it is an easy system to put up. You just need an opportunist who has the right connections and assembles a team of prominent allies to establish themselves and maintain a position of power. Once the Leader dies, the coalition of backers puts the Leader's kid on the throne so the the good times continue to role; setting a precedent which future leaders will follow even if the dynasty falls from power, dies out or is destroyed.

Monarchy has been in general been on the decline since the Age of Enlightenment and especially after The Great War. In short, from the French Revolution onward there's been an active push against Kings and Queens towards Federations, Republics, Corrupt Republics and various flavors of Dictatorship in which our Glorious Leader does not bother with a crown or leaving things to his son. There are some some exceptions of course, with hereditary dictatorships like Syria and North Korea.

Types of Monarchy

Please note that there is often crossover between these categories.

Absolute Monarchy

"L'État, c'est moi. (I Am the State.)"

– Louis XIV, King of France and Navarre

The Monarch has no formal limits on their power. There are practical limits to their power of course: orders people will not obey, the need to balance the budget, etc. Even so there is nothing which can formally challenge or over-ride a monarch's authority or action within the system. Naturally, they tend to be very centralized. Nobles may exist, but they’re nowhere near as autonomous as in a feudal monarchy, and much of the monarch’s power is instead distributed through bureaucracy (which nobles may participate in but only by appointment).

IRL Examples: The Russian Empire before First Russian Revolution (excluding Finland), Pre-Revolutionary France (except for a short 1789-1792 period), most dynasties of Imperial China, Saudi-Arabia.

Divine Monarchy

The Monarch is seen as being a God, at least a little bit. Usually the mythology includes the ruling dynasty being of divine descent, but other links to the divine have been contrived. Often Divine Monarchies double down on making their Monarchs removed and unapproachable by the unwashed masses.

IRL examples: Ancient Egypt and the Inca Empire, Ancient Hawaii pre-kingdom, and Japan pre-1945 technically counts as this as well, though the Emperor didn’t always have actual control over the nation and for long stretches of time the de facto government was a Feudal monarchy/dictatorship ruled by the Shogunate.

Elected Monarchy

There are a bunch of Aristocrats which vote one of themselves to sit on the throne. Said council also typically has a collective say in the running of a country. Tends to be unstable and mired in the red tape of inter-dynastic bickering. Tended to work a lot better at the city-state scale (Venice). For some countries such as Medieval Scotland, in practice it’s still a hereditary monarchy, but the nobles had a right to name a new king if the heir was an insane, incompetent, tyrannical buffoon.

IRL examples: The Holy Roman Empire, the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth before Austria, Russia and Prussia carved it up, the United Arab Emirates, and Malaysia.

Feudal Monarchy

Monarchy, pyramid scheme style. Generally works as a function of increasing scales to manage land. In Europe the lowest landholding class were knights, who typically held 1-2 thousand acres (~3-4 square miles) of land, which might be worked by several dozen families' worth of peasants who paid rent or labor service in exchange for being allowed to cultivate and live on said land. Above them were Barons/Lords, who might keep several to a dozen knights and hold control over a few dozen square miles of land, a Barony being roughly analogous to an American township and producing enough surplus food to sustain a small professional class (blacksmith, baker, brewer, etc). Above them were Counts/Earls, from which comes the modern word of County (a count's land); it was at this level that the Normans instituted Shire Reeves (Sheriffs) loyal to the Crown to enforce taxation and law independent of the meddling of lower aristocracy. Above this level (Dukes, etc.) you're really dealing with true nobility, the extended family of the monarch or rival families with competing claims, and their focus is more on politicking for control rather than administration.

Feudalism is heavily associated with Europe and Japan at roughly the same time; though other monarchies throughout history featured nobles ruling under a king, what sets Feudalism apart is how rigid and codified it is, with an explicit set of duties and responsibilities that each tier owed to the tiers above and below each other. Offices and titles are also almost entirely hereditary; special offices may exist by appointment of the king, but they’re the exception and not the norm. Anyone who’s ever played Crusader Kings can tell you that while Feudalism isn’t the most efficient form of governance as nobles might rebel against you more easily, it’s really difficult to rule a large mass of land directly without a very centralized and efficient bureaucracy in place.

Feudalism started to fall out of fashion in the 1500s for a number of reasons:

• The Black Death produced a major labor shortage, and the peasants suddenly could make a lot of demands that were previously unthinkable, like having actual wages. This was further exacerbated when peasants and even some serfs began moving off of the manorial estates and into the cities in search of better opportunities, further depriving the feudal lords of their subjects.
• The development of trade guilds led to the rise of the nascent merchant classes and bourgeoisie, which would directly compete with the rent-seeking landed aristocracy for both power and wealth and were better suited to functioning in urban economies.
• Military systems were restructured to favor armies composed primarily of professional fighters functioning as a standing army rather than relying on the system of vassalage that justified the power of the nobility, undermining their claims to rulership.

That being said, remnants of feudalism typically persisted even after the formal feudal relationships became meaningless and stayed around well into the 1800s in some cases (e.g. Russia).

IRL Examples: Virtually all of Europe in the Middle Ages.

Military Monarchy

The Monarch is as much a war-leader as a civilian politician. Unlike the other types listed, this is more of a matter of emphasis and degree. Even in a peace-loving hippy dippy kingdom the Monarch is still the supreme commander of their armed forces and will be involved in the regrettable business of national defense if some un-groovy barbarians attack. In a Military Monarchy the role is front and center, glorified and much of their legitimacy comes from military authority. Often military monarchs will lead from the front and a monarch or heir apparent who does not have some victory under their belt is seen as being a lame duck. The same principle typically applies to the subordinate nobility. Often a Kingdom will start out as a militarized monarchy as it is united by the sword, with the military aspect gradually fading away as time goes by.

IRL examples: Medieval Kingdoms, the Tokugawa Shogunate (ironically it was at peace for most of it's reign), the Kingdom of Prussia in the 18th and 19th century, and the First French Empire.

Parliamentary Monarchy

The first Parliament developed in England, where a large group of lesser lords managed to strongarm the King into conceding to them the power to enact or refuse taxation in exchange for their support. Gradually over time power would go from the nobility to the wealthy bourgeoisie and eventually to the masses as the system became increasingly democratic. Once such an assembly gains control of the royal revenues, it will inevitably amass more power unto itself until the Monarchy is merely a figurehead, a formality retained for its gravitas but hamstrung by centuries of concessions to constitutionalism. Also known as a constitutional monarchy since the monarch's powers are defined by a constitution.

IRL Examples: Modern European monarchies like Britain, Nordic states, Belgium, along with Japan.

Semi-Constitutional Monarchy

A Monarch and democratically elected government share power, kinda like semi-presidential republics.

IRL Examples: German Empire (parliament is democratically elected, but Chancellor is appointed by Kaiser), Russian Empire in 1905-1917 (while the elections were not the shining example of democracy, the existence of European-style parliament is enough to get it there).

Theocratic Monarchy

Related to Divine Monarchy, the Monarch is the Highest Priest in the nation's official Religious organization. Often this is also applied to the aristocracy which hold posts that are both religious and civic in nature. Though they don't claim divinity themselves, the system and their position in it is justified by established religious power and authority. This is distinct from a Monarchy in which the Monarch has ties with an established official religious hierarchy which validates the regime.

IRL examples: pre-modern India, the Meso-American Empires, the Vatican.

Terminology and stuff associated with monarchy

• Line of Succession: All those individuals who could legally inherit the throne in a hereditary monarchy. The person who's first in line is the Heir Apparent and after that there are second, third, forth, etc. Having a clear line of succession is important, otherwise, you tend to end up with a lot of fratricidal civil wars for the throne (see the Ottoman Empire and harems). There are several types of succession:
  • Primogeniture: Eldest child will be the next monarch. By far the most widespread type, with its semi-Salic subtype (sons have precedence over daughters, who can only succeed if there are no males left in the dynasty) being an absolute norm in Medieval Europe. Nowadays, however, most European monarchies excluding Spain (where ironically the King has no male heir) switched to absolute primogeniture, where the eldest child of any gender can succeed.
  • Ultimogeniture: Similar to primogeniture, but the monarchy is passed down to the youngest child instead. Far less common than primogeniture, and was used mostly in Mongolia and some English boroughs.
  • Partible inheritance: King divides his lands among all his children (once again, mostly male). A much older succession form was present in the Early Middle Ages.
  • Seniority: The throne passes to the oldest relative (typically male relatives only in its most common variation) before passing to any of the monarch's children. This typically results in a form of ultimogeniture due to many claimants from earlier generations dying before they can take the throne- or wars of succession should said earlier generations not wish to wait that long.
  • Rota: A very weird Kievan Rus' and early Russian succession type similar to seniority, where the throne passes from the monarch to his eldest brother, and then, no matter if he has children or not, to his older nephew. Was very problematic and basically caused a lot of minor conflicts and wars, which noticeably weakened the country to Mongol invasion. A related form of this was used in Eastern Christian clerical families (Middle East, Russia, Ukraine, etc) where the eldest sons typically became celibate bishops, patriarchs, and pontiffs sworn to monastic vows while the other sons were married priests who raised their sons to take over for their uncles.
• Abdication: Willingly giving up the throne of the monarchy, usually in order for a more able, (usually the child of the monarch) to lead. Subject to various legal interpretations by nations with a parliament or elected monarchy especially if the abdication wasn't official or no heir was declared.
• Consort: The spouse of a Reigning Monarch, be it a Queen Consort for a wife or typically Prince Consort for a husband (yes King Consort makes more sense, the rules were made by a bunch of sexist old guys a long time ago). Consorts don't have much in the line of formal power, but they do have influence.
  • Dowager: A Consort who outlives the Sovereign they are married to.
• Sovereign: another name for a monarch, used to specify that the monarch in question is the ruler, specifically when it might not be clear otherwise. For example, most Queens are Queen Consorts; they are queens by marriage to the King but they do not have the authority of the King themselves. However, if the line of succession results in a Queen inheriting the throne, then she is known as the Queen Sovereign, and her husband becomes the consort. Sovereign is also used to mark the monarch in countries where for whatever reason, the monarch is not called "King," such as the Grand Duke of a Grand Duchy, the Grand Prince of a Principality, etc. By contrast, if we're talking about an Empire composed of several vassal kingdoms, then the Emperor is Sovereign as they rule over the lesser Kings.
• Court: The various hangers-on to a monarch, treasurers, archivists, philosophers, artists, representatives of the church/synagogue/mosque, or just people who managed to make a good impression and get in good graces. Members of this group are known as Courtiers.
  • Privy Council: The top members of the court, including top generals and Ministers (Revenue, War, Foreign Affairs, etc) with considerable power directly delegated to them.
  • Court Etiquette: You know how online groups will develop their own inside jokes and memes, where someone posts a couple pictures of a shark and a sea turtle swimming over a coral reef and twelve months latter the pics and their derivatives are associated with frustrated hopes, the French Revolution, three prominent anime series and soccer moms through evolution that renders it damn near impenetrable to outsiders? Well imagine that rather than a group of internet weirdos you have a group of powerful ennobled wierdos who hang around the most powerful person in the country where slip ups are used as weapons against you with IRL stakes and failure to follow the customs and unwritten rules not only marks you out as a normie, but as a smelly pleb who has no business in said court.
• Pomp and Ceremony: Monarchy loves to make a big freaking show of things and become so ingrained they become ritual. While they are not above sharing a few local props with their fellows monarchs in the general region, individual Monarchies also like to do things their own way so you don't confuse the King of Prance with the Kaiser of Bermany or the Tsar of Fussia.
• Regalia: A bunch of objects which have significance as symbols of monarchy, most famously Crowns and Thrones. Along with Orbs that may or not be grenades.
• Ladies-in-Waiting: Daughters of less important nobles, unmarried spinsters, and widows waiting to be married off again, the clique of friends and mutuals that the princess keeps around to not feel totally lonely and start bathing in the blood of young women. Being able to send a daughter to attend court as a lady is generally a sign that the family in question is on the Monarch's good side, although in the early days it was more akin to hostage trading.
• Pretender: Someone who claims to be unrightfully kept from their position as head of the monarchy via convoluted rules of succession and various claims of descent and parentship, or because the title they have laid claim to has ceased to exist.
• Retinue: Made up of "Retainers" (Bodyguards, personal servants, close friends, physicians) that follow the monarch around EVERYWHERE. If you heard this word here before, it's because it's used to describe a Inquisitor's close circle of confidants and followers as well.
• Regent: the de facto ruler for when the de jure monarch is alive, but cannot rule for whatever reason; typically this is because the heir apparent is too young to rule on their own. In this case, the Regent in question is most commonly the Queen Regent, the heir’s mother and wife of the recently deceased king. The Queen Regent will rule until the heir reaches adulthood. A regent may also come about if the current monarch is too senile or mentally ill to rule, and so the heir apparent becomes the Prince Regent and becomes King once the previous king either abdicates or dies. The best example of this is the Regency era of English history (lasting from 1810-1820), when King George III went insane and his son George IV was appointed by Parliament as Prince Regent to rule in his place.
• Dynastic Politics: Covers a fair number of concepts which arise in hereditary monarchy.
  • Marriage Deals: When your kid is going to inherit the Throne and that Throne has a lot of power, who you have that kid with is Serious Business. When a Prince comes into manhood, all the Dukes and Earls will try to set him up with their daughters, as will neighboring kingdoms which seek to establish or strengthen an alliance or end a war. This often involves a lot of diplomacy and dealings, with love playing a side role in the rare occasions it played a role at all. Success in managing said politics and lines of succession (not counting economic, foreign, and environmental factors) ensures the continuation if a dynasty (typically held within a blood-related house or clan). Failures to do so can end a dynasty in the form of succession wars and interregnum periods where central authority is all but evaporated.
  • Dowry: Older than monarchy as a concept by a far margin but has appeared in monarchist societies as well, basically a dowry is a payment a family receives for having their son married to another family's daughter. This was done as a way to pay for the daughter's living and needs as well as her potential children. As classes of nobility and commoner became stratified, larger and more lavish dowries became more common, consisting of things from full sets of valuable porcelain finery, priceless jewels, and artifacts to WHOLE ENTIRE FUCKING CITIES.
  • Paramours: Monarchs were often stuck in loveless arranged marriages and have a lot of power and influence. It's no surprise that a lot of them kept lovers on the side, see Charles II and Catherine the Great. These were generally ignored so long as any bastard children born were kept out of the succession lest they mess it all up.
  • The Legitimate Dumbass:

    

    When you invite the rabble have a chat about the country's problems, you're already screwed.

    A fundamental problem with following a strict line of succession is that some times it will put someone on the throne which is utterly unfit for it. They may be a hopeless ditherer, an brash impulsive fool with zero self restraint, a gullible rube easily manipulated by his courtiers, someone suffering from delusions of grandeur, a brutal and cruel sadist, a monumental idiot, or simply be stark raving mad and there's a good chance that they fill multiple roles. Either way, you have an incompetent entrusted with the highest position in the land where they can do the most damage by accident of birth. Unsurprisingly, this typically led to rivals asserting their own claims to the throne and/or bloody insurrections. However, in the very, very worst case, they're a spineless pushover who convenes the Estates General.
  • Fratricide: One of the consequences of a line of succession is that a newborn son can mean that the heir apparent gets knocked back in the queue and a second-born child is destined to be the spare tire close to the throne but likely to never sit in it. In medieval times, one option was to reset the clocks by offing the new heir apparent. Of course, this sort of thing is Murder and Treason of the highest order on top of making a personal enemy of the current Monarch. Pulling it off and getting away with it is extremely difficult and risky, but the potential reward is a throne and a crown. That being said, getting rid of your competitors wasn’t limited to the guys in the back of the line; the Ottoman Empire was infamous for the Sultans murdering their brothers once they ascended to the throne to eliminate the threat of Usurpers. This later changed to brothers and uncles being kept locked up in the royal palace to have all the hookah and concubines they’d ever want; less bloody, but still a problem if the sultan died without an heir and the next in line is some spoiled fratbro with zero leadership experience.
  • Personal Union: one of the potential consequences of a marriage alliance is that the monarch is now ruler of two kingdoms instead of just one; however, these kingdoms ultimately remain separate instead of merging into one state; this can be for various reasons, such as the rules for succession between the two states being different, or the legal systems of the two states can’t be easily merged into one. Typically, the personal union is dissolved once the current monarch dies and new monarchs are selected for each individual state; however, as was the case with Spain, the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon merged into modern Spain through the ambitions of Isabella and Ferdinand, and created a centralized, unitary state to replace the medieval petty kingdoms they inherited. A similar thing happened in Britain to form the United Kingdom, when the Scottish and English monarchies merged together (Wales also having been merged in long ago, though that was more of a conquest than personal union), though it took about a hundred years before the governments of both countries merged into one.
• Petitioner: aka the Peasants doth complain too much, petitioners were individuals who came to the monarch on days when they held court in order to speak their piece about an issue they hoped that the monarch would be able to solve. These people ranged from peasants who needed their local lord taught a lesson or issues between villages resolved, to knights wishing to be granted titles and or favors for their service. petitioners even included members of the monarch's own family, usually in order to resolve tension or make peace with each other. Some petitions were made in person but most were in the form of written letters that were read aloud before the monarch and court.
• Royal Guard:

  

  The richer your boss is, the uglier your uniforms are...

  A force of elite troops whose job is to protect the Monarch and their family from attack, usually with fancy uniforms. During the Middle Ages, the Royal Guard may be the only professional standing military unit in the whole country; on the one hand this gives the monarch some leverage when dealing with unruly nobles, but on the other hand the Royal Guard tends to be comparatively small and won’t be enough on its own to deal with a serious military threat. A prestigious position to be sure, but one that also has it's risks if the Royal Guard decide to play kingmaker; the Praetorian Guard of the Roman Empire was infamous for literally backstabbing the Emperor, sometimes for the highest bidder. That’s why some regimes opt for foreigners who had no ties to the local aristocracy, as was the case with the Byzantine’s Varangian Guard, or the Ottoman’s Janissary Corps. The Swiss were so successful as mercenary guards that they eventually went exclusive to the Pope.
• Boons: Do something notable and win the approval of a monarch and you might be given a Boon as a reward. Basically a black check, ask something that a monarch can reasonably do and they'll make it happen. It can be a prosaic chest of gold or ennoblement and an estate with two hundred serfs, but it also might be the creation of an institution like a Royal School of Medicine, the backing of some endevour or a bit of legislation. Of course even an absolute monarch has limits in what they can do, but getting the crown on your side means you can easily do a lot.

Monarchy in Fiction

Monarchy tends to be represented a lot in speculative fiction. Largely because it's an easier thing to write about. People can more easily relate to a King or Queen or whatever who tries to grapple with issues than with a Parliament with hundreds of members each with their own constituents, party alignments, agendas, various degrees of hardness and softness on certain issues and the internal Horse Trading as they work out a version of a bill which at least half of them can give at least begrudging approval to.

Monarchy in Fantasy

Monarchy is the norm in Fantasy. So much so that people have argued that a lot of Fantasy can come off as Monarchist Propaganda. The truth is probably closer to the fact that most fantasy writers have no idea about medieval republics like Italian states, German free cities or Novgorod. Still, some fantasy series were indeed written by monarchists (like Tolkien or C. S. Lewis). There is also the fact that the old legends and stories that fantasy draws upon often has a rather blunt monarchist bent: see the whole Arthurian mythos for this at it's most overt. But also the fact that if you live in a situation where you live in a monarchy and monarchy is the default form of government monarchism tends to worm its way in.

Monarchies in fantasy tend to be extremely barebones, the sovereign seemingly usually running an entire country by themselves with nobles being basically anyone who hangs about their court sipping wine. The monarch seems to handle everything going on in the country, from settling minor peasant squabbles to directing the building of roads and bridges. If an adventuring party enters a country they'll usually try to get in direct line with the king, despite the fact they'll most likely deal with the Local Lord first before even seeing a whiff of the sovereign. Largely this is because there is only so much time you can put into a story and unless the story has court affairs front and center even an imaginative writer has to economize.

Monarchy in Science Fiction

While not as prominent as it is in fantasy, Monarchy shows up in Science Fiction quite a bit. From alien Princesses to a future in which Crowned Leaders have come back into fashion for humanity, like in Dune and Battletech. As for reasons why monarchies might have made a come-back, you might have planets colonized by monarchists or there might have been some major social disruption in which strong men establish dynasties. Or it may simply be easier to tell a story about powerful factions fighting each other when they’re represented by a single, autonomous individual, than by trying to do the same with a committee or faceless bureaucracy (just like how it’s easier to depict different planets as being a single, iconic biome rather than trying to be more realistic with a more nuanced biosphere that makes it harder to distinguish one planet from another).

Since this is a Sci-Fi setting we are talking about, the crowned leader gets to stay in power even longer than those in real life with the power of SCIENCE. Compared to the ancient monarchies in real life, the monarchies enhanced by scientific knowledge has are much superior and thus smarter. Unlike those piss rotten ancient monarchy who died at the age of 30 something because they've caught a bubonic plague, sci-fi monarchies were able to utilize medical technology like rejuvenate treatments to help them live longer, and owned many fine doctors with advance surgical device to save them from just about any disease. With the power of technoloy, monarchies has accessed to better security (to find traitors and prevent assassinations), and advanced weaponry (to put down rebellion) to prevent their ruling subjects from dethroning them. Still, the possibilities of usurpers still remain if there are nobles or high-ranking officials having more power than their rulers, not to mentioned their usual backstabbing schemes is something that has existed since ancient past, and may have been also enhanced with the arrival of technologies. And the ruler can still be easily dethroned if they are but an incompetent hedonist idiot who wants nothing but experience pleasures and often made stupid decisions that gave away their powers (because human behavior is something not even technology could fix). In summary, despite having the power of science, the crowned ruler still needs to rely on themselves if they wish to stay in power.

See Also

• Emperor
• Noble