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In July 1830, the ‘bourgeois revolution’ in France ousted Charles X and the Second Bourbon Restoration, and a new era in Anglo-French relations ensued. The terms set down at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 following Napoleon’s defeat were now considered academic. Britain, as victor against France, had been obliged to uphold the articles of the various treaties, designed, as one of them stated, for the purpose of ‘maintaining the order of things re-established in France’. The quasi-constitutional Orleans monarchy of Charles X’s successor Louis-Philippe was therefore recognised by Britain

In a diplomatic dispatch of 1832, Lord Granville, British ambassador in Paris, noted that Perier, then president of the Council, believed that ‘the welfare of France and England and the peace of Europe depended upon an intimate alliance and concert between the two governments’

By 1848, once more heading foreign affairs (June 1846 to December 1851), the ‘Jupiter Anglicanus of the Foreign Office’ allowed Anglo-French relations to sink to a level not witnessed since 1814. He had orchestrated the creation of Belgium in 1831, a supposedly neutral country but one which would naturally  be pro-British and often anti-French

Louis was the fourth son of the dauphin Louis, the son of Louis XV, and received the title comte de Provence; after the death of his two elder brothers and the accession of his remaining elder brother as Louis XVI in 1774, he became heir presumptive

With little concern for the safety of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, who were held captive in Paris, the Comte de Provence issued uncompromising counterrevolutionary manifestos, organized émigré associations, and sought the support of other monarchs in the fight against the Revolution. When the King and Queen were executed in 1793, he declared himself regent for his nephew, the dauphin Louis XVII, at whose death, in June 1795, he proclaimed himself Louis XVIII.

promoting the royalist cause, however hopeless it seemed after Napoleon’s proclamation as emperor in 1804

The overthrow of the constitutional monarchy in February 1848 still seems, in retrospect, a puzzling event. The revolution has been called a result without a cause; more properly, it might be called a result out of proportion to its cause.

Since 1840 the regime had settled into a kind of torpid stability; but it had provided the nation with peace abroad and relative prosperity at home. Louis-Philippe and his ministers had prided themselves on their moderation, their respect for the ideal of cautious balance embodied in the concept of juste-milieu. France seemed to be arriving at last at a working compromise that blended traditional ways with the reforms of the Revolutionary era

There were, nevertheless, persistent signs of discontent. The republicans had never forgiven Louis-Philippe for “confiscating” their revolution in 1830. The urban workers, moved by their misery and by the powerful social myths engendered by the Revolution of 1789,

The coronation of Charles VII was the last pivotal event of the Hundred Years’ War.

The popular devotion to monarchy that had produced Joan was undermining English positions almost everywhere in France

The Truce of Tours (1444) provided for a marriage between Henry VI and the niece of Queen Mary of France; extensions of the truce gave Charles time to strengthen his military resources.

Ferdinand died on January 23, 1516, and the crowns of the Spanish kingdoms devolved to his grandson, Charles I (1516–56), the ruler of the Netherlands and heir to the Habsburg dominions in Austria and southern Germany. This new union had not been planned in Spain, and at first it was deeply resented.

The old hostilities between the different Spanish kingdoms were as bitter as ever, with the men of Navarre, for instance, claiming that they would rather accept a Turk than an Aragonese as governor of the fortress of Pamplona.

When Charles finally arrived in Spain in September 1517, his supporters were already disillusioned, and the country was apprehensive of the rule of a foreigner.

King Louis XVIII’s second return from exile was far from glorious. Neither the victorious powers nor Louis’s French subjects viewed his restoration with much enthusiasm, yet there seemed to be no ready alternative to Bourbon rule.

Within France, political tensions were exacerbated by Napoleon’s mad gamble and by the mistakes committed during the first restoration. The problem facing the Bourbons would have been difficult enough without these tensions

The most heterogeneous of all was the independent group—an uneasy coalition of republicans, Bonapartists, and constitutional monarchists brought together by their common hostility to the Bourbons and their common determination to preserve or restore many of the Revolutionary reforms.

The eldest surviving son of Queen Isabella II and, presumably, her consort, the duque de Cádiz, Alfonso accompanied his mother into exile following her deposition by the revolution of September 1868.

Isabella abdicated her rights in his favour in June 1870, but it was not until four years later (December 29, 1874) that Alfonso was proclaimed king of Spain. He returned to his country early in January of the following year.

Attempts on the king’s life (October 1878 and December 1879) and a military pronunciamiento against the regime (1883) were not indicative of any general discontent with the restored monarchy; on the contrary, Alfonso enjoyed considerable popularity, and his early death from tuberculosis was a great disappointment to those who looked forward to a constitutional monarchy in Spain.

The restoration of royal authority was not, of course, simply a matter of adjusting theories of kingship; there was a clear practical reason for Henry’s success. The country had tottered on the brink of disintegration for three decades. By the time of Henry’s succession, it was generally recognized that only a strong personality, independent of faction, could guarantee the unity of the state, even though unity meant religious toleration for the Protestant minority. In the Edict of Nantes (April 13, 1598) Henry guaranteed the Huguenots freedom of conscience and the right to practice their religion publicly in certain prescribed areas of the country.

Although the problem of religion was not finally settled by the Edict of Nantes, Henry did succeed in effecting an extended truce during which he could apply himself to the task of restoring the royal position

The chief need of the monarchy was to improve the financial situation, parlous since the days of Henry II’s wars and aggravated by the subsequent internecine conflict.

The question was whether the Bourbon monarchy could rationalize its administration and find a way to adapt itself in the 1770s and ’80s to the new perception of the relationship between citizen and state as it had come to be defined by the changes that characterized the period.

some historians believe that the ancien régime almost succeeded, first in the 1770s and once again in the early 1780s, others argue more pessimistically that the efforts of the monarchy were insubstantial.

the monarchy was by the late 1780s doomed to destruction, both from its inability to carry on the absolutist,

Largely sympathetic to the Lithuanian desire for autonomy and determined to create a strong, central royal power, Casimir clashed with the Polish magnates, large landowners who had dominated the earlier Jagiellon reigns, by granting extensive and exclusive rights and privileges to the gentry in order to gain their political and financial support for his active foreign policy. As a result, Casimir was able not only to engage successfully in the Thirteen Years’ War (1454–66) against the Teutonic Knights, by which he acquired a large portion of their territory, but also to place his son Władysław on the thrones of Bohemia (as Vladislav II; 1471) and Hungary (as Ulászló II; 1490) and to fight the Turks (1485–89), who had disrupted his kingdom’s trade by seizing control of the mouths of the Dniester and Danube rivers.

When Sigismund I the Old succeeded his brother Alexander in 1506, the Polish–Lithuanian federation was seriously threatened by foreign invasion as well as by internal decay.

Sigismund’s nephew Louis II succeeded Władysław as king of Bohemia and Hungary in 1516, but his death at the Battle of Mohács (at which the Turks destroyed the Hungarian monarchy; 1526) brought an end to Jagiellon rule there. Sigismund, on the other hand, improved the political stability of Poland and Lithuania, incorporated Mazovia into his realm (1526), and also promoted the development of Renaissance culture in Poland.

Islamic government is a government of law. In this form of government, sovereignty belongs to God alone and law is His decree and command. The law of Islam, divine command, has absolute authority over all individuals and the Islamic government.

Islamic government is not a form of monarchy, especially not an imperial one. In that type of government, the rulers are empowered over the property and persons of those they rule and may dispose of them entirely as they wish. Islam has not the slightest connection with this form and method of government. For this reason, we find that in Islamic government, unlike monarchial and imperial regimes, there is not the slightest trace of vast palaces, opulent buildings, servants and retainers, private equerries, adjutants to the heir appare

Even though that excellent man ruled over a vast realm that included Iran, Egypt, Hijāz3 and the Yemen among its provinces, he lived more frugally than the most impoverished of our clergy students.

A three-day trip to the U.K. that began Wednesday is the young royal’s first visit to a Western country since he ousted a powerful cousin to become heir to the throne in June, a bumpy political transition that led to the arrests of critical clerics, princes and journalists.

For British Prime Minister Theresa May, who is hosting the Saudi prince at her country house, the visit is a chance to burnish commercial ties. Expanding economic links with countries outside the EU is a critical goal as Britain prepares to exit from the bloc in March next year. Saudi Arabia is already its biggest trading partner in the Middle East, with companies from the U.K. investing more in Saudi Arabia than from any other country after the U.S.

To draw foreign firms to the kingdom, the Saudi government is also trying to project a softer image of the ultraconservative country.

The Tudor monarchs, who ruled England from 1485 to 1603, have always attracted a great deal of historical attention; the most studied of them all have been Henry VIII (1509-1549) and Elizabeth I (1558-1603).

Mary has a strong claim to being the most reviled monarch in English history. Whether that is justified or not, the point remains that Elizabeth’s path to the throne was made much easier after Mary’s reign

his has not been commonly understood by later historians, however, for ever since Mary I died in 1558, and her half-sister Elizabeth I succeeded her, historians have focused on the many differences between them, stressing the Catholicism and religious persecution of Mary’s regime, and the Protestantism and (comparative) religious tolerance of Elizabeth’s

Nicholas’ power as an Autocrat was indeed so absolute that any command, even as extreme as the one to march on France, was fully within his power should he choose to exercise it

Throughout his reign, Nicholas jealously guarded the recognized prerogatives of the ruler in all aspects of government and he exercised a more personal control in state affairs than any other ruler since Peter the Great

Only a strong Emperor could bear the crushing burden of such a system of personal government and, as events after 1848 made clear, even Russia’s iron-willed Emperor himself could not bear such a burden in the face of serious crises.

Their reigns were crucial for the solid establishment of the constitutional and political conventions and practices known as the Revolution Settlement after James II and VII’s replacement by William III in 1689. The legislation that made it up (which included the 1701 Act of Settlement enshrining the claim to the British throne of Sophia of Hanover, mother of the future George I was passed from 1689, but much of the political settlement was not solidified until after 1714

Although the consequences of this new polity were less dramatic than those stemming from the personal union of England and Scotland under James VI and I in 1603, this had been by no means clear when the new dynastic personal union was created

Both George I and George II sought to use British resources to help secure gains for Hanover. George I sought to win territories  from the partition of the Swedish empire and to place a westward limit on the expansion of Russian power under Peter the Great. George II pursued Hanoverian territorial interests in neighbouring principalities, especially in Mecklenburg, East Friesland and Osnabrück

Henry IV of France was an engagingly flamboyant monarch, famous for his vitality and wit, his forcefulness and determination

Accepting the heavy responsibilities of his crown, he used or planned to use his offspring to strengthen the Bourbon monarchy

As Henry’s marriage with Marguerite de Valois (the occasion of the massacre of St Bartholomew’s Day) proved childless and was annulled, his legitimate line derived from his second wife, Marie de Médicis.

In May 1910 seven kings (of Belgium, Greece, Norway, Spain, Bulgaria, Denmark and Portugal), one emperor (of Germany) and some 30 princes and archdukes gathered in London for the funeral of Edward VII

Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, also at the funeral, was murdered at Sarajevo in 1914; the new heir Karl abdicated in 1918

George’s favourite cousin Nicholas, Tsar of Russia, abdicated in 1917 and was murdered a year later. George’s other cousin Wilhelm II, German Kaiser, was forced from the throne into exile. By 1918 George wasn’t the only king left in Europe, but he was the only emperor

In the middle of the sixteenth century Poland was a wealthy country governed by the Jagiellon Kings, whose riches had been built upon a monopoly of the Baltic Sea trade around Gdansk. By the end of the eighteenth century, Russia, Prussia and Austria had divided the country between them and Poland was wiped off the map for 123 years.

The abolition of the hereditary monarchy placed the election of the king in the hands of the nobles. If no Polish heir to the throne was available, foreigners were eligible to stand.

After suffering several devastating defeats at the hands of the Swedes, including a period of five years, 1655-60, known as ‘the Deluge’, Poland was severely weakened and could offer little resistance to the combined power of Russia, Prussia and Austria

The Declaration of Pillnitz was a statement issued by the rulers of Austria and Prussia in 1792 to try and both support the French monarchy and forestall a European war as a result of the French Revolution. It actually had the opposite effect, and goes down in history as a terrible misjudgement.

most of Europe, who were monarchies less than pleased about citizens organising.

Concerned about both the welfare of his sister Marie Antoinette and the status of brother in law King Louis XVI of France, Emperor Leopold of Austria met with King Frederick William of Prussia at Pillnitz in Saxony. The plan was to discuss what to do about the way the French Revolution was undermining royalty and threatening family.