The succession of monarchs has mostly been hereditary, often building dynasties. However, elective and self-proclaimed monarchies have also often occurred throughout history. Aristocrats, though not inherent to monarchies, often serve 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.
Æthelflæd was born around 870 at the height of the Viking invasions of England. By 878, most of England was under Danish Viking rule – East Anglia and Northumbria having been conquered, and Mercia partitioned between the English and the Vikings – but in that year Alfred won a crucial victory at the Battle of Edington. Soon afterwards the English-controlled western half of Mercia came under the rule of Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, who accepted Alfred's overlordship. Alfred adopted the title King of the Anglo-Saxons (previously he was titled King of the West Saxons like his predecessors) claiming to rule all Anglo-Saxon people not living in areas under Viking control. In the mid-880s, Alfred sealed the strategic alliance between the surviving English kingdoms by marrying Æthelflæd to Æthelred. (Full article...)
Elizabeth was the only surviving child of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. When Elizabeth was two years old, her parents' marriage was annulled, her mother was executed, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. Henry restored her to the line of succession when she was 10, via the Third Succession Act 1543. After Henry's death in 1547, Elizabeth's younger half-brother Edward VI ruled until his own death in 1553, bequeathing the crown to a Protestant cousin, Lady Jane Grey, and ignoring the claims of his two half-sisters, the CatholicMary and the younger Elizabeth, in spite of statutes to the contrary. Edward's will was set aside within weeks of his death and Mary became queen, deposing and executing Jane. During Mary's reign, Elizabeth was imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels. (Full article...)
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Coin of Eadbald of Kent
Eadbald (Old English: Eadbald) was King of Kent from 616 until his death in 640. He was the son of King Æthelberht and his wife Bertha, a daughter of the Merovingian king Charibert. Æthelberht made Kent the dominant force in England during his reign and became the first Anglo-Saxon king to convert to Christianity from Anglo-Saxon paganism. Eadbald's accession was a significant setback for the growth of the church, since he retained his people's paganism and did not convert to Christianity for at least a year, and perhaps for as many as eight years. He was ultimately converted by either Laurentius or Justus, and separated from his first wife, who had been his stepmother, at the insistence of the church. Eadbald's second wife was Emma, who may have been a Frankish princess. They had two sons, Eormenred and Eorcenberht, and a daughter, Eanswith.
Eadbald's influence was less than his father's, but Kent was powerful enough to be omitted from the list of kingdoms dominated by Edwin of Northumbria. Edwin's marriage to Eadbald's sister, Æthelburg, established a good relationship between Kent and Northumbria which appears to have continued into Oswald's reign. When Æthelburg fled to Kent on Edwin's death in about 633, she sent her children to Francia for safety, fearing the intrigues of both Eadbald and Oswald. The Kentish royal line made several strong diplomatic marriages over the succeeding years, including the marriage of Eanflæd, Eadbald's niece, to Oswiu, and of Eorcenberht to Seaxburh, daughter of King Anna of East Anglia. (Full article...)
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Æthelbald in the early 14th-century Genealogical Roll of the Kings of England
Æthelbald (died 860) was King of Wessex from 855 or 858 to 860. He was the second of five sons of King Æthelwulf. In 850, Æthelbald's elder brother Æthelstan defeated the Vikings in the first recorded sea battle in English history, but he is not recorded afterwards and probably died in the early 850s. The next year Æthelwulf and Æthelbald inflicted another defeat on the Vikings at the Battle of Aclea. In 855, Æthelwulf went on pilgrimage to Rome and appointed Æthelbald King of Wessex, while Æthelberht, the next oldest son, became King of Kent, which had been conquered by Wessex thirty years earlier.
On his way back from Rome, Æthelwulf stayed for several months with Charles the Bald, King of the Franks, whose twelve-year-old daughter Judith he married. When he returned to England in 856, Æthelbald refused to give up the crown. Most historians believe that Æthelbald continued to be king of Wessex while Æthelberht gave up Kent to his father, but some think that Wessex itself was divided, with Æthelbald ruling the west and his father the east, while Æthelberht kept Kent. When Æthelwulf died in 858, Æthelbald continued as (or became again) king of Wessex and his brother resumed (or carried on) his kingship of Kent. (Full article...)
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Miniature from Matthew Paris's Historia Anglorum, c. 1253. The portrait is generic and depicts Henry holding the Church of Reading Abbey, where he was buried.
Henry I (c. 1068 – 1 December 1135), also known as Henry Beauclerc, was King of England from 1100 to his death in 1135. He was the fourth son of William the Conqueror and was educated in Latin and the liberal arts. On William's death in 1087, Henry's elder brothers Robert Curthose and William Rufus inherited Normandy and England, respectively, but Henry was left landless. He purchased the County of Cotentin in western Normandy from Robert, but his brothers deposed him in 1091. He gradually rebuilt his power base in the Cotentin and allied himself with William Rufus against Robert.
Present in England with his brother William, when he died in a hunting accident, Henry seized the English throne, promising at his coronation to correct many of William's less popular policies. He married Matilda of Scotland and they had two surviving children, Empress Matilda and William Adelin; he also had many illegitimate children by his numerous mistresses. Robert, who invaded from Normandy in 1101, disputed Henry's control of England; this military campaign ended in a negotiated settlement that confirmed Henry as king. The peace was short-lived, and Henry invaded the Duchy of Normandy in 1105 and 1106, finally defeating Robert at the Battle of Tinchebray. Henry kept Robert imprisoned for the rest of his life. Henry's control of Normandy was challenged by Louis VI of France, Baldwin VII of Flanders and Fulk V of Anjou, who promoted the rival claims of Robert's son, William Clito, and supported a major rebellion in the Duchy between 1116 and 1119. Following Henry's victory at the Battle of Brémule, a favourable peace settlement was agreed with Louis in 1120. (Full article...)
Thekla (Greek: Θέκλα; early 820s or 830s – after 870), Latinized as Thecla, was a princess of the Amorian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire. The eldest child of Byzantine emperorTheophilos and empress Theodora, she was proclaimed augusta in the late 830s. After Theophilos's death in 842 and her mother becoming regent for Thekla's younger brother, Michael III, Thekla was associated with the regime as co-empress alongside Theodora and Michael.
Thekla was deposed by Michael III, possibly alongside her mother, in 856 and consigned to a convent in Constantinople. Some time later, she allegedly returned to imperial affairs and became the mistress of Michael's friend and co-emperor Basil I. After Basil murdered Michael in 867 and took power as the sole emperor, Thekla was neglected as his mistress and she took another lover, John Neatokometes. Once Basil found out about the affair, Thekla fell out of favor, was beaten and had her property confiscated. (Full article...)
Al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (Arabic: الوليد بن عبد الملك بن مروان, romanized: al-Walīd ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān; c. 674 – 23 February 715), commonly known as al-Walid I (Arabic: الوليد الأول), was the sixth Umayyadcaliph, ruling from October 705 until his death in 715. He was the eldest son of his predecessor, Caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705). As a prince, he led annual raids against the Byzantines from 695 to 698 and built or restored fortifications along the Syrian Desert route to Mecca. He became heir apparent in c. 705, after the death of the designated successor, Abd al-Malik's brother Abd al-Aziz ibn Marwan.
Under al-Walid, his father's efforts to centralize government, impose a more Arabic and Islamic character on the state, and expand its borders were continued. He heavily depended on al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, his father's powerful viceroy over the eastern half of the caliphate. During his reign, armies commissioned by al-Hajjaj conquered Sind and Transoxiana in the east, while the troops of Musa ibn Nusayr, the governor of Ifriqiya, conquered the Maghreb and Hispania in the west, bringing the caliphate to its largest territorial extent. War spoils from the conquests enabled al-Walid to finance impressive public works, including his greatest architectural achievement, the Great Mosque of Damascus, as well as the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina. He was the first caliph to institute programs for social welfare, aiding the poor and handicapped among the Muslim Arabs of Syria, who held him in high esteem. (Full article...)
Empress Matilda (c. 7 February 1102 – 10 September 1167), also known as Empress Maud, was one of the claimants to the English throne during the civil war known as the Anarchy. The daughter and heir of Henry I, king of England and ruler of Normandy, she went to Germany as a child when she was married to the future Holy Roman Emperor Henry V. She travelled with the emperor to Italy in 1116, was controversially crowned empress in St Peter's Basilica, and acted as the imperial regent in Italy. Matilda and Henry V had no children, and when he died in 1125, the imperial crown was claimed by his rival Lothair of Supplinburg.
Matilda's younger and only full brother, William Adelin, died in the White Ship disaster of 1120, leaving Matilda's father and realm facing a potential succession crisis. Upon her widowhood in the Holy Roman Empire, Matilda was recalled to Normandy by her father, who arranged for her to marry Geoffrey of Anjou to form an alliance to protect his southern borders in France. Henry I had no further legitimate children and nominated Matilda as his heir, making his court swear an oath of loyalty to her and her successors, but the decision was not popular in his Anglo-Norman court. Henry died in 1135, but Matilda and Geoffrey faced opposition from the barons. The throne was instead taken by Matilda's male cousin Stephen of Blois, who enjoyed the backing of the English Church. Stephen took steps to solidify his new regime but faced threats both from neighbouring powers and from opponents within his kingdom. (Full article...)
Ernest was born in London but was sent to Hanover in his adolescence for his education and military training. While serving with Hanoverian forces near Tournai against Revolutionary France, he received a disfiguring facial wound. He was created Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale in 1799. Although his mother, Queen Charlotte, disapproved of his marriage in 1815 to her twice-widowed niece, Frederica of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, it proved happy. The eldest son of George III, the Prince of Wales (later George IV), had one child, Charlotte, who was expected to become the British queen, but she died in 1817, giving Ernest some prospect of succeeding to the British and Hanoverian thrones. However, his elder brother Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, fathered the eventual British heir, Victoria, in 1819 shortly before the birth of Ernest's only child, George. (Full article...)
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Engraving of a portrait of Fakhr al-Din by Giovanni Mariti, 1787
Fakhr al-Din Ma'n (Arabic: فَخْر ٱلدِّين مَعْن, romanized: Fakhr al-Dīn Maʿn; c. 1572 – March or April 1635), commonly known as Fakhr al-Din II or Fakhreddine II (Arabic: فخر الدين الثاني, romanized: Fakhr al-Dīn al-Thānī), was the paramount Druzeemir of Mount Lebanon from the Ma'n dynasty, an Ottomangovernor of Sidon-Beirut and Safed, and the strongman over much of the Levant from the 1620s to 1633. For uniting modern Lebanon's constituent parts and communities, especially the Druze and the Maronites, under a single authority for the first time in history, he is generally regarded as the country's founder. Although he ruled in the name of the Ottomans, he acted with considerable autonomy and developed close ties with European powers in defiance of the Ottoman imperial government.
Fakhr al-Din succeeded his father as the emir of the Chouf mountains in 1591. He was appointed over the sanjaks (districts) of Sidon-Beirut in 1593 and Safed in 1602. Despite joining the rebellion of Ali Janbulad in 1606, Fakhr al-Din remained in his post and the Ottomans recognized his takeover of the Keserwan mountains from his rival Yusuf Sayfa. Seven years later, an imperial campaign was launched against him for allying with Tuscany and garrisoning the strategic fortresses of Shaqif Arnun and Subayba. He escaped and became an exile in Tuscany and Sicily. Upon his return in 1618, he resumed control of his former domains and within three years took over northern Mount Lebanon, which was predominantly Maronite. After Fakhr al-Din routed the governor of Damascus at the Battle of Anjar in 1623, he extended his control to the Beqaa Valley, the stronghold of his rivals, the Harfush dynasty. Fakhr al-Din proceeded to capture fortresses across central Syria, gained practical control of Tripoli and its eyalet, and acquired tax farms as far north as Latakia. Although he frequently attained government favor by timely forwarding of tax revenue, bribing officials, and using opportunities of mutual interest to eliminate local rivals, his outsized power and autonomy were considered a rebellion by the imperial government. A near-contemporary historian remarked that "the only thing left for him to do was to claim the Sultanate". He surrendered to the Ottomans during a siege of his Chouf hideout in 1633 and was executed in Constantinople two years later. In 1697 Fakhr al-Din's grandnephew was awarded a tax farm spanning southern Mount Lebanon. It was gradually expanded by the Ma'ns' marital relatives, the Shihabs, in 1711, and was a precursor to the Lebanese Republic. (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...)
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Gold dinar minted in Aleppo in the name of Salih ibn Mirdas and recognizing the suzerainty of Fatimid caliph az-Zahir, 1028/29 CE
Abu Ali Salih ibn Mirdas (Arabic: ابو علي صالح بن مرداس, romanized: Abū ʿAlī Ṣāliḥ ibn Mirdās), also known by his laqab (honorific epithet) Asad al-Dawla ('Lion of the State'), was the founder of the Mirdasid dynasty and emir of Aleppo from 1025 until his death in May 1029. At its peak, his emirate (principality) encompassed much of the western Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia), northern Syria and several central Syrian towns. With occasional interruption, Salih's descendants ruled Aleppo for the next five decades.
Salih launched his career in 1008, when he seized the Euphrates river fortress of al-Rahba. In 1012, he was imprisoned and tortured by the emir of Aleppo, Mansur ibn Lu'lu'. Two years later he escaped, capturing Mansur in battle and releasing him for numerous concessions, including half of Aleppo's revenues. This cemented Salih as the paramount emir of his tribe, the Banu Kilab, many of whose chieftains had died in Mansur's dungeons. With his Bedouin warriors, Salih captured a string of fortresses along the Euphrates, including Manbij and Raqqa, by 1022. He later formed an alliance with the Banu Kalb and Banu Tayy tribes and supported their struggle against the Fatimids of Egypt. During this tribal rebellion, Salih annexed the central Syrian towns of Homs, Baalbek and Sidon, before conquering Fatimid-held Aleppo in 1025, bringing "to success the plan which guided his [Banu Kilab] forebears for a century", according to historian Thierry Bianquis. (Full article...)
The detail of the Alexander Mosaic showing Alexander the Great.
Credit: Unknown
Alexander the Great (356–323 BC), the King of Macedonia, as depicted in a detail from the Alexander Mosaic. Originally from the House of the Faun in Pompeii and dated to c. 100 BC, the mosaic depicts a battle between the armies of Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia. It is believed to be a copy of an early 3rd century BC Hellenistic painting, probably by Philoxenos of Eretria. The whole mosaic measures 2.72 × 5.13 m (8 ft 11 in × 16 ft 9 in).
Mindon Min was the first to break a tradition of putting cremation ashes into a velvet bag which was then thrown into the river; his remains were not cremated, but instead were buried intact, according to his wishes, at the place where his tomb still stands. Mindon's was the last funeral of a Burmese monarch to take place within the kingdom, since his successor, Thibaw, was dethroned by the British Empire in the Third Anglo-Burmese War and sent to Ratnagiri, India, on 29 November 1885. (Full article...)
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Yoʼnal Ahk III's portrait on Stela 14
Yoʼnal Ahk III (Mayan pronunciation:[joːnalahk]), also known as Ruler 5, was an ajaw of Piedras Negras, an ancient Maya settlement in Guatemala. He ruled during the Late Classic Period, from 758 to 767 AD. Yoʼnal Ahk III ascended to the throne upon the death of Itzam Kʼan Ahk II, who may have been Yoʼnal Ahk's father. He was succeeded by his probable brother, Haʼ Kʼin Xook in around 767 AD. Yoʼnal Ahk III left behind two surviving stelae at Piedras Negras, namely Stelae 14 and 16, the former of which has been called one of the finest niche stelae, according to Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube. (Full article...)
Silver coin dated back to Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad's rule, minted in Erzurum.
Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad I (died October 1365) was the second Sultan of the Eretnids in central and eastern Anatolia, ruling from 1352 until his death. He was enthroned at a young age and struggled to maintain his authority over the state his father, Eretna, had founded. Although he was initially preferred over his older brother Jafar, Muhammad was deposed by his emirs early into his reign and was replaced by Jafar. After some time in exile, he returned, restored his throne, and killed his brother. Though, throughout his reign, he dealt with rebellions and lost land to local Turkoman lords, the Dulkadirids, and the Ottomans. After putting an end to his former vizier Khoja Ali Shah's revolt and returning to the capital, Kayseri, Muhammad was murdered by his emirs, who crowned his son Ali as the new sultan. (Full article...)
Philip was born in Greece into the Greek and Danish royal families; his family was exiled from the country when he was eighteen months old. After being educated in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, he joined the Royal Navy in 1939, when he was 18 years old. In July 1939, Philip began corresponding with the 13-year-old Princess Elizabeth, the elder daughter and heir presumptive of King George VI. During the Second World War, he served with distinction in the British Mediterranean and Pacific fleets. (Full article...)
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Ralambo was the ruler of the Kingdom of Imerina in the central Highlands region of Madagascar from 1575 to 1612. Ruling from Ambohidrabiby, Ralambo expanded the realm of his father, Andriamanelo, and was the first to assign the name of Imerina to the region. Oral history has preserved numerous legends about this king, including several dramatic military victories, contributing to his heroic and near-mythical status among the kings of ancient Imerina. The circumstances surrounding his birth, which occurred on the highly auspicious date of the first of the year, are said to be supernatural in nature and further add to the mystique of this sovereign.
Oral history attributes numerous significant and lasting political and cultural innovations to King Ralambo. He is credited with popularizing the consumption of beef in the Kingdom of Imerina and celebrating this discovery with the establishment of the fandroana New Year's festival which traditionally took place on the day of Ralambo's birth. According to legend, circumcision and polygamy were also introduced under his rule, as was the division of the noble class (andriana) into four sub-castes. Oral history furthermore traces the tradition of royal idols (sampy) in Imerina to the reign of Ralambo, who made heavy use of these supernatural objects to expand his realm and consolidate the divine nature of his sovereignty. Due to the enduring cultural legacy left by this king, Ralambo is often considered a key figure in the development of Merina cultural identity. (Full article...)
Coloman the Learned, also the Book-Lover or the Bookish (Hungarian: Könyves Kálmán; Croatian: Koloman; Slovak: Koloman Učený; c.1070 – 3February 1116) was King of Hungary from 1095 and King of Croatia from 1097 until his death. Because Coloman and his younger brother Álmos were underage when their father Géza I died, their uncle Ladislaus I ascended the throne in 1077. Ladislaus prepared Coloman—who was "half-blind and humpbacked", according to late medieval Hungarian chronicles—for a church career, and Coloman was eventually appointed bishop of Eger or Várad (Oradea, Romania) in the early 1090s. The dying King Ladislaus preferred Álmos to Coloman when nominating his heir in early 1095. Coloman fled from Hungary but returned around 19 July 1095 when his uncle died. He was crowned in early 1096; the circumstances of his accession to the throne are unknown. He granted the Hungarian Duchy—one-third of the Kingdom of Hungary—to Álmos.
In the year of Coloman's coronation, at least five large groups of crusaders arrived in Hungary on their way to the Holy Land. He annihilated the bands who were entering his kingdom unauthorized or pillaging the countryside, but the main crusader army crossed Hungary without incident. He invaded Croatia in 1097, defeating its last native king Petar Snačić. Consequently, he was crowned king of Croatia in 1102. According to the late 14th-century Pacta conventa (the authenticity of which is not universally accepted by scholars), he was only crowned after having ratified a treaty with the leaders of the Croatian nobility. For centuries thereafter, the Hungarian monarchs were also the kings of Croatia. (Full article...)
After the failed rebellion by the preceding king of Babylon, Shamash-shum-ukin, against Ashurbanipal, Kandalanu was proclaimed as the new vassal king of Babylon. His background is uncertain; it is possible that he was one of Ashurbanipal's younger brothers, a Babylonian noble who had sided with him in Shamash-shum-ukin's revolt, or a simple-minded or deformed man appointed as king to ensure he did not gain the support of the Babylonians for further actions against Assyrian rule. (Full article...)
Sigismund Báthory (Hungarian: Báthory Zsigmond; 1573 – 27 March 1613) was Prince of Transylvania several times between 1586 and 1602, and Duke of Racibórz and Opole in Silesia in 1598. His father, Christopher Báthory, ruled Transylvania as voivode (or deputy) of the absent prince, Stephen Báthory. Sigismund was still a child when the Diet of Transylvania elected him voivode at his dying father's request in 1581. Initially, regency councils administered Transylvania on his behalf, but Stephen Báthory made János Ghyczy the sole regent in 1585. Sigismund adopted the title of prince after Stephen Báthory died.
The Diet proclaimed Sigismund to be of age in 1588, but only after he agreed to expel the Jesuits. Pope Sixtus Vexcommunicated him, but the ban was lifted in 1590, and the Jesuits returned a year later. His blatant favoritism towards the Catholics made him unpopular among his Protestant subjects. He decided to join the Holy League against the Ottoman Empire. Since he could not convince the Diet to support his plan, he renounced the throne in July 1863, but the commanders of the army convinced him to revoke his abdication. At their proposal, he purged the noblemen who opposed the war against the Ottomans. He officially joined the Holy League and married Maria Christina of Habsburg, a niece of the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolph II. The marriage was never consummated. (Full article...)
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Shishman (Bulgarian: Шишман; fl. 1270s/1280s — before 1308/1313) was a Bulgarian nobleman (boyar) who ruled a semi-independent realm based out of the Danubian fortress of Vidin in the late 13th and early 14th century. Shishman, who was bestowed the title of "despot" by Bulgarian emperor George Terter I, was a Cuman, and may have been established as lord of Vidin as early as the 1270s.
In 1291, he came under Golden Horde ("Tatar") suzerainty and in 1292 he was in charge of an unsuccessful campaign against neighbouring Serbia. Even though the Serbs captured Vidin in their counter-offensive, perhaps thanks to Tatar influence Shishman was placed once more as the ruler of the region, this time as a Serbian vassal. However, he continued to rule his lands largely independently. As his son and successor as despot of Vidin Michael Shishman acceded to the Bulgarian throne in 1323, Shishman was the progenitor of the last medieval Bulgarian royal dynasty, the Shishman dynasty. (Full article...)
Osorkon ruled during one of the most chaotic and politically fragmented periods of ancient Egypt, in which the Nile Delta was dotted with small Libyan kingdoms and principalities and Meshwesh dominions; as the last heir of the Tanite rulers, he inherited the easternmost parts of these kingdoms, the most involved in all the political and military upheavals that soon would afflict the Near East. During his reign, he had to face the power of, and ultimately submit himself to, the Kushite King Piye during Piye's conquest of Egypt. Osorkon IV also had to deal with the threatening Neo-Assyrian Empire outside his eastern borders. (Full article...)
Being the last male member of the House of Árpád, Andrew was elected king after the death of King Ladislaus IV in 1290. He was the first Hungarian monarch to issue a coronation diploma confirming the privileges of the noblemen and the clergy. At least three pretenders—Albert of Austria, Mary of Hungary, and an adventurer—challenged his claim to the throne. Andrew expelled the adventurer from Hungary and forced Albert of Austria to conclude a peace within a year, but Mary of Hungary and her descendants did not renounce their claim. The Hungarian bishops and Andrew's maternal family from Venice were his principal supporters, but the leading Croatian and Slavonian lords were opposed to his rule. (Full article...)
Early in his political career, Hadrian married Vibia Sabina, grandniece of the ruling emperor, Trajan. The marriage and Hadrian's later succession as emperor were probably promoted by Trajan's wife Pompeia Plotina. Soon after his own succession, Hadrian had four leading senators unlawfully put to death, probably because they seemed to threaten the security of his reign; this earned him the senate's lifelong enmity. He earned further disapproval by abandoning Trajan's expansionist policies and territorial gains in Mesopotamia, Assyria, Armenia, and parts of Dacia. Hadrian preferred to invest in the development of stable, defensible borders and the unification of the empire's disparate peoples as subjects of a panhellenic empire, led by Rome. (Full article...)
Image 8The 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 15Dinzulu kaCetshwayo, the last king of an independent Zulu state, in 1883 (from Non-sovereign monarchy)
Image 16British 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)
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