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Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which one person or a small group of people hold governmental power. Usually, it is a single person. In a hereditary monarchy, this person is declared monarch by inheritance. In an elective monarchy, a small, defined group of people elects one person from a defined selection of a small group of people. It is common for the elected monarch to reign for life.
A monarch can be an emperor, king, prince, duke, sultan, emir, tenno, maharaja or similar. They usually derive their legitimacy from the grace of God or by mandate of heaven. Since this arrangement has generally been accepted by the population for centuries or even millennia, it can be considered the legitimacy of a monarch's rule. This distinguishes a monarchy from a dictatorship, where this is not the case.
A monarch's powers may be limited, for example, by a constitution. This is particularly the case in a constitutional monarchy or a parliamentary monarchy. The Holy Roman Emperor, for example, was also limited in his powers by the Golden Bull of 1356. The Golden Bull granted the electors who elected the emperor various rights vis-à-vis the emperor. In fact, most of the power was usually in the hands of the electors and not in the hands of the emperor. Many Chinese emperors, for example, also had only limited power in practice. Emperor Guangxu (1874-1908), for example, was hardly able to implement his Hundred Days' Reform in 1898 because the officials did not implement his reforms. High-ranking members of the imperial court and the imperial family approved this and later deposed the emperor. Earlier Chinese emperors were also effectively limited by the influence of the Crown Council in the imperial court.
If, on the other hand, a monarch can exercise his power without restriction, this is called absolutism. Today, it is assumed that a pure form of absolutism never existed. It must be assumed that every monarch was dependent on favourites. Nevertheless, Louis XIV (1638-1715) of France, Philip II (1527-1598) of Spain, Frederick II (1712-1786) of Prussia and Catherine II (1762-1796) of Russia can be regarded as representatives of absolutely ruling monarchs.
