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See also: sovereignty or See also: rule of a single See also: person, Hence the See also: term is applied to states in which the supreme authority is vested in a single person, the monarch, who in his own right is the permanent See also: head of the See also: state
.
The character of true See also: monarchy is well defined in the well-known lines of Cowper (Verses supposed to be written by See also: Alexander
See also: Selkirk):
" I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute."
The word " monarchy " has, however, outlived this See also: original meaning, and is now used, when used at all, somewhat loosely of states ruled over by hereditary sovereigns, as distinct from republics with elected presidents; or for the " monarchical principle," as opposed to the republican, involved in this distinction
.
The old idea of monarchy, viz. that of the See also: prince as representing within the limits of his dominions the monarchy of See also: God over all things, culminated in the 17th century in the See also: doctrine of the divine right of See also: kings, and was defined in the famous dictum of See also: Louis XIV.: L'etat c'est moil The conception of monarchy was derived through
See also: Christianity from the theocracies of the See also: East; it was the underlying principle of the See also: medieval See also: empire and also of the medieval papacy, the rule of the popes during the See also: period of its greatest development being sometimes called " the papal monarchy." The monarchical principle was shaken to its See also: foundations by the See also: English revolution of 1688; it was shattered by the wrench revolution of 1789; and though it survives as a See also: political force, more or less strongly, in most See also: European countries, " monarchists," in the strict sense of the word, are everywhere a small and dwindling minority
.
To express the change phrases were invented which have come into general use, though involving a certain contradiction in terms, viz
.
" limited " or
" constitutional monarchy," as opposed to absolute " or " autocratic monarchy."
Finally, a distinction is See also: drawn between " elective " and " hereditary " monarchies
.
Of the former class the most conspicuous was the See also: Holy See also: Roman Empire; but in See also: Europe all monarchies were, within certain limits, originally elective; and, after the introduction of Christianity, the essential condition of the See also: assumption of See also: sovereign power was not so much kinship with the reigning See also: family as the " sacring " by the divine authority of the See also: Church
.
The purely hereditary principle was of comparatively
See also: late growth, the outcome of obvious convenience, exalted under the influence of various forces into a religious or quasi-religious dogma
.
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