MONARCHY, from the Greek parapxfa, a word compounded of isevsfr, " alone," and the element ilpx,w, " govern," and aignifying the "government of a single person." The word monarchy is properly applied to the government of a political community in which one person exercises the sovereign power. [Somme: err.; In such cases, and in welt cases alone, the government is properly styled a monarchy, and the supreme rider is properly styled a monarch. Examples of monarchy, properly so called, arc afforded by many Oriental govern ments, both in ancient and modern times, by the governments of France and Spain in the last century, and the existing governments of Russia, Austria, and France.
But since menarche have in many cases borne the honorary title of flacreolis, rex, re, roi,konig, or Rene, and since persona so styled have, in many states not monarchical, held the highest rank in the govern ment, and derived that rank by inheritance, goverinnents presided over by a person bearing one of the titles just mentioned have usually been called monarchies.
The name teenarrAy is however incorrectly applied to a government, unless the king (or person bearing the elnivalent title) possesses the entire sovereign power; as was the case with the king of Persia (whom the Greeks called " the great king." or simply "the king"), and in more recent times with king Louis XIV., called by his contemporaries the Grand New:nue.
Now a king does not necessarily possess the entire sovereign power ; in other word+, he is not necessarily a monarch. Thus the king has shared the sovereign power either with a class of nobles, as in the early Greek states (Miillees Defiling; b. iil , c. 1), or with a popular body, as in tho Rumen kingdom, in the feudal kingdoms of the middle ages, and in Hungary till the I Sth century, and modern England, Holland, Belgium and Sei•tlinia. Thu eppolletion of monarch properly implies the possession of the entire sovereign power by the person to whom it is affixed. The title of king, on the other hand, does not imply that the king possesses the entire sovereign power. In a state where the king once was a monarch, the kingly office may cease to confer the undivided sovereignty ; and it may even dwindle into complete insig nificance, and become a merely honorary dignity, as was the case with the OcurtAebs at Athens, and the rex saerificulus at Rome. (Creu ser's Abriss der Romischen Antiquitiiten; § 133.) In Sparta there was a double I ne of hereditary kings, who shared the sovereign power with some other magistrates and an assembly of citizens. The government of Sparta has usually been termed a re public, but some ancient writers have called it monarchical, on account of its kings; and Polybius applies the same epithet to the Roman republic, on account of its two consuls. (` Philological Museum,' vol.
p. 49, 57.) States which were at one time governed by kings possessing the entire sovereign power, and in which the king has subsequently been compelled to share the sovereign power with a popular body, are usually styled mixed monarchies or limited monarchies. These expres sions mean that the person invested with the kingly office, having once been a monarch, is so no longer ; and they may be compared with such expressions as sass &Imes, which occur in the Greek poets. .
Governments are divided into monarchies and republics ; and therefore all governments which are not monarchies are republics. As we have already stated, a monarchy is a government in which one per.,on possesses the entire sovereign power ; and consequently a republic is a government in which the sovereign power is shared between several persons. [Rxruumo.] These definitions of monarchy and republic however do not agree with existing usage; according to which, the popular though royal governments of England and Belgium, for ex ample, are monarchies (namely, tnixed or limited monarchies), not republics.
The popular usage of the terms in question, to which we have adverted, is mainly owing to three causes. 1. Kings not possessing the entire sovereign power have in many cases succeeded kings who did possess the entire sovereign power ; in other words, kings not monarchs have in many cases succeeded kings who were monarchs. 2. Both in royal monarchies and in royal republics, the crown or regal title usually descends by inheritance. 3. Kings who are not monarchs usually affect the state of monarchs properly so called ; they intermarry only with persons of monarchical or royal blood, and refuse to inter marry with persons of an inferior degree.
Governments such as those of England and Belgium are included by popular usage, together with republics, in the term " free or constitu tional governments," as distinguished from pure monarchies, absolute monarchies, or despotisms.
According to the existing phraseology therefore, the use of the two terms in question is as follows : Monarchies are of two sorts, namely, first, pure, absolute, or un limited monarchies, that is, monarchies properly so called ; and secondly, limited, mixed, or constitutional monarchies, or monarchies improperly so called, that is, republics presided over by .a king or kingly govern ments where the king is not sovereign.
Republics are states in which several persons share the sovereign power, and in which the person at the head of the governing body does not bear the title of king. Accordingly, Holland with a stadt holder, Venice with a doge, and England with a protector, are called republics, not monarchies. if the head of the Venetian aristocracy had been styled king instead of doge, and if his office had desended by inheritance instead of being conferred by election, Venice would have been called a monarchy, and not e republic. The only exception to this usage of which we are aware occurs in the case of Sparta, which is commonly called a republic, and note monarchy, although it had hereditary kings. The reason of this exception probably is, that there being two lines of kings at Sparta, it was thought too gross an in accuracy to call its government monarchical ; though its government would have been called monarchical, if there had been only one king, in spite of the narrow powers which that king might have possessed.