100 Great Kings, Queens and Rulers of The World [antikvár]

Editor's Note "The benefits of a good monarch are almost invaluable, but the evils of a bad monarch are almost irreparable," wrote Walter Bagehot in his classic study of the English Constitution. He was, of course, referring to the constitutional monarchy, but what apphes to the constitutional monarch apphes even more to the despot. In this volume I have presented a personal selection of great kings and queens, the word "great" implying no moral judgement but used as a simple descriptive label for those whose significance for good or bad has been considerable. Most of them exercised absolute or near-absolute power, for the emergence of the constitutional monarch is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Bagehot, referring to the latter, says he has three rights: the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn. And he adds that a king of sense and sagacity would want no others. For the rest he represents in his person all the dignified trappings of the state and is invested by his subjects with an almost mystical aura. He is the head of society. Even George III was a "consecrated obstruction". However, by a unique combination of circumstance and national character the only major country with this type of effective yet controlled system was Britain, and it is significant that it is the ordy great nation in which royalty has survived to the present day (and even strengthened its position). Since Bagehot's time the great dynasties of HohenzoUem, Habsburg and Romanov have crumbled and vanished. I have also included rulers who seemed to partake wholly or to a large extent in the royal mystique. Thus there is a certain resemblance between, say, Pericles, on the one hand, and Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy on the other. Pericles was almost the physical and spiritual embodiment of fifth-century Athens; Roosevelt and Kennedy, though their executive powers were not as great, nevertheless embodied to a quite extraordinary degree (as can any great American President) the sense of unity and purpose of their nation. AH were performing a quasi-royal function. The position of General de Gaulle is another case in point. Few Frenchmen throughout France's long history can so self-consciously have associated themselves with la Gloire, and liis majestic and lofty utterances might well have been envied by Le Roi Soleil. Conversely where this quasi-royal function is not involved, as in