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23/5/25 - created the monarchism page

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    Monarchism has historically been one of the most popular systems of governance in human history. In almost all cultures and time periods (absolute) monarchism has been the default way to rule a country up until (around, monarchies still existed) the 20th century. Monarchs often legitimized their rule with divinity, arguing that God or some other supernatural entity has granted them the right to rule.

    Absolute monarchism and how it fell out of style

    Absolute monarchism is where a single person holds complete, unrestricted power over a country and her people. Unlike a dictatorship, an absolute monarch oftentimes, as said above, legitimizes oneself through divine right.

    The Kingdom of Spain in the 16th century is not the same Kingdom of Spain of the 21st century. One of the reasons for this is the amount of authority the King of Spain holds over the country. The reasons and dates various countries dropped absolutist rule of course differs, but to give you an idea I'll tell you about Spain and how it fell out of style there

    Spain

    During the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon deposed the (Spanish) king of Spain, Ferdinand VII and installed his French brother in 1808. His rule was seen as illegitimate and Spain broke out into a full-out war against France. During this, Spanish liberals seeing an opening drafted a new constitution in 1812 which established a constitutional monarchy. (Though Ferdinand VII was reinstated and got rid of this constitution after he regained power in 1814).

    What was the point of that? Absolutism wasn't even removed?

    Rafael del Riego, a Spanish general, revolted in 1820 and Ferdinand was forced to accept the constitution. This, in turn, provoked the Holy Alliance (comprised out of France, Austria, Prussia and Russia) which removed the constitution and returned absolutism to Ferdinand again. After his death, the First Carlist War broke out, basically between Isabella II (constitutional monarch) and the Carlists (supporting the continuation of absolutism under a new king). Isabella won, and Spain became a constitutional monarchy.

    That's it?

    Isabella was overthrown in 1868 otherwise referred to as the Glorious Revolution and Spain became a full-on republic without monarchy before it was once again restored under Alfonso XII. The 1876 Constitution, supported by Alfonso, once again made Spain a constitutional monarchy and ended absolutism forever.

    Basically, absolutism was called into question by liberals and was gradually chipped away at through the years before eventually falling out of place.

    Generally...

    That explanation for Spain might not have cleared things up, but generally around the 18-19th century liberals across the world (Europe in particular, France was the earliest to remove monarchy) started questioning the need for an absolute monarch. The revolutions of America and France served to show that the people could overthrow their rulers/overlords and as a middle class started to develop who were less fervently loyal to the sitting monarch and dabbled in newspapers, worked in harsh, stinky factories (to which their ruler was complacent in) and were overall more loyal to their country than to their king.