A queen regnant (plural "queens regnant") is a qualifying reference to a female monarch possessing and exercising all of the monarchical powers of a ruler, in contrast to a "queen consort", who is the wife of a male reigning as monarch and who is without any official powers of state.
In Ancient Egypt, Pacific cultures, and even in historical European countries, as noted below, women regents have been given the title, king or its equivalent, such as pharaoh, when gender is irrelevant to the office.
Technically, a male king also may be a king regnant or a king consort—but this distinction is unusual and, for example, has been used only twice in the history of the British monarchy and its predecessor monarchies. In all current monarchies that allow for a queen to take the throne, the husband of such a queen is not titled king, generally ranking as a prince. The husband of Mary I of England and Ireland and the second husband of Mary I, Queen of Scots were both created kings consort of their wives' realms. The husband of Mary II, Queen of England and Ireland, and Queen of Scots, was named king regnant co-sovereign with her, as William III of England, II of Scots, and I of Ireland. The latter arrangement was the only occasion of co-sovereignty in Britain—at least officially. Thereafter, informally the husbands of queens regnant in Britain have been styled princes consort (the formal title Prince Consort, however, having been granted only to Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria).
Accession of a regnant occurs as a nation's order of succession permits. Methods of succession to queendoms, kingdoms, tribal chiefships, and such include nomination when the sitting monarch or a council names an heir, primogeniture when the children of a monarch or chief become regents in order of birth from eldest to youngest, and ultimogeniture when the children become regents in the reverse order of birth from youngest to eldest. The scope of succession may be matrilineal, patrilineal, or both; or, rarely, open to general election when necessary. Right of succession by gender may be open to men and women, limited to men only, or limited to women only.
The most typical succession in European monarchies from the Late Middle Ages through most of the twentieth century was male-preference primogeniture; i.e., the order of succession cycled through the sons of the monarch in order of their birth, followed then by the daughters. Historically, many realms forbade succession by women or through a female line in obedience to the Salic law, and some still do. No queen regnant ever ruled France, for example. Only one woman, Maria Theresa ruled the Holy Roman Empire, she held the title Holy Roman Empress first by marriage and was the de facto ruler for forty years. As noted in the list below of widely-known ruling queens, many ruled in European monarchies.
In the waning days of the twentieth century, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, and the Netherlands amended their acts of succession to primogeniture with no preference as to gender. In some cases, the change does not take effect until the generation following the current generations in existence—to avoid dispossessing people who already were in the succession, in a particular position.
In China, Wu Zetian became the Chinese Empress Regnant and established the Zhou Dynasty (also known as Wu Zhou æ¦å‘¨) after dismissing her sons and becoming the Empress Regnant. Although the Chrysanthemum Throne of Japan currently is barred to women, historically, this has not always been the case and eight of the ruling empresses of Japan are listed below.
Although many ancient ruling queens are omitted and unknown queens of cultures poorly recorded or undocumented upon discovery, such as all of the queens in Africa, Micronesia, Oceania, Polynesia, and such are omitted, the following is a list of some queens who are well-known in popular writings.
There has been only one empress regnant documented in Chinese history, Wu Zetian, but there have been many powerful empress consorts or empress dowagers, some of whom effectively ruled, as noted below. Powerful empress consorts or empress dowagers were de facto rulers, but not de jure empress regnants. A concubine who gave birth to a crown prince also could become empress dowager, although her status still was a little lower than an empress dowager who had been the former empress consort.
Kandake was a title for queens, queen mothers, and queens consort in Nubia, but ruling Kandakes may have included
Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia © 2001-2006 Wikipedia
contributors (Disclaimer)
This article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Monday September 24, 2007 at 05:23:47 PDT (GMT -0700)
View
this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit
this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate
to the Wikimedia Foundation