The 20th century witnessed much turbulence in the landscape of ruling monarchies…while some royal families remain extant today, quietly lingering on with diminishing relevance to the day-to-day governance of the nation-state (Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, the Scandinavian countries, etc)✲, many others have fallen out of favour in the changing political climate and been swept away by the thrust of republicanism often in the name of modernity.
▲ Tarquin “the Proud” – Last Rex Romae
We should remind ourselves that the overturning of the monarchy by republican zeal is by no means confined to modern times…the last of the line of the seven kings of Ancient Rome, by legend founded by Romulus – Lucius Tarquinius Superbus – was deposed in ca.509 BC and succeeded by the Roman Republic.
Deposed, exiled but still with us!
The rise of European totalitarianism in the interwar era saw many of the old (minor) monarchies swallowed up by the imperial expansion of Nazi German, Fascist Italian and Soviet Communist movements and the incumbents made jobless. Yet, some such monarchs of yesteryear despite the passage of time are still around …
▲ The last king of the Bulgarians
Bulgaria: the former Tsar Simeon II of Bulgaria (House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry) is an interesting case of a remarkably late political comeback. With Bulgaria’s absorption into the Soviet-dominated Eastern Bloc, Simeon was deposed from the Bulgarian throne in 1946 and after a referendum exiled from the country. Fast-forward to the 1990s and the fall of communism – Simeon was invited back to Bulgaria and promptly re-entered politics, forming his own party. In 2001 as plain Simeon Sakskoburggottski, the one-time tsar was elected prime minister! (remaining in power until 2005)◊.
▲ Romanian stamp bearing portrait of King Mihai, 1943
Last king of the Romanians:
Prior to 2018 former King Michael of Romania (Mihai I) would have made this list (had he not died in December 2017 at age 96!). Michael was twice monarch of his country and twice abdicated – the first when his father King Carol II retook the Romanian crown in 1930, and then again when he was deposed by the communists in 1947✪.
▲ Ahmad Fouad in 2010 (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Egypt: King Fuad II (or Fouad II) is the last king of Egypt. Exiled along with his father (King Farouk) in 1952 as a result of the Free Officers’ coup. Fuad was only 17 months old when the new Nasser-controlled Egyptian regime deposed him in 1953. The infant king is the last monarch of the Alawiyya dynstasty of Egypt and Sudan. Since exile Fuad has spent the bulk of his life living in Switzerland and France.
▲ Quntet of Greek colonels who terminated the Hellenic monarchy
Greece: King Constantine II is the last monarch to reign in Greece. Constantine ascended the throne in 1964 with the title “King of the Hellenes”※. His short rule was controversial – he embroiled himself in and exascerbated the mid-Sixties political crisis over the prime ministership known as the Apostasia (‘Apostasy’), a period of political instability and unrest culminating in the 1967 “Colonels’ coup”…right-wing army officers under George Papadopoulos seized control of the country and launched a military junta regime which Constantine gave legitimacy to by recognising it. A failed counter-coup in the king’s name forced Constantine and his family to flee, first to Rome and later London. In 1973 the Colonels initiated a referendum which resulted in the abolition of the Greek monarchy. Constantine’s long exile ended around 2013 when he voluntarily returned to live in Athens.
Zanzibar: Sultan Jamshid Abdullah Al Said was the last monarch to rule Zanzibar. Al Said was sultan◘ when Zanzibar, a British protectorate since 1890, was granted independence from Britain in 1963 (with the status of constitutional monarchy). Independence was short-lived however as the following year saw the Sultanate violently overthrown by African revolutionaries and the establishment of a People’s Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba by a coalition of moderate and radical insurgents. The new Zanzibar republic was even more ephemeral, within a couple of months its leaders agreed to unification with adjacent Tanganyika under the new name Tanzania. Sultan al Said was duly exiled in 1964, initially to Oman and now lives in retirement on the English south coast.
Qu’aiti Sultanate: Ghalib II bin Awadh al-Qu’aiti al-Hadarmi was one of a multiplicity of ruling sultans at the tail-end of the British Protectorate in Aden. (Qu’aiti was in south-eastern Yemen within the protectorate). Ghalib, also known as the Sultan of Shihr and Mukalla, was forced to abdicate by communist rebels and the sultanate abolished during the Yemen Civil War. The London-born Ghalib (last sultan of the Royal House of Hadhramaut) has spent most of his life living in Britain.
▲ Last king of Nepal
Nepal: King Gyanendra’s ousting from the throne in 2008 following the Nepalese Civil War (AKA ‘the Maoist Conflict”) ended nearly 240 years of the Hindu Shah Monarchy of Gorkha. Mahārājādhirāja Gyanendra had two spells as the king of Nepal, the second coming after the dramatic, internecine massacre of the Nepalese royal family in 2001. A republic was declared and the deposed king forced into internal exile to live as a common citizen.
▲ Pahlavi Royal crest
Footnote: The not-so-great pretenders!
Aside from the surviving “has-been” ex-monarchs of the world, there are also a scattering of “never-was” pretenders still around. These include, among the better-known, the son and uncrowned, “would-be” successor of the Shah of Iran. Mohammad Shāh Rezā was unseated by the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and fled Iran with family in tow. On the Shah’s death in exile in 1980, his eldest son, US resident Rezā Pahlavi, assumed the title of “Crown Prince of Iran”. At 21 Pavlavi symbolically styled himself as Shāhanshāh (literally “King of Kings” in Persian). Another ‘pretender’ son of a more famous regal father is Alexander Karađorđević of the former Yugoslavia. Father Peter II was the last king of Yugoslavia, forced into exile by the Nazi invasion in 1941. After the breakup of Yugoslavia Karađorđević returned to independent Serbia…since the 2000s Karađorđević who refers to himself as “Alexander II” and the “heir-presumptive to the defunct throne of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia” has been actively staking his claim to “the abolished throne of the precursor Kingdom of Serbia”.
-:———-—-:—————:————:——-—-—:-
✲ these are all constitutional monarchies (the most common type in existence today), with the monarchs fulfilling basically ceremonial roles within regimes which are democracies to a greater or lesser degree. In a handful of other surviving monarchies (Liechtenstein, Monaco and a few in Asia) the royal leader retains more individual powers but it is still limited. Absolute monarchies are a rarer form in today’s world and found mostly in Muslim-dominated countries, eg, Brunei, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and also Swaziland (this last one strictly speaking is an absolute diarchy – a co-rule of two)
◊ Simeon was not the only monarch to have his royal rule ended and then (after a long interval) return as political leader…Cambodia’s Prince Norodom Sihanouk abdicated his crown in 1955 and later became prime minister and head-of-state. The ultra-malleable Sihanouk resurfaced in 1993 to re-claim the Cambodian monarchy – and later abdicated for a second time!
✪ likewise, Kigeli V Ndahindurwa, Rwanda’s last king (Mwami) died in exile in 2016. Following the eruption of Tutsi-Hutu conflict (encouraged by the then occupying Belgian military) in 1959-1960, Ndahindurwa, an ethnic Tutsi was deposed by Hutu opponents and the monarchy subsequently abolished in 1960 (in 2017 Hutsi supporters named Emmanuel Bushayij as his (symbolic) successor – king-in-exile with the title ‘Yuhi VI’) (see also FN ‘The not-so-great pretenders!’ above)
※ the Greek former king’s first cousin is the Prince of Edinburgh (Prince Philip)
◘ Arabic: ‘power’, ‘ruler’ – as distinct from Malik, ‘king’
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Reference works consulted:
‘The last king of Bulgaria’, BBC News, 09-May-2018, www.bbc.com
Harry Campbell, Whatever Happened to Tanganyika?: The Place Names that History Left Behind, (2007)
Nicholas Gage & Joan Paulson Gage, ’Why is the King of Greece Living as a Commoner?’, Town and Country, 21-Aug-2015, www.townandcountrymag.com
’Life after the Throne’ (‘A Royal Flush’, 2007), Time, www.content.time.com
‘Rwandan Revolution‘, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org
‘Once in line for the British throne, Prince Alexander is now a royal without a kingdom’, (Nahlah Ayed), CBC News, 15-May-2018, www.cbc.ca