List of regicides

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This is a list of regicides.

Definitions

Execution of Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico, by Edouard Manet Edouard Manet 022.jpg
Execution of Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico, by Édouard Manet

The etymology of the term regicide is from the Latin noun rex ('king') and the Latin verb caedere ('to kill'); thus, a regicide is literally a 'king-killing'. Different cultures and authors in history have used different definitions for what constitutes the crime of regicide. Rex is usually but not always understood to refer to not just kings, but any type of monarch, which leads to semantic problems of scope. Some monarchs, such as Nicholas II and Haile Selassie, had already ceased to be de facto rulers at the time of their deaths due to forced or voluntary abdication, but especially after forced abdications (depositions), these monarchs (and their supporters) often still saw themselves as the de jure rulers; therefore, whether a current monarch or former monarch had been killed could be a point of view on their legitimacy. A well-known controversy in historiography is the 1793 Execution of Louis XVI: Legitimists might say it was a "regicide" of the legitimate "King Louis XVI" by "the rabble", but French Revolutionaries could have regarded it as the "lawful execution" of "citizen Louis Capet" after a "fair trial" that had found him guilty. [1] Other killings, such as the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, are generally disqualified as "regicides", because this crown prince had not yet taken the throne. Suicide is generally discounted as well, as are the killings of monarchs' consorts or other relatives, such as that of Empress Elisabeth of Austria in 1898, or Earl Mountbatten in 1979. As such, it is difficult to make a universally accepted list of what constitutes a regicide. The following is a list of cases of monarchs in history who were deliberately killed by someone else in some fashion, according to reliable sources.[ citation needed ]

Contents

2000 – 1000 BC

900 – 500 BC

5th century BC

4th century BC

3rd century BC

2nd century BC

1st century BC

1st century

2nd century

3rd century

4th century

5th century

6th century

7th century

8th century

9th century

10th century

11th century

12th century

13th century

14th century

15th century

16th century

17th century

18th century

19th century

20th century

21st century

References

  1. ↑ Jansen, Harry (2010). Triptiek van de tijd. Geschiedenis in drievoud. Nijmegen: Uitgeverij Vantilt. p. 179. ISBN   9789460040511. Chris Lorenz gives a helpful example from the time of the French Revolution. He presents a royalist, Jean, who attends the decapitation of Louis XVI on 21 January 1793. That night, Jean writes in his personal diary: 'King Louis has been murdered by the rabble today.' A more revolution-inclined Pierre also keeps a personal diary, and writes down on the same night: 'Citizen Capet has been put to death by the executioner today.' Both cases concern factual statements referring to the same event. Yet Jean writes about 'King Louis', 'rabble' and 'murder', whereas Pierre talks about 'citizen Capet', 'executioner' and 'put to death'. [...] Jean mourns the death of Louis, while Pierre regards it as a case of justice served. [...] [Historian Lorenz himself] described the situation as 'the decapitation of ex-king Louis XVI', [thus recognising] the factual course of events that Louis was no longer King Louis XVI.'
  2. ↑ Pernicone, Nunzio; Ottanelli, Fraser M (2018). "Fatti di Maggio and Gaetano Bresci". Assassins Against the Old Order: Italian Anarchist Violence in Fin De Siècle Europe. University of Illinois Press. pp. 123–153. doi:10.5406/j.ctv513d7b.10. ISBN   978-0-252-05056-5. OCLC   1050163307. S2CID   197856146.
  3. ↑ Mu, Eric. Reformist Emperor Guangxu was Poisoned, Study Confirms" Archived 2015-05-09 at the Wayback Machine . Danwei. 3 November 2008. Retrieved 2 November 2011.
  4. ↑ 钟里满,耿左车,李军等 (2008). "国家清史纂修工程重大学术问题研究专项课题成果:清光绪帝死因研究工作报告". 清史研究 (4): 1–12.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. ↑ "Ethiopian Court Hears How Emperor Was Killed". The Washington Post . December 15, 1994. Archived from the original on 31 December 2017. Retrieved 15 December 2017.
  6. ↑ "Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Deva". Encarta Encyclopedie Winkler Prins (in Dutch). Microsoft Corporation/Het Spectrum. 2002.
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