"Kings, queens & empires" Topic
8 Posts
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| Korvessa | 02 Sep 2023 12:19 p.m. PST |
So I have several questions. The questions below came to me when ot suddenly dawned on me that (during the Victorian Age at least) the UK was ruled by a king/queen, but called itself "Great Britain and her Empire." (Please note I know the difference between England, Great Britain and the UK) Who decides whether you get to call yourself a king or an emperor?
When does a kingdom get to be called an empire?
When did the UK start calling itself an empire?
If the UK is an empire, why is its monarch a king and not an emperor? |
 etotheipi  | 02 Sep 2023 1:29 p.m. PST |
Who decides whether you get to call yourself a king or an emperor? You do. If you're making up names, you get to make up any one you want. This is pretty much standard across history. When does a kingdom get to be called an empire? Whenever people feel like it. Believe it or not, there is no enforcement mechanism on what people call other people's stuff. For example the British calling themselves and "empire" or "kingdom" does not line up with the Japanese calling them "tekoku" or "okoku" (which only mostly translate directly). When did the UK start calling itself an empire? Don't know. Don't care. If the UK is an empire, why is its monarch a king and not an emperor? Why would they have to be an emperor? |
 Herkybird  | 02 Sep 2023 1:35 p.m. PST |
After the Indian Mutiny the nominal Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was deposed, and Benjamin Disraeli the British Prime Minister offered the title to Queen Victoria. For more info please go to this link |
| CAPTAIN BEEFHEART | 02 Sep 2023 3:36 p.m. PST |
etotheipi has it. Napoleon crowned himself. If you want to go with semantics, I'm sure there is 'official' criteria, but I fear it is generally hubris. |
| Col Durnford | 02 Sep 2023 5:11 p.m. PST |
Didn't Monty Python explain how you could tell if someone was a king? I believe in order to call yourself an empire, you must expand into other countries beyond your own borders. |
| etotheipi | 02 Sep 2023 7:20 p.m. PST |
Yeah, but to expand into other countries, you have to have a concept of countries. Deferring to the historians around here, I believe the Treaty of Westphalia is the start of what we would call countries with borders and national sovereignty and such … |
| Col Durnford | 02 Sep 2023 7:55 p.m. PST |
I would think Rome would count as an empire(complete with an emperor). Before the modern concept of countries, there were groups of people with a common culture that acted much like countries. |
| Dagwood | 03 Sep 2023 1:15 a.m. PST |
Victoria became Empress of India in 1877, some time after the British Government took over India from the East India Company. That's what the IMP IND is on the coins. So she was both Queen and Empress at the same time. |
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