Monarchy: Did you mean...?

Montesquieu (1689-1757) was a French philosopher whose ideas in works like The Spirit of the Laws helped launch the Enlightenment movement in Europe. His ideas on the separation of powers, that is, between the executive, legislative...

The Thermidorian Reaction refers to the period of the French Revolution (1789-1799) between the fall of Maximilien Robespierre on 27-28 July 1794 and the establishment of the French Directory on 2 November 1795. The Thermidorians...

The Puritans were English Protestant Christians, primarily active in the 16th-18th centuries CE, who claimed the Anglican Church had not distanced itself sufficiently from Catholicism and sought to 'purify' it of Catholic practices...

The government of Carthage was based on a system of elected officials accountable to a popular assembly. Unlike its founding city, Tyre in Phoenicia, Carthage did not have a monarchy but its politics was dominated by an...

The September Massacres refers to a series of mass killings that took place in the prisons of Paris between 2 and 7 September 1792, during the French Revolution (1789-99). Sometimes known as the first Terror, the massacres...

The Battle of Valmy was a stunning French victory over a Prussian-led coalition army on 20 September 1792, during the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802). Although the battle was little more than a skirmish, it halted the coalition's...

Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville (1754-1793) was a French journalist, abolitionist, and politician who played a prominent role in the French Revolution (1789-1799). A leader of the Girondins, a moderate political faction...

The Grand Remonstrance of 1641 was a list of grievances issued by Parliament against King Charles I of England (r. 1625-1649). It recorded what Parliament saw as the monarch's abuse of power, his illegal raising of taxes outside...

The Monmouth Rebellion of June-July 1685 involved James Scott, Duke of Monmouth (1649-1685), illegitimate son of Charles II of England (r. 1660-1685), attempting to take the throne of his uncle James II of England (r. 1685-1688...

The Council of the Indies (El Real y Supremo Consejo de las Indias) operated from 1524 to 1834 and was the supreme governing body of the Spanish Empire in the Americas and Spanish East Indies. Reporting directly to the monarch...