How the world's most famous regents influenced the course of history

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Sometimes there is a special category among the rulers of states - regents. Usually they came to power as if by accident and for a short time. But behind such "accident" there was often a subtle calculation, a stubborn desire for power, a readiness to seize and retain it. In addition, it was through the institution of the regency that the most persistent and talented women politicians of the past centuries realized their ambitions. Some of the regents who have entered the world chronicles on a par with the official heads of state will be discussed.

1. House of Fujiwara, Japan

The Fujiwara family (which in Japanese means "wisteria field") is a powerful family that seized power over Japan in their own hands in the 7th century and since then ruled on a par with the emperors until the 12th century. The founder of the house, Nakatomi no Kamatari, was the organizer of the coup in 645, after which the former dictators were overthrown and the foundations of the rule of law were laid. As a result, the procedure for paying duties to the treasury was changed, the land became state property and was provided for cultivation to the peasants, and a special position was introduced for Fujiwara - an adviser to the emperor. The positions of regents under juvenile and even under adult emperors began to be inherited in the Fujiwara family, and in addition, the clan exercised influence on state policy by marrying the women of its family and the crown princes.

2. Prophetic Oleg

Oleg, whom the "Tale of Bygone Years" calls a relative of Rurik, after his death ruled Novgorod under the young Prince Igor. The period of his reign lasted from 879 to 912. Oleg occupied Smolensk and Lyubech, one of the most ancient cities of Rus, captured Kiev and declared it “the mother of Russian cities”. It is this ruler who is often called the founder of the Old Russian state. He freed the Slavic tribes from the tribute to the Khazars and, in turn, imposed it on Byzantium after his campaign against Constantinople.

The famous story of Oleg's death from the bite of a snake crawling out from under the skull of his beloved deceased horse is most likely fictional, like some other chronicle circumstances of the life and reign of this great regent. But without the Prophetic Oleg it is now impossible to imagine the history of Russia.

3. Princess Olga

As, however, and Princess Olga, who ruled from 945 to 960 for the son of Svyatoslav, who was left without a father in three years - Prince Igor. If Oleg remained in the people's memory the Prophetic, then Olga received the nickname Wise. There is no exact information about her biography, different sources and different researchers offer numerous versions about the date of her birth, about family ties (according to one of them, Olga was the daughter of Prophetic Oleg and was given to him for her pupil Prince Igor).

Olga began her reign with revenge on the Drevlyans who killed her husband. In addition to reforms in the field of taxes and dividing the lands of the principality into separate administrative units, she laid the foundations for stone construction in Kievan Rus, and also adopted Christianity. Olga continued to rule even after Svyatoslav came of age, since he spent most of his time on military campaigns.

4. Elena Glinskaya

After the death of Prince Vasily III in 1533, his widow Elena Glinskaya began to rule the state, since Ivan IV, her son, was only three years old at the time of his accession to the throne. She energetically got down to business and in a short time settled relations with hostile Poland and Sweden, strengthened the border cities, introduced a single currency in the country - silver money. Under Elena, the Kitay-Gorod wall was erected.

Nevertheless, the political activities of Ivan the Terrible's mother did not find support either from the boyars, or even from Elena's relatives, one of whom, her uncle Mikhail Glinsky, was even imprisoned, where he died. The fact of her close relationship with Prince Ivan Ovchina of Telepnevy-Obolensky, her favorite, did not add to the popularity of the ruler. Elena Glinskaya reigned for only five years, in 1538 she died, presumably from poisoning.

5. Boris Godunov

One of the most controversial figures in the history of Russia is Boris Godunov, who became the head of the regency council under Tsarevich Fyodor I. The heir to Ivan the Terrible was distinguished by weak mental and physical health, and therefore needed guidance. Boris's sister, Irina Godunova, was given to him as his wife. Possessing, according to the testimony of his contemporaries, “a point-blank looking gaze and a strong physique,” Godunov established a patriarchate in Russia, built a fortress in Voronezh, cities - Samara, Saratov, Belgorod. During the reign of Boris, the Smolensk fortress wall was erected. He also established the serfdom of the peasants, and also turned out to be the target of accusations in the death of Tsarevich Dmitry in Uglich.

In 1598 Boris Godunov received the title of tsar, and in 1605 he suddenly died "under strange circumstances", leaving the throne to his son Fedor, albeit not for long.

6. Kesem

Surprisingly, in Muslim countries, women sometimes became regents. The period from 1550 to 1656 in the Ottoman Empire is called the "female sultanate" - due to the unusually strong influence of the fair sex on politics in the state. Most often, this influence was based on the influence on the Sultan by his beloved wife (as in the reign of Suleiman I and Roksolana), but in a number of cases the rights and duties of the regent under the minor ruler were officially transferred to women.

The regent was, among other things, the famous Kesem, who gave birth to many children to Sultan Ahmed I and after his death ruled the state for eleven-year-old Murad IV, and later was regent under her grandson, Mehmed IV. Kesem is recognized as perhaps the most influential woman of the Ottoman Empire, she is not only determined the policy of the state, but also changed the order of succession to the throne.

7. Catherine de Medici

Among the most powerful rulers of Europe, a special place is occupied by Catherine de Medici, wife of the French king Henry II and mother of three French kings, under two of whom she was regent. Born in Florence in 1519, Catherine was married at the age of 14 to the future king Henry II. At the lavish royal wedding, among other things, ice cream, first made in France according to Italian recipes, was served.

For many years, Catherine was in the shadow of her husband and his constant favorite, Diana de Poitiers. However, after the tragic death of the king in a knightly tournament, power in the state passed to the fifteen-year-old son of the Medici, Francis, and in fact - into her own hands. The short reign of Francis, and then his brother Charles IX, made Catherine a serious figure in the politics of Europe; she belongs to the dubious fame of the initiator of St. Bartholomew's Night, when thousands of Huguenots were destroyed. Her influence on the sons-kings was enormous, but the third of them, Henry III, turned out to be the last king of the Valois dynasty and survived by only six months. in the Louvre exhibition.

8. Philip II of Orleans

Duke Philip II of Orleans, appointed regent under the young Dauphin Louis by the old King Louis XIV, became not so much a great ruler as a symbol of the era, which in the future was called so - the era of regency. It was during his reign that a new style in art emerged, transitioning from baroque to rococo, which was filled, according to Pushkin, with "frivolity, madness and luxury of the French of that time", and the French court of those times was called "nativity scene". The duke himself, a hedonist and not the most zealous politician, nevertheless almost became related to Peter I, making plans to marry his daughter Elizabeth, but the preparation of the marriage was upset.

9. George IV

And the era of regency in Great Britain, which lasted from 1811 to 1820, marked the flourishing of English literature, the appearance of such names as George Byron, Jane Austen, Walter Scott, John Keats. The regent was the future King George IV, who assumed power due to the mental illness of his father, George III. The Regent took the authority of Great Britain to a new level, thanks to the victory over Napoleon and the continuation of the expansion of the geography of the country's influence. During his reign, the industrial revolution was completed, many types of production were improved, the first railway was built. The end of the regency of George IV coincided with his proclamation as king after the death of his father.

The list of rulers who left their mark on history as regents is quite long - it can include both Princess Sophia and Anna Yaroslavna, mother of the French king, and Anna of Austria, and other numerous women and men, who, not content with a secondary role in the shadow of the ruling dynasty, themselves took on the role of the first violin in the politics of states.