Regicide is the purposeful killing of amonarch and is often associated a violent change in the regime, as in a revolution.[1] A regicide can also be the person responsible for the killing.[2] The word comes from the Latin roots ofregis andcida (cidium), meaning "of monarch" and "killer" respectively.[2]In theBritish tradition, it refers to thejudicial execution of a king after atrial, reflecting the historical precedent of thetrial andexecution ofCharles I of England. The concept of regicide has also been explored in media and the arts through pieces likeMacbeth (Macbeth's killing ofKing Duncan).[3]
Scholars have found that regicide is particularly common in political systems with unclearsuccession rules.[4][5]
InWestern Christianity, regicide was far more common prior to 1200/1300.[4] Sverre Bagge counts 20 cases of regicide between 1200 and 1800, which means that 6% of monarchs were killed by their subjects.[4] He counts 94 cases of regicide between 600 and 1200, which means that 21.8% of monarchs were killed by their subjects.[4] He argues that the most likely reasons for the decline in regicide is that clear rules of succession were established, which made it hard to remove rightful heirs to the throne, and only made it so that the nearest heir (and their backers) had a motive to kill the monarch.[4]
According to a 2025 analysis, regicide was common across Chinese history in the period 1046 BCE to 1911 CE.[5] 35.7% of rulers died unnaturally, with most of the deaths as a result of killings or suicides prompted by the ruler’s relatives and trusted ministers or invading armies.[5] The analysis found that uncertainty about succession was a key factor in regicide, as rulers with unclear succession were more likely to be killed.[5]
There is evidence that regicide and the ability of states to keep or even expand their territories are negatively correlated: Firstly, elite violence hindered the development of territorialstate capacity, and the killing of rulers also directly resulted in a more likely loss of territory. And secondly, state capacity, reflected by territorial state capacity, could be hypothesized to have had a restraining effect on interpersonalviolence. This would be consistent with Pinker's (2011)[6] view that modern state capacity leads to a reduction in violence, both interpersonal and in terms ofmilitary conflict.[7]
Before theTudor period,English kings had been murdered while imprisoned likeEdward II andEdward V, or killed in battle likeRichard III.[8] Scottish kings had also died in battle against rebels (such asJames III) or been assassinated (Duncan II,James I).
The word regicide seems to have come into popular use among continentalCatholics whenPope Sixtus V renewed thepapal bull ofexcommunication against the "crowned regicide" QueenElizabeth I,[9] for—among other things—executingMary, Queen of Scots, in 1587, although she had abdicated the Scottish crown some 20 years earlier.[10] Elizabeth had originally been excommunicated byPope Pius V, inRegnans in Excelsis, for converting England toProtestantism after the reign ofMary I of England.
After theFirst English Civil War, KingCharles I was a prisoner of theParliamentarians. The Parliamentarians attempted to negotiate a compromise with him, but he stuck steadfastly to his view that he was King bydivine right and attempted in secret to raise an army to fight against them. It became obvious to the leaders of the Parliamentarians that they could not negotiate a settlement with him and they could not trust him to refrain from raising an army against them; they reluctantly came to the conclusion that he would have to be put to death. On 13 December 1648, theHouse of Commons broke off negotiations with the King. Two days later, theCouncil of Officers of theNew Model Army voted that the King be moved from theIsle of Wight, where he was prisoner, toWindsor "in order to the bringing of him speedily to justice".[11] In the middle of December, the King was moved from Windsor toSt James's Palace,Westminster. TheHouse of Commons of theRump Parliament passed a Bill setting up a High Court of Justice in order to try Charles I forhigh treason "in the name of the people of England." From a Royalist and post-restoration perspective, this Bill was not lawful, as theHouse of Lords refused to pass it and it predictably failed to receive theRoyal Assent. However, the Parliamentary leaders and the Army pressed on with the trial regardless.
At his trial in the High Court of Justice on Saturday 20 January 1649 inWestminster Hall, Charles asked "I would know by what power I am called hither. I would know by what authority, I mean lawful".[12] In view of the historic issues involved, both sides based themselves on surprisingly technical legal grounds. Charles did not dispute that Parliament as a whole did have some judicial powers, but he maintained that the House of Commons on its own could not try anybody, and so he refused to plead. At that time underEnglish law, if a prisoner refused to plead, they would be treated identically to one who had pleaded guilty. This has since changed; a refusal to plead is now interpreted as a not-guilty plea.[13]
Charles was found guilty on Saturday 27 January 1649, and his death warrant was signed byfifty-nine commissioners. To show their agreement with the sentence of death, all of the Commissioners who were present rose to their feet.[14]
On the day of his execution, 30 January 1649, Charles dressed in two shirts so that he would not shiver from the cold, lest it be said that he was shivering from fear. His execution was delayed by several hours so that the House of Commons could pass an emergency bill to make it an offence to proclaim a new King, and to declare the representatives of the people, the House of Commons, as the source of all just power. Charles was then escorted through a window of theBanqueting House in thePalace of Whitehall to an outdoor scaffold where he would be beheaded.[15] He forgave those who had passed sentence on him and gave instructions to his enemies that they should learn to "know their duty to God, the King – that is, my successors – and the people".[16] He then gave a brief speech outlining his unchanged views of the relationship between the monarchy and the monarch's subjects, ending with the words "I am the martyr of the people".[17] His head was severed from his body with one blow.
One week later, the Rump, sitting in the House of Commons, passed a bill abolishing the monarchy. Ardent Royalists refused to accept it on the basis that there could never be a vacancy of the Crown. Others refused because, as the bill had not passed theHouse of Lords and did not haveRoyal Assent, it could not become an Act of Parliament.
TheDeclaration of Breda 11 years later paved the way for the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. At the time of therestoration, thirty-one of the fifty-nine Commissioners who had signed the death warrant were living. Parliament, with the assent of the new king,Charles II, enacted theIndemnity and Oblivion Act, giving a general pardon to those who had committed crimes during the civil war and interregnum, but the regicides were among those excluded from it. A number fled. Some, such asDaniel Blagrave, fled to continental Europe, while others likeJohn Dixwell,Edward Whalley, andWilliam Goffe fled toNew Haven, Connecticut. Those regicides who could be found and arrested were put on trial. Six were found guilty and suffered the fate of beinghanged, drawn and quartered:Thomas Harrison,John Jones,Adrian Scrope,John Carew,Thomas Scot, andGregory Clement. The captain of the guard at the trial,Daniel Axtell, who encouraged his men tobarrack the King when he tried to speak in his own defence, an influential preacher,Hugh Peters, and the leading prosecutor at the trial,John Cook, were executed in a similar manner. ColonelFrancis Hacker, who signed the order to the executioner of the king and commanded the guard around the scaffold and at the trial, was hanged. Concern amongst the royal ministers over the negative impact on popular sentiment of these public tortures and executions led to jail sentences being substituted for the remaining regicides.[18]
Some regicides, such asRichard Ingoldsby andPhilip Nye, were conditionally pardoned, while a further 19 served life imprisonment. The bodies of the regicidesCromwell,Bradshaw, andIreton, which had been buried inWestminster Abbey, were disinterred and hanged, drawn and quartered inposthumous executions. In 1662, three more regicides,John Okey,John Barkstead andMiles Corbet, were also hanged, drawn and quartered. The officers of the court that tried Charles I, those who prosecuted him, and those who signed hisdeath warrant, have been known ever since the restoration as regicides.
TheParliamentary Archives in the Palace of Westminster, London, holds the original death warrant for Charles I.
Some people throughout in the 1760–1850 period in England and Great Britain who have been suspected, arrested, and perhaps punished for trying to lethally harm the reigning monarch, which has sometimes been understood to be attempted "regicide", do not appear to have had the intention of actually killing the king or queen.[19] According to Poole (2000), the actions and utterances of English figures such as Nicholson, Firth, Sutherland, Hadfield, Collins, Oxford, Francis and Bean, all of whom tried to get the monarch's attention for some matter, "point more often to physical remonstance after experiences of extreme frustration with an ineffectual petitioning process."[19] Others who did try to kill the ruler did so not in order to replace the monarchy with a republic, but because they hoped that their successor would be a better ruler, and able to address certain issues which, in the would-be assassins' views, the current sovereign failed to properly act on.[19] According to British radical oratorJohn Thelwall (1764–1834), regicide was simply a means of replacing an unacceptable monarch with a better one.[20]
On 25 June 1836, a Frenchman named Alibaud attempted to assassinate the "July Monarch"Louis Philippe I by shooting him.[21] At trial, Alibaud held the king responsible for the economic ruin of his family, compared himself toMarcus Junius Brutus (most well known amongst theassassins of Julius Caesar), and stated: "Regicide is the right of all men who are debarred from any justice but that which they take into their own hands."[22] He was executed by guillotine.[23]
After the abolishment of theFirst Mexican Empire,Agustín I was first exiled and on 11 May 1823, the ex-emperor boarded the British ship Rawlins en route toLivorno, Italy (then part of theGrand Duchy of Tuscany), accompanied by his wife, children, and some servants.[24]
Later, after thedownfall of theSecond Mexican Empire, which saw the reign ofMaximilian I of Mexico—a member of theHouse of Habsburg, which had previously ruled Mexico asNew Spain from the 16th to 18th century—the Republican forces ofBenito Juárez, with aid from the U.S. and sabotage by Colonel Miguel López, captured and executed him on 19 June 1867. Emperor Maximilian's last words were "…May my blood which is about to be spilled end the bloodshed which has been experienced in my new motherland. Long live Mexico! Long live its independence!".[25]
On 14 July 1958, at least four members of the ruling Hashemite family (including the King and the Crown Prince) of theKingdom of Iraq were killed by revolutionaries of theNationalist Officers' Organization under the command ofAbdul Salam Arif.[26]
KingUmberto I was assassinated[27] by Italian-AmericananarchistGaetano Bresci on the evening of 29 July 1900 inMonza. Bresci claimed he wanted to avenge the people killed in Milan in the course of theBava Beccaris massacre.
KingAlexander I of Yugoslavia was assassinated on 3 October 1934, alongside French Foreign MinisterLouis Barthou inMarseille, France, by theUstaše.[28]
TheNepalese royal massacre was carried out on 1 June 2001, byCrown Prince Dipendra, who killed 10 members of the Nepalese Royal Family, includingKing Birendra andQueen Aishwarya.[29]
TheAssassination of Alexander II occurred on 1 March 1881, when members of theNarodnaya Volya organization threw a bomb at his carriage, which exploded, killing him.[30]
TheMurder of the Romanov family occurred on the night of 16-17 July 1918, which resulted in the deaths of TsarNicholas II,Tsarina Alexandra, and their five children. This ended the Russian monarchy.[31]
On 10 September 1898,Empress Elisabeth of Austria was assassinated inGeneva, Switzerland by Italian anarchistLuigi Lucheni, who stabbed her before boarding a ferry.[32]
8 October 1895 saw theAssassination of Empress Myeongseong of Korea, by Japanese agents.[33]
Motives for regicide also include the desire to obtain the power of the previous ruler.Dion, the ruler ofSyracuse, determined to avoid conspiracies, entrusted his aidCalippus with the task of forming a false conspiracy in order to spot potential traitors. Calippus would then abuse this trust, and assassinate Dion to seize authority.[34] According toRoman tradition,Tarquinius Superbus killed the then-kingServius Tullius, by lifting him up and throwing him down a flight of stairs. Tarquin would then start a reign of terror which saw the execution of many rivals. He would later be overthrown byLucius Junius Brutus, whom founded theRoman Republic after the Tarquin family was exiled.[35]Plautianus unsuccessfully tried to assassinate the Roman EmperorSeptimius Severus and his son,Caracalla. His plot was exposed when Saturninus, the prefect whom Plautianus assigned the killings to, had fooled Plautianus to put such agreement in writing in order to give as proof to the emperor Severus.[36][37]
Media related toRegicides at Wikimedia Commons
Works related toLittell's Living Age/Volume 145/Issue 1872/The Regicides of this Century at Wikisource
The dictionary definition ofregicide at Wiktionary.svg)
