An anti-king, anti king or antiking (german: Gegenkönig; french: antiroi; cs, protikrál) is a would-be

king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen regnant, queen, which title is also given to the queen consort, consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contempora ...

who, due to succession disputes or simple political opposition, declares himself king in opposition to a reigning monarch. OED "Anti-, 2" The OED does not give "anti-king" its own entry, unlike "antipope", but includes it in a list of political "anti-" formations, such as "anti-emperor" and "anti-caesar". The earliest example of anti-king cited is from 1619 (and the next by Dr Pusey). Only the hyphenated form is cited or mentioned. The term is usually used in a European historical context where it relates to

elective monarchies An elective monarchy is a monarchy ruled by an elected monarch, in contrast to a hereditary monarchy in which the office is automatically passed down as a family inheritance. The manner of election, the nature of candidate qualifications, and t ...

rather than hereditary ones. In hereditary monarchies such figures are more frequently referred to as

pretender A pretender is someone who claims to be the rightful ruler of a country although not recognized as such by the current government. The term is often used to suggest that a claim is not legitimate.Curley Jr., Walter J. P. ''Monarchs-in-Waiting'' ...

s or claimants. Anti-kings are most commonly referred to in the politics of the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. From the accession of Otto I in 962 unt ...

, before the

Golden Bull of 1356 The Golden Bull of 1356 (, , , , ) was a decree issued by the Imperial Diet at Nuremberg and Metz ( Diet of Metz, 1356/57) headed by the Emperor Charles IV which fixed, for a period of more than four hundred years, important aspects of the con ...

issued by Emperor Charles IV defined the provisions of the

Imperial election The election of a Holy Roman Emperor was generally a two-stage process whereby, from at least the 13th century, the King of the Romans was elected by a small body of the greatest princes of the Empire, the prince-electors. This was then follow ...

. Other nations with elective monarchies that produced anti-kings included

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

and

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...

. The term is comparable to

antipope An antipope ( la, antipapa) is a person who makes a significant and substantial attempt to occupy the position of Bishop of Rome and leader of the Catholic Church in opposition to the legitimately elected pope. At times between the 3rd and mi ...

, a rival would-be

Pope The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

, and indeed the two phenomena are related; just as

German kings This is a list of monarchs who ruled over East Francia, and the Kingdom of Germany (''Regnum Teutonicum''), from the division of the Frankish Empire in 843 and the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 until the collapse of the German E ...

( Kings of the Romans) and

Holy Roman Emperor The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans ( la, Imperator Romanorum, german: Kaiser der Römer) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period ( la, Imperat ...

s from time to time raised up antipopes to politically weaken Popes with whom they were in conflict, so too Popes sometimes sponsored anti-kings as political rivals to emperors with whom they disagreed. Several anti-kings succeeded in vindicating their claims to power, and were recognized as rightful kings: for example, King

Conrad III of Germany Conrad III (german: Konrad; it, Corrado; 1093 or 1094 – 15 February 1152) of the Hohenstaufen dynasty was from 1116 to 1120 Duke of Franconia, from 1127 to 1135 anti-king of his predecessor Lothair III and from 1138 until his death in 1152 ...

, Emperor Frederick II, and Emperor Charles IV (see table below). The status of others as anti-kings is still disputed: e.g. in the case of Duke

Henry II of Bavaria Henry II (951 – 28 August 995), called the Wrangler or the Quarrelsome (german: Heinrich der Zänker), a member of the German royal Ottonian dynasty, was Duke of Bavaria from 955 to 976 and again from 985 to 995, as well as Duke of Carinthia ...

and Margrave Egbert II of Meissen.

List of anti-kings

Germany

German double elections

Bohemia

Hungary

Japan

Korea

Scotland

References

Sources

* Heinrich Mitteis: ''Die deutsche Königswahl. Ihre Rechtsgrundlagen bis zur goldenen Bulle'', 2nd expanded edition, Rohrer, Brünn, Munich, Vienna, 1944, pp. 113 ff. * Dietmar Willoweit: ''Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte. Vom Frankenreich bis zur Wiedervereinigung Deutschlands'', 5th revised edition, expanded with a table of chronology and an attached map, Beck, Munich, 2005, pp. 71 f., 94 ff., * Gerhard Theuerkauf: ''Gegenkönig''. In: ''Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte'', 2nd, fully revised and expanded edition. Published by Albrecht Cordes, Heiner Lück, Dieter Werkmüller and Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand as philological advisor. Edited by: Falk Hess and Andreas Karg, Vol. I: Aachen-Geistliche Bank, Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin. 2008, Sp. 1995–1996, {{ISBN, 978-3-503-07912-4 * Succession Monarchs Royal titles