literally any system in which you know who is in charge upon a transition of government is better than any government where that issue must be settled by violence. "not having a civil war every 30 years" is just an incredibly powerful technology.
Gets to the heart of something I wonder about often; from a functional perspective, why did absolute monarchy, a system which makes itself hostage to the lottery of birth, endure for so long?
The reason “free and fair” elections are so rare throughout history and the world is that they’re really fucking hard to pull off.
To run them, you need educated people, robust laws with an understanding judiciary, and infrastructure like the postal service and roads.
also, "absolute monarchies" very frequently were not absolute for more than a couple generations. you would more often end up with a heir who was not interested in ruling and a court who was interested in usurping his power.
Also probably preferable to the system of "Bribing three Rhenish Archbishops and at least one other German prince."
I don’t know what the blocked post said but yeah this is essentially what froze a couple hundred years of medieval Europe
This is basically Hobbes' point in a nutshell really.
I really can’t think of a lot of sustained periods where there weren’t usurpations and contested thrones and wars of succession, though. Like, in theory this tracks—and I suppose 1 is greater than 0–but find me this tumult free 30 years anywhere in English history, pre-mixed monarchy.
Yep.
During my the chaos of my first tour in Iraq (early 2004), I remember an Iraqi man telling me "Things were better under Saddam. He was terrible, but back then, we only had to fear one man. But now? We must fear everyone."
This is why the Roman Empire had the worst possible system
I don't know, there were constant civil wars in the monarchy era, even if the ruler said "this son is the next king" there would often be an uncle or someone who wanted to take the crown, or a different son would want to take his land out of the kingdom, etc.
Absolute Monarchy usually does not last that long . For instance from Louis 14 start of personal rule ( two civil wars during is minority does not count as absolute ) 1651 to French Revolution 1789. That was parts three kings reigns.
I did a deep dive into Byzantine history and am now doing the same with Persia, and 80% of the territorial changes between these 2 can be explained by “ruler died, massive civil war breaks out, other side grabs land”
Right like an insane king is almost always better than a civil war
A constitutional hereditary monarchy provides this as well, without the tyranny.
This is exactly why kings tended to be so obsessed with having legitimate sons. They weren't desperate to have someone to play catch with; they knew that their most important function as ruler was to leave an unambiguous line of succession when they died. The rest is just gravy.
This is why "royal bastard" is so strongly pejorative!
The podcast Pax Britannica is talking about the Cromwell's change from Lord Protector to King and one of the real selling points for the MPs is that Kings have clear succession patterns but Lord Protector there's a risk it becomes a grab bag for the major generals every time the hocho kicks it
Another good data point here: compare and contrast "standard" monarchy (where son of a ruler ranks above ruler's brother) to medieval Rus model (where brother>son). Rus was so violent precisely because the system is less stable. It may trigger once or twice, but at ~3d trigger you have clans feuding
