The king is the monarch of a kingdom.
The king is the monarch or sovereign of a kingdom . The form of government where the supreme office of the State is in the hands of the king is known as monarchy . In these cases, power is hereditary (when the king dies, his son is crowned and so on).
In the various cultures of antiquity, the king held an irreproachable position. At first, he was believed to be a God . At that time, this deity was justifiable because they were polytheists, however, with the imposition of Christianity in societies, new reasons had to be sought to believe in the absolute power of the monarch , given that there was only one God.
There it was considered that the best way to understand this power was to consider that it was given to them by divine design. Then they stopped being theocratic monarchies to become absolute . It is important to bear in mind that their power was so great that everything they decreed was taken into account as if it were a prophecy and their decisions were never questioned.
The power of the king
For centuries the power of the kings manipulated the populations throughout the land to no end, until with the arrival of the English Revolution of the 17th century , this power began to suffer limitations because the people opposed continuing to be governed with such a system; then parliamentary monarchies arose that, although they maintained the figure of the king, he had to answer to a group of people who watched over the rights of the inhabitants and prevented the monarch from making decisions that could endanger social stability .
Thus, over time, monarchies changed their essence (except in some countries in Africa and Asia ) and lost power, although in some countries they continue to remain important public figures, as is the case of the kings of Spain.
The monarchy today
Nowadays, in some countries the institutionality of the Monarchy is maintained because it is considered to be the best guarantee of harmony, stability and democracy; in these countries the role of the king is to advise and guide the steps of the Republic towards a space where all citizens enjoy freedom and well-being .
Thus, the kings of European nations are currently at the head of constitutional or parliamentary monarchies , with democratic regimes and popular sovereignty. The king, therefore, plays a symbolic and representative role, but does not exercise political power.
In recent years, with the growing distrust of the people in their leaders, the following question has begun to arise: What is better, a monarchy or a Republic?
The second is undoubtedly true, but reforms are needed to prevent democratically elected leaders from taking advantage of their power and ruining a country.
It is worth mentioning that a monarchical regime is a governmental system that is completely opposed to the Republic , where there are several leaders who have been democratically elected by the people.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that according to Aristotle, monarchy is the purest form of government as long as it is exercised legally and not for the personal benefit of the king. It is worth mentioning that the name given to the monarch can be king, tsar, emperor , sultan , etc.; that is to say, in all these types of States there is the similarity that there is a person in command who exercises power over the people.
The lion is known as the king of the jungle.
Symbolic use of the notion of king
Symbolically and making an analogy to the power or superiority that a king has over the rest, the lion is called the king of the jungle and Elvis Presley is called the king of rock , for example.
The footballer Edson Arantes do Nascimento ( Pelé ) is also known as O Rei . In these cases, the reign refers to the influence or control that the "monarch" has over other colleagues or members of his species.
A chess piece
In chess , the king is the main piece of the game . It can move in all directions, but only one square at a time.
The objective of chess is to trap the enemy king in the checkmate position ( "beaten king" ), which is the last position in the game.