Puppet monarch

A puppet monarch is a majority figurehead who is installed or patronized by an imperial power to provide the appearance of local authority but to allow political and economic control to remain among the dominating nation.

A figurehead monarch, as source of legitimacy and possibly divine reign, has been the used form of government in several situations and places of history.

There are two basic forms of using puppets as monarchs (rulers, kings, emperors):

A figurehead in which the monarch is a puppet of another person or a group in the country who rules instead of the nominal ruler.
A puppet government under a foreign power.

Examples of the first type are the Emperors who were the puppets of the shōgunss of Japan and the kings who were the puppets of the Mayor of Palace in the Frankish kingdom. Client kingdoms under the Roman Republic and Roman Empire and the British Empire's colonial relationship with King Farouk of Egypt in the 1950s are examples of the second type.

List of puppet kings and queens

Classical antiquity

Qin Er Shi, Emperor of China's Qin Empire – dominated by his eunuch Zhao Gao
Emperor Xian of Han of China – dominated by the warlord Dong Zhuo, his successors Li Jue and Guo Si, and finally the Wei Kingdom founded by Cao Cao before being forced to abdicate
Philip II Philoromaeus of the last Seleucid, King of Syria – ruled as client king for the Roman Republic and Pompey

Late antiquity

Leo I the Thracian, Roman emperor appointed by Aspar, but broke free
Majorian, first Roman emperor appointed by Ricimer
Libius Severus, second Roman emperor appointed by Ricimer
Olybrius, third Roman emperor appointed by Ricimer
Glycerius, Roman emperor appointed by Ricimer's nephew, Gundobad
Romulus Augustulus, Roman emperor appointed by his general father, Orestes

Post-classical period

Ecgberht I of Northumbria puppet ruler for the Danes
Baldwin I, Latin Emperor – installed to rule the Latin Empire by the Republic of Venice after the Fourth Crusade
John, King of England – nominally ruled as a vassal for Pope Innocent III after 1213
John Balliol of Scotland – puppet king for King Edward I of England
Musa, a puppet Ilkhan ruler in Mongol Persia
Henry VI Lancaster of England – largely dominated by advisors such as Queen Margaret of Anjou and William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk

Early modern period

John Sigismund Zápolya, Ottoman puppet king of Hungary contesting Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I of Hapsburg's claim to the throne
Manco Inca, Sapa Inca of Tawantinsuyu – installed by the Spanish Empire, later revolted and founded the Neo-Inca State
Simeon Bekbulatovich Russian Tsar – ruled for one year as Puppet monarch of Ivan the Terrible
Moctezuma II, Tlatoani (Emperor) of Tenochtitlan and Aztec Triple Empire

Napoleonic era

Elisa Bonaparte, Italian ruler as Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Princess of Lucca
Louis Bonaparte of the Kingdom of Holland
Jérôme Bonaparte, of Kingdom of Westphalia created from territories of Prussia and the former Holy Roman Empire (present-day cultural Germany) after the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt
Joseph Bonaparte, of Napoleonic Spain during the Peninsular War and of the Neapolitan Kingdom after the French invasion of Naples
Elector and later King, Frederick Augustus I of Saxony, appointed as Napoleonic Duke of Warsaw (present-day Poland, Belarus, and Lithuania)

Late modern period

Rulers of the princely states of India under paramountcy of the British East India Company and later the British Raj
Mubarak al-Sabah – signed an agreement with the British Empire to make the Sheikhdom of Kuwait a British protectorate
Pedro V of Kongo – ruled the Kingdom of Kongo (modern-day Angola, Gabon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Republic of the Congo) as a client king for the Portuguese Empire
Gungunhana – Portuguese client ruler of the Gaza Empire, exiled after unsuccessful rebellion against Portuguese rule.
Osman Mahamuud – client king of the Majeerteen Sultanate (modern-day Puntland) for the Italian Empire
Muhammad Rahim Bahadur II and Isfandiyar Jurji Bahadur – Russian client rulers of the Khanate of Khiva
Emperor Gojong and Sunjong of Korea – ruled as puppets of the Japanese Empire after the Russo-Japanese War
Aimone of Savoy, King of Croatia – appointed by Fascist Italy after the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia as figurehead for Ante Pavelić's Ustaše reigime
Aisin-Gioro Puyi, Emperor of Manchukuo – Former Emperor of China appointed to lead Japan's puppet state of Manchukuo
Bảo Đại, Emperor of Vietnam – Emperor of the French protectorate of Annam and Japanese-occupied Vietnam, later chief of state of South Vietnam
Sisavang Vong, King of Luang Phrabang – client king of the French protectorate of Laos
Tashi Namgyal and Palden Thondup Namgyal – ruled Sikkim as protectorate of India after 1950.
Sisowath Monivong, of Cambodia – King of the French Protectorate of Cambodia