Editing Elective monarchy (section)

== Invitation ==
In the past; new polities or countries in internal turmoil sometimes selected and invited some person to become their monarch. The selected person might have had little or nothing to do with his prospective kingdom; he might have had associations with a current great power or with a current regional power, or might appear as a true outsider, (hopefully) unbiased in matters of internal politics. (The concept of "invitation" may discreetly gloss over intense lobbying or diplomatic maneuvering in some cases.) By selecting a foreign prince or aristocrat, nations could expect to gain diplomatic links and a figurehead accustomed to the trappings of courts and ceremonial duties. Newly established states in the 19th and early 20th centuries established trends in the selection and appointment of newly minted monarchs.{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}

At the start of the 20th century, the first monarchs of several newly independent nations were elected by parliaments: [[Norway]] is the prime example. Previously, following precedent set in newly independent [[Greece]], new nations without a well-established hereditary [[royal family]] often chose their own monarchs from among the established [[:Category:European royal families|royal families of Europe]], rather than elevate a member of the local power establishment, in the hope that a stable [[hereditary monarchy]] would eventually emerge from the process. The first king of [[Belgium]], as well as the now-deposed royal families of Greece, [[Bulgaria]], [[Albania]] (unsuccessfully) and [[Romania]], were originally appointed in this manner. On 9 October 1918 the Parliament of newly independent [[Finland]] elected [[Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse]], brother-in-law of the German Emperor [[Wilhelm II]], as [[Kingdom of Finland (1918)|King of Finland]] – but soon afterwards, this move was foiled by the German defeat in [[WWI]] and the demise of Monarchy in Germany itself, and Finland opted to become a Republic instead.{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}

Examples include:

* 862: According to tradition, various tribes of northern [[Ruthenia|Rus']] invited [[Rurik]], a chief of their former Varangian foes, to re-establish order: his descendants ruled in Kiev, Muscovy and Russia until 1917. The legend of an invitation echoes the habit of later invitations to [[Rurikids]] and others to rule in Pskov<ref>
{{cite book
| editor1-last = Blockmans
| editor1-first = Wim
| editor1-link = Wim Blockmans
| editor2-last = Krom
| editor2-first = Mikhail
| editor3-last = Wubs-Mrozewicz
| editor3-first = Justyna
| title = The Routledge Handbook of Maritime Trade around Europe 1300–1600: Commercial Networks and Urban Autonomy
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=RUUlDgAAQBAJ
| series = Routledge History Handbooks
| publisher = Taylor & Francis
| date = 2017
| isbn = 9781315278551
| access-date = 2017-07-18
| quote = The Pskov men invited princes to Pskov whose professional armoured cavalry was very important for a city that had constant wars with the Livonian Order. [...] The princely power grew during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries while the prince himself usually was a protégé of the grand prince of Moscow. [...] However, the right that was especially valued by Pskov men was that to expel princes whom they disliked.
}}
</ref> and in Novgorod.<ref>
{{cite book
| last1 = Parker
| first1 = Geoffrey
| chapter = 8: Princes, Bishops and Republics: Cities and City-States in Russia
| title = Sovereign City: The City-state Through History
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ZEvTt7eGzFUC
| series = Globalities Series
| location = London
| publisher = Reaktion Books
| date = 2004
| page = 124
| isbn = 9781861892195
| access-date = 2017-07-18
| quote = From 1075 the people of Novgorod 'invited' the prince to take the throne and it is clear that the princes were now there only so long as they satisfied the Novgorodians and obeyed their laws.
}}
</ref><ref>{{cite book
| last1 = Plokhy
| first1 = Serhii
| author-link1 = Serhii Plokhii
| chapter = 4: The rise of Muscovy
| title = The Origins of the Slavic Nations: Premodern Identities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=pCdUmCWxwJ8C
| location = Cambridge
| publisher = Cambridge University Press
| date = 2006
| page = 137
| isbn = 9781139458924
| access-date = 2017-07-18
| quote = On the Novgorod and Pskov communities' practice of inviting princes from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, see Anna Khoroshkevich, 'Istoricheskie sud'by belorusskikh i ukrainskikh zemel' v XIV – nachale XVI v.,' in Vladimir Pashuto, Boris Floria, and Khoroshkevich, ''Drevnerusskoe nasledia i istoricheskie sud'by vostochnogo slavianstva'' (Moscow, 1982), pp. 140–141.
| archive-date = 2021-05-12
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210512084737/https://books.google.com/books?id=pCdUmCWxwJ8C
| url-status = live
}}</ref>
* 1573: The Polish ''[[szlachta]]'' broke with tradition by looking beyond Central Europe for a candidate and electing the French Prince [[Henry III of France|Henry, Duke of Anjou]] as King of Poland.{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}
* 1810: Sweden elected the French Napoleonic Marshal Jean Bernadotte as Crown Prince: he became King [[Charles XIV John of Sweden]] in 1818.{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}
* 1831: Belgium selected a German Prince of [[Saxe-Coburg and Gotha|Saxe-Coburg-Gotha]] as King [[Leopold I of Belgium|Leopold I]], the first King of the Belgians.{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}
* 1832: European Great Power diplomats selected the German Prince Otto of [[House of Wittelsbach|Bavaria]] to become King [[Otto of Greece]].{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}
* 1863: The Greek National Assembly elected the Danish Prince William of [[House of Glücksburg|Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg]] as King [[George I of Greece|George I]] of the Hellenes.{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}
* 1863: The [[Conservative Party (Mexico)|Conservative Party of Mexico]] offered the crown of the [[Second Mexican Empire]] to [[Maximilian I of Mexico|Maximilian]], younger brother of [[Emperor of Austria|Emperor]] [[Franz Joseph I of Austria]].{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}
[[File:Dell'Acqua Ernennung Maximilians zum Kaiser Mexikos.jpg|thumb|Offering of the Mexican crown to [[Maximilian I of Mexico|Maximilian of Habsburg]].]]
* 1866: Romania elected the German Prince Karl of [[Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen]] as its Ruling Prince (he later became King [[Carol I of Romania]]).{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}
* 1870: In the wake of political turmoil in Spain, the Spanish Cortes re-established the Spanish monarchy under a new royal house, electing the Italian Prince Amedeo of [[House of Savoy|Savoy]] as King [[Amadeo I of Spain]].{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}
* 1879: The Bulgarian Grand National Assembly elected the Russian-sponsored German Prince [[Alexander of Battenberg]] as its reigning ''knyaz'' (prince).{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}
* 1887: The Bulgarian Grand National Assembly elected the Austro-Hungarian Prince [[Ferdinand I of Bulgaria|Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry]] as Prince (later Tsar) of Bulgaria.{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}
* 1905: Norway, newly independent of Sweden, elected Prince Carl of Denmark as its first modern independent monarch: [[Haakon VII of Norway]]{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}
* 1914: The European powers selected the German Prince [[William of Wied]] as the ruler of the [[Principality of Albania]].{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}
* 1918: The German-occupied [[Kingdom of Lithuania (1918)|Kingdom of Lithuania]] voted to offer the throne to the German [[Wilhelm Karl, Duke of Urach|Prince Wilhelm of Urach, Count of Württemberg, 2nd Duke of Urach]], who would have become King Mindaugas II.{{Citation needed|date=March 2022}}
* 1918: [[Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse|Frederick Charles Louis Constantine, Prince and Landgrave of Hesse]], was elected to be [[Kingdom of Finland (1918)|King of Finland]] by the [[Parliament of Finland|Finnish Parliament]], but never reigned and abdicated on December 14 the same year.
* 1918: During the end of the [[World War I|First World War]], there was an attempt by the [[German Empire]] to recognize [[Duke Adolf Friedrich of Mecklenburg|Adolf Friedrich of Mecklenburg]] as the Duke of the [[United Baltic Duchy]]. However, the Regency Council only lasted less than a month in November, and was recognized by no other nation than Germany.