Traditional monarchy

15th-century picture of the Corts Catalanes of the Principality of Catalonia

Traditional monarchy (Spanish: Monarquía tradicional, Portuguese: Monarquia tradicional) describes a system of government in which the monarch has real political power and is more than a figurehead. In contrast to the centralized "absolutist" monarchies developed in the 16th and 17th centuries, or the highly decentralized Feudal monarchies, such as the Holy Roman Empire, which flourished in Europe in the 9th to 15th centuries, traditional monarchy is based on the principles of Thomistic Iusnaturalism, Medieval Corporatism, Municipalist Regionalism and Religious Integralism (like Catholic social teaching and Social Kingship of Christ). It has been advocated by various royalists and traditionalist movements, such as Carlism, Portuguese Integralism and Spanish Integrism.

A traditional monarchy depends on natural law, custom, and traditional institutions such as aristocracy, clergy, and social corporations to moderate the Royal Power (rather than a written constitution), rejecting both the high-centralized "Absolutist" monarchies developed in the 16th and 17th centuries and the high-decentralized Feudal monarchies (such as the Holy Roman Empire) from late Ancien régime. There is a balance of power between the representative body, often the Parliament, and the monarch, in which both check each other subsidiarily to ensure their decisions benefit the common good and are virtuous. The traditional monarch is a strong sovereign supported and moderated by the nobility, the clergy that guide him, and the intermediate bodies that advise him. The monarch is also a guarantor of local government through his Coronation Oath of protection of the intermediate bodies (Organic social organizations between Persons and State), such as family, municipalities, estates of the realm, courts, guilds, churches, universities and other corporations. Proponents of traditional monarchy posit that it is the form of government which best adapts to the essence of authority, tradition, Idiosyncrasy and unique aspects of a particular people.

"The [Traditional] monarchy as a political form is nothing other than the continuity of a society, which is made up of families, through the continuity of a family, the royal family, which symbolizes and actualizes the continuity of each and every family and in which –in some way– the ordering providence of God participates through that order that gives continuity."

— Miguel Ayuso, Las Formas de Gobierno y sus Transformaciones

Doctrinal background

See also: Mixed monarchy and Common good constitutionalism

Antecedents

Traditional monarchists rejected the various changes that Western governments underwent during the 18th to 20th centuries, when Secularist and Centralist reforms led to the development of the modern state, consisting first of absolute monarchy and then of modern Constitutionalism and Liberalism.

Instead, traditional monarchists promoted the restoration of an alleged "traditional order", which would have peaked during the Middle Ages from the 9th to 16th centuries (like the pre-Bourbon Reforms Spanish Monarchy or the pre-Absolutist Kingdom of France), and demanded the abolition of the modern limited institutions in favour of a system of organic representation based in fundamental laws and the practice of foralismo, along a political gelasianism on the Church-State relations. This would be theoretically better adjusted to the local traditions and beliefs. However, before the 19th century, the traditionalist monarchical positions had not been formalized in organized political movements (before the bourgeois revolutions, the traditionalists were simple political factions dispersed among the royal courts and opposing to inorganic "political innovations", like parti dévot on French Kingdom).

39. Against enlightened absolutism.

The reaction against this attitude, which was combined with a foreign policy in which the ideals of the Tridentine crusade were replaced by the French interests of the "Pacte de Famille" — sacrificing Spain to the interests of the House of Bourbon, and not to the only thing for which it always willingly sacrificed itself, which was the defense of Catholicism —: such a reaction is what gave rise to the birth of 18th century traditionalism. And this 18th century traditionalism is exactly the knot that links the dynastic Carlism of the following century with the Spains of the 16th and 17th centuries. For this reason, for example, Feliu de la Peña or Manuel de Larramendi are traditionalists claimed by Carlism as predecessors, regarding the defense of the regional liberties. As claimed by Fernando de Zevallos in the apology of the Christian feeling of politics, or by Juan Pablo Forner in the trench of historical controversies, etc. It is that, tying itself with this guiding thread, Carlism reaffirms the perenniality of the political tradition of Spain.

(...) The struggle of Carlism against liberalism is, therefore, a simple extension of the struggle of the eighteenth-century traditionalists against the European-French absolutism brought to these parts by the House of Bourbon.

— Center For Historical and Political Studies. «General Zumalacarregui», ¿Que es el Carlismo?

Development

The first attempts to develop organized traditionalist monarchists movements appeared in Spain and Portugal during the context of Carlist Wars and Liberal Wars, in which Carlists and Miguelists launched proclaims (like Manifiest of the Persians) that later defined a series of political doctrines to reject the paradigms of liberal revolutions (as Liberalism was perceived as a political philosophy contrary to a Christian social order), but also trying to reject the monarchical absolutism that caused the perceived social decline of Christendom by having harmed the "Intermediate Bodies" (popular institutions of the plebeians, like Municipalities, Guilds, Corporations, Parliaments, etc. that were guarantors of Class collaboration), local Customary Law (guarantors of Regional Autonomies and Subsidiarity) and the social role of the clergy (the autonomy of the church from the state, guarantors of Natural law) in the name of erroneous ideological assumptions of Modern Philosophy (like Anthropocentrism, Nominalist anti-Metaphysical Realism, Immanentism, Rationalism, Empiricism, Secular humanism, Regalism, Enlightened absolutism, etc.) to achieve apparently more "efficiency" and "rationality" in governments that instead led to the Ancien régime crisis. So, for them, traditional monarchy would consist of a revindication of Iberian tradition (not all traditions, only the ones that were continuously maintained because expressed Perennial truths and empirical practices for good Politics) against intents of "foreignizing" the peninsula and also a total opposition to artificialist social engineering of the revolutionaries. For Carlists, the traditional fueros and religious institutions would be a way of defending Spain against liberal aims of pan-Europeanizing it in line with the views of Enlightment philosophers (associated with Afrancesados, Anglophiles and Anti-Catholicism), and would foster a closer relationship with Portugal and Latin America.

132. More society and less State.

Foralist regionalism is the ultimate form of Carlism's protest against the absolutism of the 18th century and its direct heir, the liberalism of the 19th century.

Both were unanimous in crushing the natural societies that make up society, as their ideological followers continue to be. Against them, then and now, traditionalism asserts that society must be defended from a poorly constructed State, which is based - although it should not be so - either on individualistic disintegration or on the totalitarian absorption of basic bodies.

— Center For Historical and Political Studies. «General Zumalacarregui», ¿Que es el Carlismo?

However, Traditional Catholics do not believe that the Traditional Monarchy model is compatible only with a Catholic society; instead, they believe that it is a universalist model of government, adaptable to all possible traditions and customs of any human society that is governed by Natural Law and Eternal Law (metapolitical realities that can be known even without the aid of Christian revelation or Catholic doctrine, due to being perennial truths on the order of reason and not necessarily from the order of faith). Therefore, the Catholic-monarchist groups considered it valid to develop a pan-monarchical solidarity between "authentic reactionaries", regardless of their religion, as long as those were Legitimists (usually Pretenders deposed after a Liberal Revolution), defended a conception of politics compatible with Medieval Scholasticism (which also appealed to pre-Christian Classic philosophy of law, like Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism) and the application of Natural Moral and Philosophical Realism on Iusnaturalism. For this reason, Spanish Carlists, Portuguese Miguelists, French Legitimists, Habsburg Royalists and other Catholic Integralist movements made alliances with Traditionalist Orthodox monarchical movements (like the White movement), and Reactionary Protestant ones (like the Neo-Jacobites or French Protestant Royalists like Association Sully) that had come to similar conclusions with their Political Philosophy, while also showing sympathy toward Muslim Monarchies (like Ottoman Empire, Qajar Iran, etc.) and Pagan Monarchies (like Qing China, Indian Principalities, etc.) that were being affected by Western imperialism and its attempts to impose Modernization theories to create political instability for the sake of economic exploitation.

Beside, Traditionalist Monarchies reivindicates Non-Christian Philosophers, like Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, etc. Therefore, in reaction to Enlightenment political philosophy, the Traditionalist Monarchists appealed not only to Counter-Enlightenment, but to Pre-Modern Philosophers and Pre-Counterrevolutionary Politicians, like Augustine of Hippo, Isidore of Seville, Reccared I, Thomas Aquinas, Francisco de Vitoria, Robert Bellarmine, Jerónimo Osório, Francisco de Quevedo, Juan de Mariana, Serafim de Freitas, João Salgado de Araújo, João Pinto Ribeiro, Francisco Velasco de Gouveia, Francisco Alexandre Lobo, Francisco Alvarado, José Acúrcio das Neves etc.

Francisco Elías de Tejada considered a Traditional Monarchy on Contemporary era as "what the old free order of our peoples would have been" if "the European deviations had not meddled in".

Characteristics

A traditional monarchy would develop in an active contrast to absolute and constitutional monarchies by rejecting most political changes from Modernization theory, since the Renaissance to Enlightenment (but not against Industrial society or "natural progressions"), and embracing a medieval conception of politics based on Scholasticism and inspired (but not defined) by ultramontanism. One of its proponent, António Sardinha, defined it (in the context of Iberian tradition) as "catholic, hereditary, organicist, descentralized, representative, based on the historical power of the crown, the political force of municipalities and provinces, and in the expression of the middle bodies of society", the regime would be "based on God and religion, on tradition, on authority, on principles and convictions, and on order".

Eternal Law and Fundamental Laws

See also: Thomism, Iusnaturalism, Philosophical realism, Natural law, and Rule according to higher law

Traditional Monarchy is based on the philosophycal principle that there is an Eternal Law that consists of expressing the natural ordering of everything that exists, according to its purpose in the constituted reality. This Eternal Law would be above all Entities and Organizations, being then a First principle that determines the meaning of everything else, containing in its essence all the Laws of Reality (like Laws of Logic, Laws of mathematics, Laws of Nature, Laws of Morals, as well as the Natural law of which the political order must be inspired to be Just), which are then received by Human reason through experience with reality and systematized this Knowledge through Philosophical Language of Academic discipline (like Epistemology, Science, Theology, as well as the Jurisprudence expressed on Human Laws). This Eternal Law would be a Logical truth that Metaphysically and Epistemologically can't be denied unless taking Anti-realist and Relativist positions. Then would be a Perennial truth to which all other philosophical currents point in one way or another (even those that deny it, because of its omnipresent veracity as Universals). After intuiting this Universal Truth of the Eternal Law, a next question to resolve is the identification of the cause and ultimate property of this Eternal Law that is above all authority (like Monarchs, Religious leaders, Aristocrats or Philosophers, along all Metaphysics), so it is considered to be defined as an Absolute and Ultimate reality subsistent in itself that is Universal Principle (something in which everything originates and everything points to its ends) for all Creation, which adecuates with the classical definition of God. So, the Reason of God, insofar as it establishes that order, is the Eternal Law. The Eternal Law, insofar as it is imprinted in each creature, is its Natural Law, expressed in man as Moral Law.

Then, a Traditional Monarchy is regulated by the Eternal Law (being antithetical to develop an Absolutist Monarchy or Autocracy without limitations), which due to its infinite and transcendent nature, cannot be totally codified, so being immoral that a constitutional charter (limited by its very Immanentist nature of Constitutionalism) to claim to be the highest authority and origin of the laws of a state, due to the Fallibility of Human legislature (menacing the Political Society to fall under Legal positivism, Voluntarism, Legalism and Contractualism from an arbitrary Constitutional Assembly). Instead is preferred to have a series of Fundamental Laws (subjected to and inspired by the Eternal Law of a higher character) that could be expanded through Casuistry, and also not being limited by Codified law (so being validated the legality of non-codified laws as higher authorities, like Customary law, as long as they conform to Natural Law). The role of the Monarch is mostly as a guarantor of this Fundamental Laws and the application of Natural Law, if not, the Monarch wouldn't be legit due to not fullfying the Social Pact (like Vassalage pact) that containts the fundament of its authority, and so being valid to depose that tyrannical Monarch and declare Anti-king through Legitimation of Exercise principle, based in the Isidorian formula Rex eris si recte facias; si non facias, non eris ("You will be king if you act rightly; if you do not act rightly, you will not be king"). Similar concepts of the Abrahamic Eternal Law are Logos on Ancient Greek philosophy, Dharma on Indian philosophy or Tao in Chinese philosophy.

Any doctrine that ignores the First Principle, that starts from an idea or a fact, be it called individual freedom or nation, state, community, working class or race, will pretend to an Absolute, which for the same reason cannot be limited by anyone or for nothing (...) Only then will that doctrine which puts an absolute, just one, where it should be placed, be able to save political society, and with it the man in function of whom it exists. Because this Absolute will not be the offspring of a poor human brain, but the eternal and infinite substance, which in rich and fertile simplicity contains everything, and from whom everything created derives and to which everything must return

— Julio Meinvielle, Concepción Católica de la Política

Confesional State

See also: Doctrine of the two swords, Political theology, Church and state in medieval Europe, and Augustinianism

Assuming that there is an Eternal Law that has a divine origin, in a Traditional Monarchy it is considered logical and necessary that the Clergy, as Religious Leaders with the Mystical duty of teaching and transmit the Will of God and Perennial Truths, should have a social role in the Estates of the realm by maintaining the practise of Natural law and Religion on the Public sphere, guiding Political society (although not always executing Politics) towards their Common good. Being then the clergy the teachers of the law as guarantors of a Theocentric Jurisprudence. Traditionalists Monarchists consider this as something of the Natural condition of mankind and that clergy preceded the State (existing on Nomadic an Tribal societies before developing Civitas/State) or the Monarchy (like the Hebrew Bible judges before Kingdom of Israel), as it's believed that a Natural Mysticism and Spirituality can be discovered through the Divinization/Theosis of the Soul (being in Human nature the necessity of Religion, and so on don't separated it from Politics).

Also in a Abrahamic Perspective, there's a Natural revelation of God that precedes the Divine revelation and that can be achieved through Natural reason, so Non-Religious people have no excuse to reject the Eternal Law, and so have to respect the social role of the clergy, while being immoral Secularization against Ecclesiastical jurisdiction. However, the divine law of Christians, which concerns the laws to protect and promote the ritualistic and doctrinal aspects of the Christian faith that have been revealed through Scripture (Bible) and Sacred tradition (like Mosaic law, New Covenant), does not could be imposed on those who are not Baptized or have Apostatized as it's immoral the Forced conversion or forced adoption of Christian customs that aren't related to Traditional values of Perennial order (existing a Religious Freedom limited by Common good instead of Individual liberty or Freedom of conscience, so being recognised the supremacy of True Religion instead of Laicistic state). In a Scholastic Jurisprudence exists a hierarchy of law in this order:

• Eternal Law: Constitution of reality that's reflected in everything through their own natures and proper ends, having Jurisdiction on Universe
• Divine Law: Laws given by God's direct self-revelation that express immediate conclusions of the natural moral law, having Jurisdiction only on People of God. Also laws for the relationship with God, which is exclusive to those who have Christian faith, which is only accessible to those who have had the grace to receive the revelation of the true God in an integral and undistorted manner.
• Natural Law: Rational creature's participation in the Eternal Law, having Jurisdiction on all Rational Person)
• Human Law: Human interpretation and application of Natural Law, which should be inspired inspired by the previous hierarchies of law to be virtuous and then authentic Justice with Legal validity).

If authority comes from God, [...] nothing is more evident than the unavoidable obligation to obey legitimate powers, provided that they legislate and order within the sphere of their powers. It does not prevent obedience that these powers do not know that they rule by virtue of the authority conferred upon them by God, nor that their possessors are unworthy; As long as they are legitimately constituted in power and do not prescribe anything unjust or perverse, obedience is obligatory (...) Quite the contrary is proclaimed by the doctrine of philosophy and the revolution formulated in this way in the famous Declaration of the Rights of Man: " Insurrection is the most sacred of human rights"

— Julio Meinvielle, Concepción Católica de la Política

According to Political catholicism perspective, the Spiritual Power of the Church has a Plenitudo potestatis through the Papacy as Vicar of Christ, having a Prerogative to politically influence the secular authorities in questions of Eternal law (like Teachings of Faith and Morality) and the Pope having a right to intervene against Christian Monarchs that could be against Natural law (like Excommunication of the Monarch and declare the throne vacant while legitimizing possible uprisings, similar to an international condemnation on actual International criminal law). Although, this political power of the Church as an Universal power couldn't be turned in a Hierocracy (the erroneous interpretation that the Church held supreme authority over not just spiritual, but also temporal affairs), as the Catholic Social Teaching condemns the development of Sacerdotal state (model of government in which Clergy are the sole rulers of civil society). There would then be a single Christian Socieity placed under the condominium of two sovereign authorities, encarnating spiritual and temporal power, the Popes and the Emperors.

Alliance between Throne and Altar

See also: Throne and altar and Constantinianism

From the perspective of a Traditional Monarchy, man is by nature subject to two universal powers:

• The spiritual power that represents religious order (which in Christianity was the Church, in Islam was the Caliphate). Headed by the Pope in the Western Christianity, the Autocephaly presided by Ecumenical Patriarch in the Eastern Christianity, or the Caliphs in the Islamic world.
• The temporal power that represents secular order (which was represented by a leader, the emperor or the monarch) who was to practice and inspire the metaphysical values ​​of virtue and morality.

From the perspective of the Abrahamic world, it was necessary for the sovereign to be anointed, so that, as king by the grace of God, he would promote justice and peace among the people of God (like for example, the Kings of Israel and Judah with the rite of Holy anointing oil by the Kohen). In this way, the priesthood as guardian of the faith must rely on kings and anoint them to guide Humanity towards its redemption. On the Christendom, some examples of a well practised Throne and Altar alliance have been Constantine the Great, Pepin the Great, Charlemagne, Louis I the Pious, Lothair I, Louis II of Italy, Charles III "the Fat" of France, Arnulf of Carinthia, Henry "the Fowler" of Germany, Otto I "the Great" of Germany, Otto II of Germany, Otto III of Germany, Robert II of France, Henry I of France, Philip I of France, Louis VI of France, Louis VIII of France, Philip II of France, Louis VIII of France, Saint Louis IX of France, Philip III of France, Philip IV of France, Philip VI of France, John II of France, Charles V of France, Charles VI of France, Charles VII of France, Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon), Maximilian I of Austria, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Philip II of Spain, etc. All of them and their Royal Houses (Constantinian, Carolingian, Ottonian, Capet, Trastamara, Habsburg, Habsburg-Lorraine) at the time were considered to be leaders of the Res publica Christiana, being relevant for the Dominium mundi dispute and rejecting the proto-nationalist Raison d' etat from Secular humanism during the Renaissance and Early Modern era. However, this political Theocentrism doesn't imply a Theocracy (as Catholics think in terms of natural and supernatural goods, in which the State isn't guardian and enforcer of religious doctrine because the ends of religion are supernatural and placed under the jurisdiction of the Church, while the state remains the sovereign potestas [power] over civil questions), and also don't imply that all the Kings that pretends a Thone-Altar alliance will be coherent with those claims, as there were disputes between the Church and the Royal Power when the last one tried to made the Church an organ of the state under bureaucratic supervision (like Gallicanist influence on Bourbon France, Regalism on Spanish monarchy or Josephinism on Habsburg monarchy, which pretended to develop a Catholicism of state), while the Traditionalist Monarchists reivindicates the right of independence jurisdiction of the Church and to be granted considerable influence over family law and education in detriment of the Secular one (which could be influenced by the Enlightenment, such as Liberalism, Nationalism and Socialism, which menaced the Traditional Order and so the Monarchy has to be respectfull of Sacral power superiority), while the Church itself teaches that it's a supra-national and integrative force that trascends the Human Political Conceptions.

The French Revolution (1789 – 1795) marked a radical rejection of Throne and Altar. Following the murders in 1793 of King Louis XVI and his Queen, Marie Antoinette, their thrones disappeared and the royal altars were reduced to marble slabs, stripped bare of all ornaments and sacramentals. All this stripping, emptying, and destruction was called de-Christianization. No more church bells on Sunday mornings in Paris, no more Sundays. (...) France remained, for the most part, Catholic, though the children’s schools became secular schools, without the services of nuns and priests or the mention of dogma. (The Revolution exiled 30,000 priests to foreign ports or French Guiana and were said to have executed as many.) Parisians stopped attending Sunday mass partly because the sermons now given by politicians were so deadly boring. Church music provided no relief. The magnificent cathedral choirs, parish choirs, and organs in Saint Sulpice and Saint Severin, among others, went silent. As a result, the Church, originally supportive of some of the changes introduced by the Revolution, turned against it. For the next hundred years, the Church lived in a state of counter-revolutionary hatred

— Susan Cahill

On a Sunni Muslim perspective, those examples are on the Rashidun Caliphate, Umayyad Caliphate, Abbasid Caliphate, Ottoman Caliphate and the Hashemite Caliphate, through the claims of Caliphs to also being Sultan of Sultans and leaders of Ummah (equivalent to Res publica Christiana), which fundaments the alliance of Ulama and State religion. However, after the fall of Kingdom of Hejaz during the Unification of Saudi Arabia, along the imposition of Wahhabism and the International propagation of Salafism, some islamic traditionalist monarchists considers that there isn't an authentic alliance of Throne and Althar without a legit Caliph, only an Enlightened Despotism in which the balance of power shifted in favour of the political sphere since the first Constitution of the Ottoman Empire through Turkish Secularism, and remained in the hands of the political leaders since the consolidation of the Saudi state after 1932 under Abd al-Aziz, to the detriment of the religious establishment that was protected by the Hashemites as Caliphs (after a Translatio imperii from Ottoman Caliphs after the Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire), being so House of Saud monarchical ideology a form of Islamic modernism with Reactionary aesthetics.

According to neo-pagan traditionalists and referents of Perennialist School, like Julius Evola, in Pre-Christian Rome (and by extension, all Pagan societies) there was no distinction of universal powers, being the Pontifex maximus also the Caesar and so, having a Monist vision of Universal power in which Secular/Temporal and Religious/Spiritual power were the same Absolute Universal Power. Also postulates that in Eastern civilization exist similar conceptions, like the Mandate of Heaven in Taoism, or the Chakravarti on Dharmic religions, etc. On this perspective, those pagan traditionalist monarchists considered Abrahamanism and Medieval philosophy as the inmediate precursor of Modernization theory and Secularism that lead to the Fall of civilization through the errors of Separation of powers that are a "Necessary Accident" of Abrahamic Political Thought. Despite the criticisism over Traditionalist Catholicism, those Integral traditionalists considers that in Catholic Doctrine are traces of a perennial wisdom that can be legit basis for a an “esoteric” dimension of various elements (such as Political science in a Traditionalist perspective, like Integral Catholicism or Esoteric Christianity), and so being legit Traditional Monarchies based in Thomism, despite the rejection of Aristotelian Hylomorphism in favour of Platonic realism as basis of Iusnaturalism. From Abrahamic perspective, there's no need to have always a "Sacerdotal-King" and that since the Old Covenant the Kingdom office was the Meshiach ben David and Priest office was the Meshiach ben Joseph, and just in brief times there was Kings having also Spiritual power, like Melchizedek.

Religious Unity

Also, within Christian anthropology, based on the Scholastic and Thomistic conception of the human being, the Traditionalist Monarchists believes that man is a concrete being, a Person with a social and individual nature, not only determined by individuality or collectivity. This would imply that every religion that claims to be an absolute truth, then should have a social dimension (with respect of non-religious individuals). On a Catholic Integralist perception, Pope Leo XIII taught that a church without a state is like a soul without a body, and vice versa, and he went so far as to affirm the proposition against the secularist revolution about that: "Religion is the interior and exterior expression of the dependence that we owe to God in the title of justice", concluding that religion is the necessary foundation of the moral sense, and therefore the basis of social order. Which consequently, claims the existence of a common civic duty to defend religion against "an atheistic school, which, despite the protests of nature and history, strives to dismiss God from society." Christian faith, then, was not simply a matter of the individual soul or the sacristy, but the architectural principle of human society and the guiding wisdom of politics towards its true ends with the common good. This defense of tradition put Catholic Monarchical conceptions in open opposition to modern culture and its secular humanism, which the Liberal Revolutions and the Regalist ideas of the Absolute Monarchies (both condemned) tried to adopt as their own. Pope Leo XIII would also criticize extremely theocratic and extremist clericalist conceptions of the confessional state, coming from some radical ultramontane groups, which sought to convert civil society into a property or extension of the Church, without respecting the natural freedom of secular power together with the autonomy of the forms and processes of the political order. The error of these hyper-conservative groups would reside in the reduction of the State to the level of a mere "means", when it's in itself "an end" for Catholic doctrine and Thomist teleology (although only as an intermediate end). Against this, Leo XIII would protest in the name of the natural order, which would imply defending the legitimate freedom of civil society to be able to simply be civil society, not to be ecclesiastical in its entirety, since that violates the jurisdictional distinction between Church and State (the denial of such a distinction would be closer to political Islam), which is a distinction in orders of reality that are certainly related, but still radically discontinuous, as are nature and grace. Between the lower and the higher order there is an absolute disproportion, such that public things and the secular methods of the lower order (the State) cannot properly be means (in essence) for the ends of the higher order [the Church), since that would generate an undervaluation of the political order, denying its capacity to that it may be the means of expression of natural human ideals, logical truths of social and public welfare that can be discovered despite Christian Revelation (because is considered morality as a metaphysical reality of an objective, natural and universal character for all men, although its teleological development is considered in Catholic truth), or also an overvaluation of the political order (attributing to it functions of salvation that are out of proportion to its nature, beyond the legitimate scope of the means and powers at its disposal, which would bring the danger of falling into the Caesaropapism condemned by Rome). The Church would therefore teach that the first freedom of civil society is the freedom to be good according to its own distinct nature, as a civil society governing earthly society (the affairs of this temporal earth, the raison d'être of civil society, have their own value), while this freedom should also respect that of ecclesiastical society in matters of faith and morals, seeking a dynamic co-operation to achieve harmony between the two powers and the two societies in the Social Kingship of Christ, based on the Doctrine of the Two Swords of political Augustinianism (which teaches that the temporal-secular power is inferior in dignity and purpose, but also that the superiority of the spiritual power does not imply clerical absolutism), as well as the Principle of subsidiarity of the Social Doctrine of the Church, and against the theory of the Two kingdoms doctrine and Sphere sovereignty of Modern Protestantism.

However, the defense of the principle of "Catholic Unity" must not imply policies of forced conversion nor unjust religious intolerance that could prevent the common good and coexistence between different spiritual communities in the same society (so being immoral to subdue Non-Christians to the Christian Divine Law that are truths of faits, but Christians and Non-Christians are under a same Eternal Law which is expressed in Natural Law as truths of reason, and it's also contained in Catholic social teaching), although reservations are made that the "political rights of the true religion" must prevail in public order and not be a mere private matter of conscience, and that the state must be in accordance with the defense of the Catholic conception of politics against the evil influence of arbitriary ideologies (like Progressivism) and heresies (like Modernist heresy) when there's Separation of church and state (having the main goal to avoid Dechristianization). Finally, the Church teaches that it is forbidden for states to impose the "profession of Catholicism" on their citizens, since that's an invasion of the conscience of the non-Catholic citizen, who can only embrace the faith voluntarily in his conscience, in order to have a sincere conversion; if not, it would be a crime to the natural rights of the human person about the Free Will to follow or not to follow Christ, besides being immoral because it endangers the salvation of the souls of non-Catholics, as they could feel an unjust aversion for the gospel. Then, the obligation of the Catholic legislator to give Catholic laws to the Catholic society is founded, not to societies outside of its spiritual sovereignty of the Church. However, non-believers should refrain from inciting the Apostasy of Catholics (as Freedom of thought isn't the same as liberal Freedom of conscience without limitations), or that could be a matter of state by endangering the public good of souls with Polemic that could evolve in social conflicts (like Religious war). Similar conceptions are seen on the Political aspects of Islam with the concept of Dhimmi in the Sharia Law, or Judaism and politics with the Seven Laws of Noah in the Jewish law.

"And the Government cannot impose the law on the citizens of a free country at its discretion, but must govern them by the law they have, by the law that lives in their consciences, by the law that is in their codes, by the law that animates their customs. And if there exists in Spain a national law that covers all its territory, that includes all its regions, that extends to all social classes, that lives in all families, an organic law of domestic and public life, it is undoubtedly Catholicism, which therefore constitutes the most effective bond of national unity."

— Josep Torras i Bages, Dios y El César, Pastoral letter of March 19, 1911

Natural Order inspired by Tradition

The Traditional Monarchy considers Tradition as the best source to transmit what's best for societies, as Customary laws that have been maintained through a lot of generations are because those are the best Social norms because have been polished through historical experience to be preserved and perfected their application for future generations, containing so the Essence of a Society and what has been their Empirical practices to reach Justice and so having a natural Progress based in renovation through trial and error. However, it's fundamental the subordination of Traditions to a superior criterion, which is Moral universalism, to avoid the idolatry and tolerance of Barbarian attitudes and behaviours that should be abolished by society independently of it Antiquity (and so, being important the superiority of Perennial trues that are contained in Religion and Metaphysic Philosophy).

[Tradition] It's the heritage of a people, it's language, it's customs, it's faith, it's laws; it outlines the characteristics that distinguish it from others and that allow each individual to recognize himself as part of it. Tradition gathers together the best that a generation has been able to build within the framework of its own heritage. "What we receive from our ancestors is not the same cultural heritage that we transmit to our descendants, because in the cultural core that we transmit we insert our personal contribution, the fruit of our actions. This contribution that each generation adds to what it has received from previous generations, is progress [...], since there is no progress without tradition nor tradition without progress. To progress is naturally to change and morally improve what constitutes the received Tradition."

The traditional social order: Tradition, therefore, is "the continuity of life" of a Nation and this, like all living organisms, is formed by different organs, the intermediate social bodies. With the words of the great philosopher of law Francisco Elías de Tejada we will say that "each of these intermediate societies serves to give the greater society its organic nature; they possess a particular and independent life in their respective sphere; they include the individual from birth to death; they are not created by the supreme power but recognized by it. Some come directly from natural law, such as the family; others are the result of history, like peoples; sometimes they have a public life, others are limited to private spheres. On certain occasions they are self-sufficient, and only need protection and coordination with neighboring societies, like cities; there is no shortage of those that act like the State, but with superior aims and higher rights, like the Catholic Church [...], they serve as a measure of the actions of the concrete man and, given their independence from the State, are a sure source of human balance»

— Marina Carrese

The Customary principles and practices that a Traditional Monarchy reivindicates can be summarized as follows:

• The local laws and autonomy of each territory are established and respected, for the corporative benefit of the Subjects and the Monarchy to have good government.
• Parliament are convened in which the people are represented individually, but also as part of the estates of the realms.
• The Monarchy, insofar as it is successive, in theory prevents irresponsible people from coming to power. Thus, one does not reign out of interest but out of duty. This duty is assumed from the very moment of birth, which consists of training to govern as a wise and prudent king who knows how to listen and care about the needs of his subjects.
• If a minister, councillor or member of the nobility does not behave as he should, he will not enjoy the status, but may be imprisoned, banished, his property confiscated and even punished with the maximum penalty for high treason (which in some traditions can be the death penalty).
• The King will be accountable to God. In the Catholic case, the Holy See ensures compliance with what is prescribed by the Divinity.
• The poorest subjects should never lack what is necessary thanks to the obligation to give alms and the respect of the common lands (like Customary land, independently of formalist Aboriginal title). On them, the people can graze cattle, collect firewood, hunt and have their Means of production (basical ones, like Three acres and a cow of Distributism).
• The people live in freedom thanks to the principles of Religion and/or Eternal Law.
• All are equal in the eyes of God, due to the principle of Human dignity.
• The higher the rank in Hierarchy, the more is required of each person in compliance with the Ethics of virtues.
• The King does not act according to his personal interests, but has been educated to attend to the interests of others, or he is pressured to abdicate or even dismiss him for lacking legitimacy of exercise.

Organic Corporatism

See also: Corporatism, Consociationalism, Organicism, and Christian corporatism

The starting point of the Traditional Monarchy, to distinguish itself from other forms of Monarchy (like Liberal or Absolutist), is the organic concept of society, from whose frames of reference the "social" is considered as an autonomous sphere of sovereignty in relation to what the State, having then a corporatist vision of the political community in order to maintain the perennial character of the "social organism", whose essence is embodied in its natural and organic political traditions (that are ordered to Natural law and Eternal law) that have had an organic historical development based on historical experience and practical demonstration to renew and purge themselves. This corporatist vision of power and society could be found in Medieval Monarchies or in the Catholic-Imperial block on the Early Modern Age (the Habsburg Monarchy, Habsburg Spain, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Electorate of Bavaria, Holy Roman Empire, Papal States) inspired by Natural law and Res publica Christiana, but this same vision was viewed with skepticism in Protestant monarchies (Kingdom of England, Scotland, Dutch Republic, Brandenburg–Prussia, Sweden, Denmark–Norway) and in Catholic and Orthodox monarchies of a regalist and cesaropapist character (such as the Politiques' Kingdom of France, Bourbon Spain, Josephinist Habsburg monarchy, Pombaline Portugal, Venetian republic, Duchy of Savoy, post-Petrine reforms Russian Empire) that were inspired by the Divine right of kings and Raison d' etat of Secular humanist Renaissance origin, both vision of power and society clashed during the Thirty Years' War (being victorious the anti-corporatist and absolutist vision in the Westphalian system), and the corporatist vision ended up being totally alien and rejected in the liberal monarchies since the 19th century based on Individualist Contractualist Subjective rights and Voluntarism of Enlightenment Social contract conception. Its distinctive feature of Traditional Monarchy is the protection of the Kingdom of the corporate representation (through Intermediate Bodies) and the guarantee of the socio-historical continuity of a natural social order (and in the Catholic case, of a Christian social order based on Social Kingship of Christ and Catholic social teaching) which is the expression of the natural formation of political societies built from scratch and not artificially planned by the State and the Modernist Ideologies.

In this traditional monarchy, a king with effective power was advocated who would respect, in all cases, the order established by God, the natural laws (which, in turn, came from God), tradition and the organic social structure inspired by the medieval Courts and societies. (...) At the same time, the great majority of the articles that discussed the traditional monarchy did so in opposition to liberalism - and the democracy associated with it - and, although it may seem paradoxical, as we will have the opportunity to explain later, in opposition to eighteenth-century absolutism.

— Jordi Cerdà Serrano

To ensure the Class collaboration without arbitrary Interventionism or unjustified Deregulation that could allienate the corporative system and generate Class conflict, it's considered as part of the Natural Law the principles of Subsidiarity and Solidarism (based in Catholic social teaching), which the Monarchy will be forced to ensure in its Fundamental Laws and Practice of law to be legit in exercise, as it's an inherent part of the Vassalage pact (as Privileges are granted by the obligatorily condition of doing Service to the Subjects of the Crown, if not, the Subjects aren't obligated to be Serfs). However this rejects the very similar Neo-Calvinist principle of Sphere sovereignty (which have in common that's also against the Monolithic conception of Sovereignty from Liberalism Modern State, rejecting that king absolutism or the people democracy were the source of sovereign, instead being in different spheres of society like family, the business, science, art, church, secular state, etc. that should respect themselves) due to denying the existence of "superior" social spheres in relation to other "inferior" ones, and with it the possibility that one is hierarchically subordinated to another according to natural law (such as the temporal sphere subordinated to the spiritual sphere, according to Scholastic Doctrine of Two Swords against Modern Two kingdoms doctrine), which causes a conception of Christian corporatism that understands the independence of the social sectors themselves as an "absolute right" (where the separation of different social spheres must be done by force if necessary, being compatible with a moderated Laicistic Separation of church and state, but against Subsidiarity) instead of understanding the right to independence as a "secondary" natural right subordinated to the duty of harmonious participation of all social sectors with the ultimate goal of achieving the common good of the person.

Its government had to be informed by the two great traditional political principles:

- the principle of solidarity, according to which each individual and each social body, commoner or prince, single person or institution, must carry out its own specific task, must do its part, must contribute to the common good, the ultimate goal of each activity;

- the principle of subsidiarity, according to which each social body - family, municipality, associations, state authority - must be able to carry out its own role to the extent possible, without delegating it to others; on the other hand, no one can replace it, invade its field of action, override its rights, prerogatives and duties; subsidiary action, that is, support, must be provided only in the case of a concrete impossibility of the body in charge to carry out its task, or of an objective situation that requires excessive commitment for its possibilities.

Both of these principles are based on the assumption of responsibility for one's social role and, permeated by religious sentiment, borrowed as they are from natural law in the light of faith, can be effectively summarized in one word: service. The traditional monarchy was precisely service, to which the King was called; a service that he had to render with a spirit of fatherhood towards his people, respecting their freedoms, cultural specificities, forms of local autonomy, customs, privileges.

— Marina Carrese

Intermediate bodies

See also: Organic law and Organic unity

Those are a series of Organic Political Bodies and Social organizations from Common people (based on Customary law and Natural Social relation) that should be recognised by the Monarchy (not created or developed by the Monarchy) through Vassalage Pact between Monarch and Subjects, and settled by Fundamental laws and Statutory law (like Spanish Fuero) ratifying that Social Sovereign that precedes the State and its Sovereignty. This "Sociedalism" is explained as the Monarchy is a Political society based in concrete Associations that are pacted before the establishment of State Jurisdiction (justifying also the existence of Multinational states among different nations that choose to be under a same Political Societies, and also Fragmented Nations that chooses to be under differente Political Societies). Therefore, the Intermediate Bodies represents organic social corps that have been developed through natural means in the social experience instead of artificial Social engineerings from the State, being their basis in the Family (considered to be the principal Social unit which emanates the rest, as the first social interaction of the human person is at home) and it's head the Aristocracy (considered the natural supervisor of a society by representing Virtue ethics on Politics, so leading the Hierarchy to Common good), while in the middle there are a series of Social organizations spontaneously formed according to their natural means for the function of Society (like spiritual, cultural, regional, economical, etc.), and so it's Substantial form should be respected by the Monarchy instead of arbitrarly modificated in the name of Reason and Efficiency, being then the Centralisation of power from the Monarchy against the Intermediate Bodies (to achieve a Sovereign state based in Modernization theory) the explanation of the Ancien régime's decadence according to traditionalists Sociology, and also the causes for the appearance of the limited modern Political spectrum ideologies based in an abstract conception of humans from an Homo economicus that needs to be a New Man (which led to Revolution and in the worst to Totalitarianism or Anarchism), instead of a concrete understand of humans from the spontaneous and organic Intermediate Bodies.

Each social organ therefore carries out a vital function that is its own, which cannot be delegated to others nor can it be taken away from it by others. Every imbalance in the functioning of the different organs inevitably leads to the disease or death of the social body. The first and basic intermediate body is the family, the natural community in which man is born and grows, which he needs to survive. In traditional society it was recognized as prior and superior to political power, so much so that, in the Middle Ages, the importance of a country was given by the number of "hearths" and not by the number of individuals who lived there. Even within the family, each person plays a specific role and that of the father is to be its administrator, but "instead of the authority of a head he has rather the authority of a responsible manager, directly interested in the prosperity of the house, but who in this fulfills a duty rather than exercising a right. His task is to protect the weak, women, children and servants. If there are assets, he only has the usufruct: as he has received them from the ancestors, so he must pass them on to those who will succeed him by birth. The true owner is the family, not the individual". The irrepressible task of the family is the education of children, that is, the transmission of tradition. Only in the family, in fact, and in the first years of life, can we learn and establish the principles that will give meaning and direction to our entire existence. This is why totalitarian regimes remove the education of children and young people from families, placing them as soon as possible in state educational organizations. Family aggregations, in turn, give rise to other intermediate bodies that make up the framework of society. These are, for example, the minor and major territorial communities, starting from the municipality up to supranational entities such as federations and empires; or the voluntary associations, formed by individuals on the basis of common interests of a professional, religious or even recreational nature. The bonds that originate the entire social organism, from the family to the kingdom or empire, are so deep that each person carries them rooted within himself, independently of personal or historical events.

— Marina Carrese

It is similar to the modern concept of Statutory corporation, but through an Anti-statist practice, as those Social Corporations (like Estates of the realm, Nations, Municipality, Guilds, Academies) don't depend on having Constitutional Status, only to be justified by Natural rights (which are above the King and its Monarchy). The existence of such a dualism between social and state sovereignty would serve as a safeguard of the concrete freedoms of human societies and the natural person, by crystallizing in it the "autarchies" of social groups, which emerge from the family as the essential nucleus of society, as it serves the individual person to integrate into society as a whole. The role of the Monarchy is to be a perpetual guarantor of those Concrete Freedoms through legitimacy of exercise, as the Monarchs are submitted to respect that social sovereign to being fulfilled the pact of vassalage, if a King don't fulfil the obligations, the Organized Communities are liberated of its obligations and can appeal to Right of resistance, justified Rebellion or Secession, so being legally impossible to be under an Autocracy unless through Usurpation. The recognition of Intermediate Bodies also can be done by a Classical Republic (like Venetian republic or Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth), but Traditionalist Monarchists considers that those are less efficient due to not having a perpetual Royal dynasty as Head of state to maintain Political Continuity and the Familialist principles (although Traditionalists Monarchists respect the use of Direct democracy in case those are based on particular traditions and customs). An essential criticism of Traditionalists Monarchists against French Revolution is the abolition of those Intermediate Bodies through Le Chapelier Law 1791, in which was attacked the Traditional Freedom of association to impose Economic liberalism.

"An instrument of government is needed"

We said that the appropriate instrument of government is the set of State bodies itself. In order to move from bottom to top, the social organizations, guilds or corporations, whether public or of the State, Region and Municipality, or properly social or guild. And from top to bottom, the hierarchy of authority and its Bodies. The party is an instrument of social division, a divorce of authority from the people, and a source of serious evils. The party is not necessary and it hinders even more, it is by nature a solvent and contrary to the purpose of society. It should not be attempted to replace it, but rather to abrogate it in the manner and way that prudence advises.

This mission that is attributed to the party corresponds to the organs of the State itself and principally to those of the Nation, to the Corporations and trade associations of society in which all are included, out of duty and love, but observing - and this circumstantially and for social therapy - not those that are declared today, but those that served before, because this analysis shows exclusions of necessity for the defence of the social order.

— Manuel Fal

Natural hierarchies

A Traditional Monarchy defends that, as a logical consecuence of the natural intermediate bodies (with its heterogeneous constitution), then there is a natural Social inequality, not based on Materialist criteria of Economical Utility, but on a Metaphysical one in function to the differences between people caused by nature (like Culture, Ethnicity, Genre, Sexuality, Personal Capabilities, Social Traditions, etc.) which generates Heterogeneous Interests that should be respected if those are justs (and so, not conflictive with others), instead of forcing an Equality before the law between legit different social groups, which their natural differences should be recognised by Law and letting Social mobility in function of Perfectionism. Then, it's rejected the Modern Egalitarianism based in abstract conceptions of the Human Person and Social Reality (like Rousseaunian Myth of the Noble savage or Kantian Phenomenalism, both which have a lot of Rationalization of Nature against it's Entitative Property).

The political philosophy of the Revolution elevates man to the measure of all things, independently of divine ordinances, transforming himself into the axis and center of the universe. Anthropological optimism links Rousseau with Kant and with the legislators of 1789. Rousseau idealizes the abstract man to perfection, the savage without traditions, by definition good; Kant exalts the perfection of man in himself, independently of cultural traditions, believing him capable of understanding the cosmos in the use that his pure reason makes of the data of reality and of knowing what is just in the naked autonomy of his "autonomous" will; The men of 89 do not declare what the rights of the French man are, but those of the abstract man without traditions. For Europe, man has no history, he is a being devoid of a living past. An idea that appears when Europe is born. Before, in the centuries of Christianity, Christian society had an organic hierarchical order, each man was framed in a certain social group, whether religious (orders, brotherhoods), religious-military (orders of chivalry), economic (guilds), or political (arms or estates). Personal effort raised the inferior to higher levels of the mystical social body, but this enjoyed a solid structure, since within it each component member was part of an order and an element of a hierarchy. The Christian organic community, according to the idea of the concrete man, constituted the counterweight to the Thomist cathedrals of the Summae and the human pairing most suitable to the divine order in the course of the sidereal stars (...)

— Francisco Elías de Tejada

The fundamental problem is believing that inequality in rights and privileges implies being unequal in dignity. Equality before the law is a farce and ancient law was wise in treating unequals unequally. Since we are unequal in our needs and our way of being, laws are required that respond correctly to these particular cases and that is why the charters of the different Spanish regions existed: to attend to the different needs with difference. Although this idea is clear within Carlism, outside of Carlism it is not so clear and much less so among those who subscribe to the Internet Hispanicism born in the last decade.

— Eduardo Jiménez

Descentralization and political heterogeneity

See also: Legal pluralism, Polycentric law, Fuero, and Municipalism

Decentralization of the regional or local base is the most essential thing in a Traditional Monarchy, because it considers local institutions and legislatures as the basis of political societies built organically and not by the Centralised modern State with its ideological models. It is therefore extremely important to preserve local authorities with traditional origins, in order to prevent political power from falling into the hands of various pressure groups (such as members of a political party, or a handful of technocrats led by a dictator) who only find opposition in the complex modern Sovereign state machine with Monopoly of force that they make it work (thus threatening the practice of the principle of subsidiarity), concluding that the democratic party system hijacks true social representation and puts politics at the service of oligarchic power groups (the capitalists or a corrupted elite) or revolutionary sects (the socialists or fascists) that do not understand true representation (only serving to state Bureaucracy or their own partys) and at worst their factionalism could risk the Political stability by generating conditions for the appearance of separatist or anarchist groups, as well as caudillos and populist politicians that could be potential dictators through a Coup d'état. In this sense, a Traditional Monarchy advocates that the central state should only recognize its powers as a mere "additional activity" to assist local institutions of pre-state origin (if and only if such local institutions had serious difficulties in achieving the common good, otherwise there would be an unjust interventionist statism or an unjust abandonment of the state), reaching a middle point between Big government and small government. Also is considered preferable to have a Monarch as Head of state due to being more difficult to have political inconsistency and so being the most efficient form to maintain the corporative system and fight against Particracy.

Also, a Traditional Monarchy should recognise the pluralistic social reality of the political society, as it's considered impossible to have an uniformist society that reached cultural homogenization. So, there should be a system of Local legislatures that protects Cultural diversity and also has the power to decree and apply its own norms that address its social problems with a more realistic approximation than the laws of a dominant state (as in the constitutional system, in which only a national legislature have that kind of rights). This led to traditionalist monarchists to criticise the concept of Popular sovereignty and Nationalist ideology, as the first principle granted too many rights to an abstractly defined population without concrete substance (because it is assumed that a people can reach an agreement, ignoring such natural differences in social reality, making such a criterion based on a logical contradiction, which also generates that in the end sovereignty falls on bureaucrats of institutions that self-proclaims representatives of the people's will through a Fallacy), while the second ideology was based on the incoherent principle of the nation-state (because traditionalists considered the nation not to be a political reality, but rather a natural social construction based on a concrete affinity rather than on some purpose towards the common good) and sought an unjust forcing of other peoples to live according to the laws of a nation artifitially defined by nation-state ideologues that, consciously or unconsciously, they caused a dominant nation to impose its socio-political uses and customs on the others (which also lead to a Centralized government that reached it's natural evolution on the Fascist state). Then, For traditional monarchy, the principle of nationalities and national sovereignty prevailed in modernity against the common loyalty to a supranational Monarch who represents universality beyond the borders of each people and nation (which is more suitable with Christian universalism), putting them in opposition to the ideology of Nationalism, which traditional monarchical thinkers such as Charles Maurras accused of "nationalitarianism".

"The preliminary concept of the political nation is undoubtedly that of sovereignty. Since Jean Bodin's thematization of a virtually unlimited power, the concept of sovereignty is not only progressively emancipating itself from any constraint, but it is also making its way into European mentalities. Already a few years before the French Revolution, Rousseau presents the immediate antecedent of the link between nation and sovereignty: popular sovereignty.

It is necessary to point out another decisive factor in the formation of political nationalism: the Protestant schism. Sovereignty and political Protestantism had in common this secularization of power and virtually demanded a new foundation of social cohesion that would replace the classic political virtues, rooted in the order of purpose.

Legitimate power goes from being collated by God and therefore identified with the mission of the common good - legitimized by its purpose and by its divine origin - to being a mere image of the social aggregation itself, and in that sense, identified with the same social aggregate, with the multitude.

— José Antonio Ullate Fabo

The political community can also be referred to with the term State. The word "State" here does not refer to the machinery or instrument of social power - the ideological conception of the State - but rather refers to a "natural institution". Sometimes, it designates political - or civil - society, including in it the legitimate authority that governs it. On other occasions, it designates the institution of government. The nation in the classical sense, which was the exclusive one until the preliminaries of 1789, is not a political reality, that is, it is not related, ordered, to the temporal common good. Therefore, although the nation in this classical sense is also a natural reality, it is not formally confused with the political community. "The nation... - Clement maintains - appears as a community of spiritual, moral and cultural values." Another concept is that of the homeland. In the classical sense, it can be seen from two points of view, either as the "land of the fathers, of the ancestors" (with a primary material sense), or (more formally) as the common good accumulated by the preceding generations, the main sources of political piety. (...) We are faced with the necessary vagueness of the nation in the modern sense, since it does not designate any reality of order, but rather a necessary postulate for the construction of the new politics of liberal or revolutionary democracies (...) As Griffin explains, "although nationalists are accustomed to invoking a heroic past that goes back to the nebula of time, as if to legitimize the demands they make in the name of "their" people, "nationalism" as an ideology that defines the relations of individuals with the State and that legitimizes what this State undertakes in the name of its citizens was literally inconceivable before the modern age" (...) Nationalism goes far beyond the so-called "identitarian" or "separatist" nationalisms. Nationalism is configured as the theory that identifies the multitudes with their State apparatuses regardless of any purpose and therefore the doctrine that legitimizes the action of these as executors of the will of the political nation

— José Antonio Ullate Fabo

Organic democracy

See also: Christian democracy and illiberal democracy

In Traditional Monarchy, is rejected the liberal idea that in democracy the reason only depends on the will of the people, while is defended a organic democracy that's conceived as a cordial forum for the recognition of the decisions of the people in thei Local governments if and only if these decisions recognize the just truth (the Natural law), in which the democratic mechanisms have to adjust to a natural order in which the politics cannot go against the perennial truth that right reason dictates. Then, Traditional monarchy is considered politically effective and authentically democratic because it is modulated ("tempered") by the living bodies of the nation (Intermediate Bodies) that guarantees a Direct democracy in a Localist way, and not by the artificial limitations of bourgeois parliamentarism and Representative democracy. The practice of democracy in a Traditional Monarchy is based in Intellectualism over Voluntarism, in which a moral unity in the local institutions is maintained and has primacy over the relative will of people.

The consequence of this organicist conception of society is the doctrine of "Christian democracy," that is, the attribution and recognition to the people of the status, of the position that corresponds to them in the social whole; and, in addition, the sovereignty exercised by the intermediate social groups, family, municipality, region, Church, preserving their sphere of self-government, through corporate and trade union organizations. In this way, specifically "social" sovereignty is articulated, distinct from "political" sovereignty as "the right that corresponds to the superior person of a society to compel its members to acts conducive to the social end, insofar as by nature and circumstances, those members are incapable of ordering themselves to said good or end." This leads to the legitimization of monarchical autocracy, in which the king occupies "the fullness of the legislative, executive and judicial power that each person exercises in his corresponding autarchy." This conception of sovereignty and society culminates in the doctrine of representation, where the political sovereignty of the monarch and the "autarchies" of the different intermediate bodies are developed. Representation is resolved in the petitions and consultations that are carried out through the institutional dialogue between the king and the people organized corporately in estate courts.

— Pedro Carlos González Cuevas

Legitimism

The Legitimacy of a Traditional Monarchy is conditioned by two Interdependent principles:

• Legitimacy of origin, which is based in the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom and of the Laws of succession of a Royal house that are current at the time and are validated by the vassal pact of the Monarch with the people in accordance with divine law. While it's possible to change the Laws of Succession or do a legal transition to a non-monarchical government, those changes should be approved by the Representative bodies and the King in Synergy, not arbitrarly by sole the King or sole a Congress because that would be considered an Usurpation of a Dictatorial Dynasty that turns into Tyrant, or a of a Tyrannical Parliament that leads to Oligarchy or Oclocracy.
• Legitimacy of exercise, which is based in the adjustment of the King to Natural law in its practise of governing. Being possible for a Kingdom (after developing a thorough examination of the actions of a King, legitimate in its origin, that could be against Common good) to unrecognise a Tyrannical King, rebel against him and declare it's government to be formally null retroactively (so, not being an usurpation the deposition of a Tyrannical King, as he never was a real King by law). However, this legitimacy of exercise is not primarily conditioned by the Liberal consent of the governed (seen as something secondary, due to the possibility of error in popular tendencies), nor on a Legalist attitude toward the Human laws of Positive law (which could be imperfect), but rather by the correct observance from the King of the Natural Moral Law that precedes Positive and negative rights and emanates of God itself. In the content of Natural Law is considered the respect of the King to the Self-governance of his subjects. Also is condemned an unjustified rebellion, even if it's a popular one (like Social Revolution), due to being against Natural Law the rebellion to a Virtous Rule or to don't demonstrate to be a superior alternative of governance.

Legitimacy refers to the origin of power. […] In Carlism, legitimate power is that of the legitimate dynasty. […] Legitimacy by blood can be lost by the misuse of power, but what they call "legitimacy of exercise" does not mean that [someone ] without legitimacy of origin can be legitimized by the good use of the power that it effectively has [Note: assuming that it were possible for an illegitimate subject of origin to "use well" the factual power], but that good use confirms the legitimacy of origin [prior]. In reality, we should speak of "illegitimacy of exercise" as a way of losing the legitimacy of origin. Whoever does not give importance to the legitimacy of blood, although he then defends the establishment of a supposedly monarchical power, is, At heart, a Republican.

— Álvaro D'Ors, «Legitimidad», El Pensamiento Navarro (March 5, 1971)

The so-called "legitimacy of exercise" is nothing more than the positive aspect of a concept that is in itself negative, which is that of disqualification due to the abusive exercise [of power]. In reality, there is no legitimacy of exercise, but the loss of legitimacy due to poor exercise. He who does not incur in this disqualifying poor exercise continues to be legitimized by the legitimacy of origin. The good use of royalty does not qualify anyone, but rather does not disqualify him.

— Álvaro D'Ors, «Puntualizaciones sobre la legitimidad dinástica», Montejurra (No. 13, 2nd period), early 1966

This serves to distinguish between the tyrant by title (an usurper whose origin is illegitimate as he took power by force) and the tyrant by regime (the prince who received authority by legitimate means, but who uses it tyrannically in his exercise). It's considered crucial that authority be legitimate and legal both in its origin (that it respect the procedures that regulate access to government) and in its exercise (that it observe the laws with true natural justice during the course of the administration of power). Due to this Iusnaturalist perspective, most of traditionalist monarchists historically defended pretenders and/or deposed royal lineages (like James II of England, Infante Carlos María Isidro of Spain, Miguel I of Portugal, Charles X of France, Francis II of the Two Sicilies, Karl I of Austria, Nicholas II of Russia, etc.) rather than recognise a non-traditional monarchy nor serve to a self-proclaimed Republic, as those were considered to be impossible to reform due to its lack of legitimacy in origin, exercise or both.

Forms of government against traditional monarchy

Criticism of absolutist and feudal monarchies

26. The five fractures.

Christianity dies in the West to give birth to Europe, when that social organism breaks in 1517 and 1648 in five successive fractures. These are five hours of birth and upbringing of Europe, five daggers in the historical flesh of Christianity. Namely: a) The religious rupture of Lutheranism, b) The ethical rupture of Machiavellianism. c) The political rupture of Bodinism. d) The legal rupture of Hobbesianism. e) And the sociological rupture that makes the definitive rupture of the Christian mystical political body a palpable reality with the signing of the treaties of Westphalia. Between 1517 and 1648 Europe is born and grows. And in inverse proportion to the same process, the other occurs: the worsening and death of Christianity. Let us briefly consider that painful birth, going over its five typical moments.

27. "No book is clearer." The true father of [Modern] Europe is Martin Luther. He is not so because of the novelty of his heresies, which were already well-explained by John Wycliffe and other heresiarchs before him. He is so because he succeeds in definitively splitting the unity of faith in two. He alone succeeded in obscuring the sun of Rome in the West, thus cooling Christianity. After Luther, the unity of faith disappeared and the core of the spiritual organism of Christianity dried up, which was replaced by something essential to the idea of Europe: the balance between diverse coexisting beliefs. All this follows from the thesis of "free examination", which Luther bases on his prejudicial conviction that "no book is clearer" than the Bible. A direct consequence of the establishment of free examination was that instead of a single faith there was equal consideration of all beliefs; and that instead of the same vision of the sacred texts, there were as many interpretations as there were readers. Free examination was the formal mechanism of external harmony between the diverse faiths of each of the believers, supplanting the organic body of the Church, which had served as the backbone of medieval Christianity. 28. "Virtue and Fortune." Niccolò Machiavelli completes the work, separating his neopagan ethics — founded on virtù which is only "imperious force of will" — from Christian ethics — centered on virtus which is the ascetic self-control over impulses and appetites. Because, virtù being that strength that surrenders events to the will of man in a strictly mechanical game of forces, society will be constituted around the constellation of energies that predominates when this reborn pagan who is l’uomo virtuoso overcomes the inconstancy of adverse fortune. Because from there, there is nothing more than a personal divine Providence that rewards or punishes, but a pagan fortune, propitious or adverse according to the geometry of the stars and the mechanisms of the stars.

29. Sovereingty. Jean Bodin transferred mechanism to politics, by establishing as a social knot first the possibility of obedience to a prince as a neutral relationship between the subject and the sovereign. Sovereignty - which is valid in itself, because it is justified by the effectiveness of a power neutralized of all religious content - will end in the destructive absolutism of the social body, in order to strengthen the power of the ruler. And in this way, the organic order of the peoples of Christianity was replaced by a new balance of social forces, with no other support than the mechanical game established in it by the all-powerful scepter of the kings of enlightened despotism, that is, the exemplary absolutism of French Bourbonism.

30. Leviathan. The legal rupture is partially consecrated by Hugo Grotius, who secularizes Thomistic intellectualism. But it is Thomas Hobbes who does it in an absolute way, by secularizing Scotist voluntarism. Law is henceforth the natural mechanical system of a monster, the Leviathan. Law, objectively or subjectively considered, will no longer be anything more than the rule of human balances, purely human, in which the regulated order of ordered proportions, which the scholasticism of Christianity necessarily referred to God, the only Augustinian source of the truly proportionate order of beings, counts for nothing.

31. "Corpus mysticum, corpus mechanicum." Finally, since the Treaty of Westphalia, the functioning of European political institutions has also been mechanistic. International relations are configured as those of a corpus mechanicum, contrary to the harmonious organization of the corpus mysticum that had been Christianity, in which there were no such inter nationes relations, because there were only inter gentes.

From now on there will no longer be a universal politics organically intertwined in a hierarchical manner, but there will be two politics, mechanically intercurrent: "domestic politics" and "foreign politics." In domestic politics, the devastating absolutism of the kings will be succeeded by either the express absolutism of Rousseauian democracies, or the tacit absolutism of the Montesquean system of mechanical checks and balances. And in international politics, since 1648, the game of relations between powers will be a system of balances of alliances and counter-alliances, never loyally observed, but betrayed a thousand times before.

— Center For Historical and Political Studies. «General Zumalacarregui», ¿Que es el Carlismo?

For Traditionalist Monarchists, the development of Absolutism wasn't organic, but artificial, and so, against the natural progression of social and political development on the human genre. The causes for the appearance of Absolute monarchy should have its roots on the Medieval Disputes of Universal powers between the Papacy (representant of Spiritual power or Church's interests) and the Holy Roman Emperor (representant of Temporal power or Secular interests), that provocated proto-absolutist movements from the Secular Power like the Investiture Controversy, Guelphs and Ghibellines or the Western Schism, in which the Monarchs tried to develop a Centralized government against the Ecclesiastical jurisdiction (protector of Subsidiarity and Corporatism between Hierarchical organizations) and appeared the Caesarist desire of the Monarchs to be powerfuls like pre-Christian Roman emperors, in which all loyalties, all power and all social institutions should be transferred to the state in the person of the King. Those absolutists aspirations will be later systematized on the Renaissance through Secular humanism and then on Enlightened absolutism.

Then it would be stablished the absolutist model of monarchy during the Protestant reformation and normalized in Europe by the Westphalian system, in which there would be attacks against the political power of the Social Corporations (that were mostly in good convivence until the European wars of religion between Protestants and Catholics, along the wars of French system of Alliances based on Raison d' etat instead of Universitas Christiana) in the name of Political stability. And finally it would be a popular political system among Western intellectuals (specially followers of Modern philosophy) during XVI to XVIII century, like Niccolò Machiavelli, Jean Bodin, Hugo Grotius or Thomas Hobbes. On Eastern Europe there would be a combination of the corporate representation with the Asian despotism bequeathed by the Mongol empire, which (like Germanic kingship legacy on Western Europe) would add a factor to the development of Autocratic tendencies on Russian Empire, that would be consolidated with Peter The Great Reformations inspired in Western modernism on detriment of Traditional "Integral Monarchy" based in Representation of estates (which get it's peak with the Lip Reforms on XVI century).

Some examples of pre-modern political mechanisms that moderated the power of the Monarch and the Kingdom were:

• Medieval Constitutions: Fundamental laws of the Kingdom of France, Fundamental Laws of England, Fundamental Laws of Spain, Usages of Barcelona, Holy Roman Empire, Russkaya Pravda (Russia), Henrician Articles (Poland), Zakonopravilo (Serbia)
  • Traditional legal codes: Statutes, Statute book, Old French law, Cyfraith Hywel (Walles), Ordenamiento de Alcalá (Castile), Catalan constitutions, Leyes de Indias, Tripartitum (Transylvania), Vlach law, Sudebnik of 1497 (Russia), Medieval Scandinavian law, Jónsbók (Iceland), Magnus Lagabøtes landslov (Norway), Scanian Law (Denmark)
  • Social Pacts between Subjects and Kings through Oaths: Statute of Rhuddlan (Walles), Charter of Liberties and Magna Carta (England), Pacta conventa (Poland-Lithuania), Pragmatic Sanction of 1723 (Hungary), Pacta conventa (Croatia), Old Covenant (Iceland)
• Regional Legislature: Privilege law (France), Fuero (Spain), Usos y costumbres (Spanish America), Foral (Portugal), Custumal (England).
• General Representative Bodies (with Consultative and/or Deliberative powers): Etats Generaux of France, Parliament of England, Parliament of Scotland, Parliament of Ireland, Cortes of Spain, Portuguese Cortes, States General of the Netherlands, Imperial Diet of HRE, Diet of Hungary, Transylvanian Diet, Bohemian Diet, Croatian Sabor, Zemsky Sobor (Russia), Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Riksdag of the Estates (Sweden), Kurultai (Turco-Mongol)
• Regional Institutions with authonomy of Royal Domain: Provincial Parlements in France, Parlement of Paris, Crown of Castile, Crown of Aragon, Council of Portugal, Council of Flanders, Council of Italy, Council of Indies, Imperial Estates, Duma (Russia), Lands of Denmark, Landskap (Sweden), Diet of Finland
• Local Governments: States provincial in France, Pays d'états (France), States Assembly of Jersey, Barony (Ireland), Catalan Courts, Juntas, Colonial Cabildo (Spanish America), States of Flanders, Landtag (Germany), Prussian estates, Veche (Russia), Sejmik (Poland-Lithuania), Thing (Nordic assembly), Althing (Iceland)
• Religious tolerance and Cultural freedoms: Constitution of Medina, Ashtiname of Muhammad (Arab Caliphate), Religious peace of Kutná Hora (Bohemia), Edict of Torda (Transylvania), Warsaw Confederation (Poland-Lithuania), Edict of Nantes (France), Letter of Majesty (Habsburg Bohemia), Statutes of Kilkenny (Ireland), Diploma Andreanum (Hungary), Unio Trium Nationum (Transylvania), Universitas Valachorum (Transylvania), Diploma Leopoldinum (Habsburg Transylvania), República de Indios (Spanish America).
• Economic freedoms: Pays d'élection, Lex mercatoria, Magnus Lagabøtes bylov.

Furthermore, the monarchical government - it was previously pointed out - is limited, in fact and in theory, by the coexisting autonomous societies that fulfill their own purposes within society, and by the laws that collect their liberties. It can even "bring together in a general charter all those specific liberties that constitute as a whole the internal order, customarily in force in the country, in which perhaps in practice there remain only a few certain and very reduced functions to the normal activity of the monarch.

— Miguel Ayuso, Las Formas de Gobierno y sus Transformaciones

From a Political catholicist view, another degeneration of the Traditional Monarchy was the practice of Regalist philosophy among Catholic Monarchies like Bourbon France, Bourbon Spain, Pombalist Portugal, Josephinist Austria-Hungary-Croatia-Bohemia, etc. in which the Monarchs, influenced by Gallicanist and Jansenist heresies (which also were influenced by Calvinist intellectuality, like the Huguenots), tried to turn the clergy into mere public officials of the state in which the Pope had spiritual leadership but not political leadership on the Christendom (as those Regalist Monarchs believed that the King was the leader of the Church in their States), and so introducing the Absolutist model of Monarchy, of Protestant origin, in the Catholic Political Culture. Those regalist practises on Late Catholic Monarchies briefly before the start of Revolutionary wave generated also a cultural confussion as Traditional Monarchy would be often confused with Regalism and then Right-wing politics in Popular culture.

When the old society fell, which was not, by the way, the Christian society; When the French Revolution came and it found itself not with a Christian regime, but with a regalist and Caesarist absolutism, which preserved some Catholic principles, down in the social order, but which did not express them in the political order, either by its tendencies or by its purposes, the new society that was formed by the Revolution in the presence of the Acien Regime, tried to establish - as happens when a radical principle triumphs in the world, which is always accompanied by an eclecticism that attenuates it - a syncretic doctrine that would give for a moment a link, at least apparent, to the representatives of the two principles, that of the regime that was falling and that of the one that was rising, and the theory of the two Chambers came about, one that represented the aristocratic principle [the right-wing], which they called archaic, and another that represented the innovative and popular principle [the left-wing], and two parties were born, like the two Chambers: one that represented the principles of the old regime, and another that represented the reforms of the new. The first had no other mission than to serve as an escort to the second, to keep track of its advances and consolidate them, and, on certain occasions, to serve as a brake so that it did not advance too much and compromise them; the second was the one who advanced

— Juan Vázquez de Mella

It is not, of course, a question of identifying monarchy and absolutism, since from the point of view of social philosophy, absolutism is even a logical antecedent of democracy, insofar as it simply transfers sovereignty from the king to the people, sharpening, of course, the secularization of power that monarchical absolutism had already known, although in a more restricted way.

— Miguel Ayuso, Las Formas de Gobierno y sus Transformaciones

Criticism of liberal constitutionalism

"The political work of the French Revolution consisted mainly in destroying all that series of intermediate organisms - family patrimonies, guilds, autonomous universities, municipalities with their own property, regional administrations, the very patrimony of the Church - which, as protective corporations, extended between the individual and the State (...) if there is a power that assumes all sovereignty... what is this, with varying names, but a barbaric absolutism?"

— Juan Vázquez de Mella

Despite the rejection of Political constitutions, Traditional Monarchy isn't against the concept of Constitution per se, but against the Contractualist vision of the state from liberal theories of Social contract. However, the Traditional Monarchy should have a series of uncodified constitutions whose material constitutional regime is contained in a series of dispersed constituent treaties (like Statutes, Royal decrees, Parliamentary Edicts) and implicit oral agreements recognised by different social groups (like Moral law, Customary law, Vassalage Pacts) which the Monarch should respect to have Legitimacy of exercise with his Subjects, if not, it is valid the Right of resistance from the Common people and the institutions that are bellow in hierarchy. Also Carlism historiography criticises the constitutionalism based in the political experience and practise of the Constitution of Cadiz, which instead of solving the Spanish Crisis of 1808 in fact the Junta Suprema Central and the Cortes of Cádiz made the conditions for a Civil war in the Spanish Empire due to constitutional conflicts between Self-proclaimed Juntas (like the Juntas on Spanish America) that were claiming to represent the Popular sovereignty without having any Legit Prerogative despite to appeal Enlightenment Ideology of Rousseauian Social contract, generating confusion to the Common people that had no idea of liberal ideologies and mistakenly thought that the constitutional juntas were continuing the Hispanic tradition of fundamental laws and corporatist institutions, like Ancien régime Cortes and Open cabildo.

32. Europe against Christendom.

By summarily describing these five ruptures that fracture the naively supposed continuity between Christianity and Europe, which we have already criticized, we can understand why Europe is nothing other than the negation of Christianity. It is enough to describe the content of both cultural concepts to settle the question without the slightest shadow of a doubt. Europe is mechanism; neutralization of powers; formal coexistence of creeds; pagan morality; absolutisms; democracies; liberalisms; nationalist family wars; abstract conception of man; societies of nations and organizations of united nations; parliamentarisms; constitutionalisms; bourgeoisifications; socialisms; Protestantisms; republicanisms; sovereignties; kings who do not govern; indifferentism and atheism and antitheism: revolution in short.

Christendoom is, on the other hand, social organicism; Christian vision of power; unity of Catholic faith; tempered powers; missionary crusades; conception of the shoulder as a concrete being; cuts authentically representative of social reality understood as a mystical body; systems of concrete freedoms; historical continuity through fidelity to the dead: tradition in short.

— Center For Historical and Political Studies. «General Zumalacarregui», ¿Que es el Carlismo?

Criticism of totalitarianism (fascism and socialism)

Traditionalist Monarchists rejects Totalitarianism due to being antithetical their principles of Nation state, National syndicalism and Voluntarism from Fascism, along Internationalism, Proletarian dictatorship/Communist state and Dialectical materialism from Marxism, both based in Hegelian Dialectic and Historicism that are rejected by Scholastics and Perennialists. Also the support of Anti-clericalist, Secularist, Progressivist, Authoritarian Syndicalist and Socialist positions from Totalitarian regimes are against Integralism (which have sympathy toward Economical Distributism and Gremialist Corporations as an opposition to both Capitalist Bourgeoisie Plutocracy and Communist Proletarian Collectivist anarchism).

Certainly in Hegel we see a lot of the philosophical matrix at work in fascism. Hegel is the father of dialectics, which he maintains that through the formation of the antithesis as a reaction to the thesis, the synthesis arises from the confrontation between the two, thus materializing the progress of society. This phenomenon is what underlies the development of fascist thought, where the thesis would be identified with classical liberalism, the Marxist antithesis would arise as a reaction and it would be the fascist synthesis that would emerge from the ruins of the confrontation between the two. Thus it is perfectly appreciable that fascism is nothing more than a transformation of modern thought (1), which through the revolutionary essence of Modernity, would reemerge as the liberating regime of the previous one (...) Nationalism, by having the will to substantiate the nation itself, aims to search for its own and characteristic elements such as language, race, customs... Once substantiated, nationalism will carry out the sublimation of the nation, becoming a substance that can absorb and annul individuals. We see then that the individual, once the nation is configured, does not have a considerable weight in it, the nation being now substantial and permanent. Throughout the Modern Age, the formation of the modern State and its gradual absorption of the power of the kings, the State and the nation were intertwined, giving rise to a thorny concept. When the nation is sublimated in nationalism, its modern assimilation with the State will lead to an absolute State: “Everything in the State, nothing against the State, nothing outside the State”

— Miguel Quesada, Carlist Circle "Elias de Tejada" of Seville

Concerning Fascist corporatism, the Traditionalist Monarchists perceived their model of Class collaboration as imperfect due to its Statist tendencies whereby corporate mechanisms for social cooperation between classes from Fascist syndicalism would be useless if they emanate from the sovereignty of the state instead of being "intermediate bodies" between the State and Society in which the Corporation have its own sovereign from Social organizations and the State only have to recognise it and protect it (according to a concrete conception of society), instead of usurping and trying to replace by expanding the State institutionallity (like Mussolini's National Council of Corporations and Carta Livor or Francoist Sindicato Vertical) that aren't from Organic Social relations but an artificial imposition from an Ideologized State with an abstract conception of society that just lead to a Bureaucratization of Society to submit it to a One-party state. For traditionalist monarchists, Monarco-fascists are considered Reactionary modernists. Also Traditionalists Monarchists mostly condemns that in the Interwar period appeared some "traditionalist fascists" (like Clerical fascism, National-Catholicism, Francoism, Salazarism, Révolution nationale, Iron Guard, etc.) and they regret that some traditionalists monarchists groups were betrayed by those movements after made alliances with fascist groups (like Falangists with Carlist during Spanish Civil War).

These institutions [Intermediate Bodies] arose organically by human social impulse in the heat of the social and legal flexibility of the Christian order. Social complexity pushed for the emergence of more complex forms of organization than mere family action, taking shape in social entities that channeled proper political participation. This is based on the integration of men in accordance with their role in society itself, nourishing social and legal complexity with institutional forms that inform the political order, making it possible for it to act taking into consideration the realities over which it governs. Statism, whether in its finished form or in its sketched form under the umbrella of absolutist parastatalism, became the main enemy of the principle of subsidiarity and, therefore, of the Spanish concretization represented by the intermediate bodies. Faced with the social complexity, orphaned of protection by state despotism, the formula of what has subsequently been called corporatism was devised. Thus, the State extended its executive arm in extensions of the same. This is particularly noticeable in the corporatist fascist formula, which calls corporations entities that are nothing more than entities subordinate to the State. In the Spanish fascist concretion, Falangism made the union a social backbone subordinate to the State and with this believed it could fill the void of intermediate bodies. However, this denatured the union itself, which went from being an institution that defended workers from the power of money to being one more organization in the immense state apparatus. With a play on words, we could say that it stopped being an intermediary body to become one more member of the only body that the revolution tolerated.

— Miguel Quesada, La Esperanza Diary

Supporters of traditional monarchy

Hispanicsphere

See also: Carlism, Integrism (Spain), Royalist (Spanish American independence), and Traditionalism (Spain)

This refers to the supporters for the restoration of Spanish Empire form of government (before Nueva Planta decrees and rejecting the Regalist-Centralists aspects of Bourbon Reforms that introduced Absolutism) and the reject of Atlantic Revolutions' political legacy, like Spanish Revolution of 1820 or Spanish American Revolutions, around countries of the Hispanidad.

Spain

See also: Traditionalist Communion, Neocatólicos, Mellismo, Spanish Renovation, Traditionalist Carlist Communion, and Traditionalist Communion (2001)

Carlist flag since Third Carlist War.

Some scholars theorized that the first traditionalist monarchal movements were the Austracistas that opposed to the abolition of Catalan constitutions and Crown of Aragon institutionallity after the War of the Spanish Succession by the political modernism brought by Philip V of Spain and reinforced by Charles III of Spain Enlightened absolutism. However, most see austracistas as a precedent of reactionary political thought, while the first traditionalist monarchical groups were the Partidas Realistas and the Ultra/Apostolics which have the support of Infante Carlos María Isidro of Spain, brother of Ferdinand VII. Most of the Spanish supporters of Traditionalist Monarchical thought were aglomerated on the Carlism movement (defenders of Infante Carlos rights of succession, against the ones of Isabella II), although some tradionalists that rejected Carlist pretendsions, developed the political faction of Neocatólicos that accepted Isabella II but opposed to the reforms from Spanish Constitution of 1837. However, with the decadence of Carlism after Third Carlist War and the menace to Isabelins from Radical-liberals and Spanish republicanists, traditionalists monarchists then developed the Spanish Integrist movement on late XIX to beginning XX century, which recognised Alfonso XIII line (heir of Isabella II) as true king, but pushing Spanish Bourbons to derogate the Liberal reforms since Constitution of 1812 and to obey Catholic social teaching about Monarchy as Social Kingship of Christ. During the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, there was some influence of traditionalist monarchists in the regime, although there was more from Spanish nationalists and Liberal conservatism, while Primo de Rivera wasn't friendly with Political philosophers. Also, during Second Spanish Republic and Spanish Civil War, there was a brief rebirth of Traditionalist Monarchists through Electoral Carlism and the Requeté, along the increasement of Integralist Political Catholicism on Anti-Republican movements like the CEDA or Alfonsinist Spanish Renovation (even Alfonsinists during this time considered to restore a Monarchy based in Traditionalist thinking, according to the Pact of Territet with Carlists that advocated to develop a Cortes in the Ancien régime way), but the leadership of Francisco Franco opposed to Traditionalist Monarchists and repressed them and the Falangists after getting the control of Anti-republican coallition with the Unification Decree, and so Francoist Spain developed a Reactionary modernist syncretist political ideology called National Catholicism. Although there were traditionalist monarchists factions in Franco's regimen (the Carlo-francoists), the Traditionalist Communion opposed to National Catholicism for being Modernist heresy in their perspective and also rejecting the alliance of Monarchists with Fascists (perceived as other modern ideology against Authentic Monarchy, Spanish Political Tradition and Catholic Social Teaching). After the Spanish transition to democracy, the traditionalists monarchists are today a minority under the leadership of Sixtus Henry of Bourbon-Parma.

Juan Vázquez de Mella, Spanish political thinker portrayed at La Ilustració catalana (1906)

Spanish Traditionalists advocates for the restoration of Fuero (Statutes that guaranteed Plural Legalism between distinct regions of Spain which had the right to have its own legal code based in their particular customary laws, instead of the same National Constitution for all the Provinces) and "Cuerpos Intermedios" institutionallity. At the same time they rejects Secularization, Political modernization and Constitutionalism. Notable figures in defense of Spanish Traditional Monarchy have been: Francisco Alvarado, Infante Carlos María Isidro of Spain, Jaime Balmes, Enrique Gil Robles, Juan Vázquez de Mella, Víctor Pradera Larumbe, José María Pemán, Rafael Gambra, Álvaro d'Ors Pérez-Peix, Marcial Solana González-Camino, Isidro Gomá y Tomás, Tomas Sivilla, Modesto Hernández Villaescusa, Luis Hernando de Larramendi, Francisco Elías de Tejada y Spínola, Miguel Ayuso, José Miguel Gambra Gutiérrez, Javier Garisoain Otero.

Spanish America

Cross of Burgundy, a common flag por traditionalists on Hispanic World.

On Spanish America, the traditionalists monarchists were mostly the Counter-elightened faction of the Royalists in Spanish–American War of independence, which also were in contact with the Partidas Realistas (Proto-Carlists) from Spain against the Spanish Constitution of 1812 and then the Trienio Liberal regime for abolishing priviligees to Criollos and Indigenous Estates of the realm to force them to be Spanish citizens without Legal pluralism distinctions according to their regional realities (so, opposing liberal attempt to homogenize institutions to menace the Colonial Corporatism and impose Individualism), while also criticising Bourbon absolutism for not respecting the fueros and autonomy guaranteed in Derecho Indiano by attacking polycentric law by increasing power of Peninsular Governors (like Viceroy or Intendants), unlike the Habsburg Spain which were perceived as more respectful to the Consociationalist Pactism between Monarch and Subjects of distinct kingdomes (as Hispanic-Americans considered Reinos de Indias as provinces of Spain instead of Colonies, but not under administration of Spaniards from Metropoli institutionality, but as Sui iuris under American administration with its own Criollo and Indigenous institutionality in the name of the Spanish Monarchy, which have to be a moderator and supervisor power only), alike the Territorial organization of Spain at the time with distincts Kingdoms constituting the crown of Castile instead of a same and unique Spanish Kingdom (like contemporaneous Spain), in which the Spanish King was the protector of Corporatists institutionality to avoid unjistified injerence of Peninsular from the central government, and even to protect Indigenous or Criollos natural rights by respecting the jurisdiction of the other in the Republica de Indios and Republica de españoles, according to Leyes de Indias (which involucrated heterogeneous taxes instead of a same national tax for all peoples, the maintenance of Feudal Communal property in the rural towns instead of imposing urban Private property system, and the Manorial Cacicazgo system of the Indigenous nobility to have legal protection from their Cacique or Cabildo de Indios). Despite all of this, not all Royalists were Traditionalist Monarchists, as there were also Liberal Royalists which defended the reforms from the Cortes de Cadiz, so provocating Royalist internal conflicts against the Traditionalist, like La Profesa Conspiration in Mexico or Olañeta Rebellion in Peru and Bolivia (in both parties were absolutists and also moderate secessionists).

In the midst of the profound uncertainty brought about by the crisis of the monarchy and the responses from both viceroyalties, the indigenous groups took on different positions. At first, a project of their own seemed to emerge; later, the positions were not so clear and there were both indigenous groups associated as such with the insurgent guerrilla war and others who allied themselves with the king's armies. However, ultimately, the central issue was to maintain the colonial pact with two objectives: first, the recognition of their lands and territories and, second, the possibility of maintaining their own forms of organization and the right to appoint their authorities. In this way, it can be explained how the indigenous communities were going to join projects, whether insurgent or royalist, that guaranteed or facilitated their own objectives (...) If they saw that they had no chance of success, they retreated to their communities seeking to do what was strictly necessary with the two groups in conflict, waiting to see which way the balance would tip. This does not mean that the indigenous people did not understand what was at stake in the conflict, but quite the opposite; their fundamental political project was to maintain the greatest possible balance between the State and their communities, in such a way as to guarantee access to the land and its resources (...) That is, the existence of what Tristan Platt has called a "reciprocity pact," by which the State guaranteed ownership of the land as long as the communities paid the tribute (...) to avoid the imposition of a land registry and a general tax system, preferring to continue paying the colonial tax (...) Despite the optimism of many indigenous peoples to establish a new pact with the nascent Bolivian State in a situation of equity and justice, the ideology of liberalism and the discourse on the need to have enlightened citizens left out of the management of public affairs many of these combatants who were not recognized as full citizens in the first Bolivian Constitution of 1826.

— María Luisa Soux, Rebellion, Guerrilla and Tribute: Indians from Charcas during the process of Independence

On recent times, have been appearing Carlist Circles on Spanish American countries, developed by loyals to the Comunión Tradicionalista/CT ("Sixtino" Carlists), in support of the application of Traditional Monarchy in Latin American Societies, or even the reunification of Hispanic America with Spain in a Mixed monarchy under the rule of Don Sixto de Borbon and his heirs. Those Carlists Circles are: "Circulo Tradicionalista Celedonio de Jarauta" and "Circulo Tradicionalista Vasco de Quiroga - Michoacan" in Mexico, "Circulo Santa Fe - Bogota" and "Circulo Tradicionalsita Gaspar de Rodillas - Medellin" in Colombia, "Circulo Blas de Ostolaza" and "Circulo Carlista Leandro Castilla" in Peru, "Circulo Tradicionalista del Río de la Plata" in Argentina and Uruguay, "Circulo Tradicionalista de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción del Paraguay" in Paraguay, "Circulo Tradicionalista Antonio de Quintanilla" in Chile, "Circulo San Juan Bautista - Alto Peru" in Bolivia, "Circulo Tradicionalista de Venezuela" in Venezuela, "Circulo Tradicionalista del Reino de Guatemala" in Central America (Guatemala to Costa Rica), "Circulo Tradicionalista Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Panama" in Panama.

The Comunión Tradicionalista Carlista/CTC" (which don't recognise Don Sixto as successor of Infante Carlos, considering vacant the Spanish Throne) also have been spreading the doctrine of Traditional Monarchy trhough intellectual exchanges with local Reactionary and Integralist Catholic movements in the region, like Cristeros on Mexico.

South America

"As is known, traditional national historiography [in Latin America] has privileged the examination of this period, and has unanimously maintained that all groups of colonial society, regardless of their ethnic and class affiliation, resolutely supported the Creole leadership. Independence, therefore, would have been the result of a unanimous process, as well as a completely autonomous decision and execution. The ideological burden contained in this version cannot explain, of course, why the presence of the armies of San Martín and Bolívar was necessary for the definitive achievement of the independence of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. (...) consequently, examining once again in this context the "nationalism", real or potential, of the indigenous peasantry does not make much sense, since the answer is quite obvious (...) On the other hand, the allusion to the peasant rejection of the republican system as a response to the tax extortions and abuses of the patriotic army, is nothing more than a statement, just as the innovation to the absence of a The bourgeoisie as a limiting factor in peasant mobilization says more about the author than about the reality he is trying to analyze. A more convincing explanation of peasant support for the colonial regime and King Ferdinand VII would rather assume taking the situation of 1827 [Iquicha War] as the necessary result of a durable and specific political and cultural experience of the Indian peasantry within the colonial context. This in turn implies a rigorous reconstruction of its political history in the long term, through evidence that suffices for now to confirm that the Iquichana rebellion of 1827 tells us the little we know about the colonial articulation of the peasants, and the political vision they shared.

— Heraclio Bonilla

After the complete defeat of Royalists, most of them were exilled or forced to be expelled to Spain (most of them were called the Ayacuchos and were part of the Caciquism), damaging the Counter-Revolutionary movement extremely bad as they were totally disarticulated on Urban Areas by 1826. However, in Rural Zones (like in Coro, La Guajira, Chiloé, La Frontera, Pasto, Patía, Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Huanta) there were still some Royalists Guerrillas against the submission to Liberal reforms and institutions from the Criollo nationalist elites (like Great Colombia Constitution, Peruvian Republicanism, Bolivian Independence from Peru, Republic of Chile expansionism, First Mexican Empire, etc.), until late 1830s, having in their files Plebeyan groups like Indigenous peoples, Black people, Mestizos and poor Whites that developed a "Popular Royalism" like the Vendee peasant rising or Carlist Wars (which has been poorly studied by Western Historiography). The most important ones were:

• The Pastusos in Southern Colombia lead by Agustín Agualongo until 1824, then unorganised resistance until 1828.
• The Cambas Cruceños in Eastern Bolivia lead by Francisco Javier Aguilera until 1828, being the last remnant of Royal Army of Peru in Upper Peru.
• The Güires in North-West Venezuela lead by José Dionisio Cisneros until 1832.
• The Chilotas and Araucanos on Southern Chile and Argentina led by Pincheira brothers until 1832, being the last remnant of Chilean Royal Army (and of Royal Army of Peru outside Lower Peru)
• The Iquichanos in Peru lead by Antonio Huachaca until 1839, being the last remnant of Royal Army of Peru and of Spanish-American Royalism as a whole.

Mexico and Central America

On Mexico there was a bright renaissance of Traditionalist Monarchists during the period between First Mexican Empire and Second Mexican Empire, specially from renegades of Conservative Party (seeing them as too Moderates, Caudillists, Centralists and servants of Criollo Oligarchy and the Freemasonry of Scottish Rite) that tried to be in line with Catholic Integralism promoted by Pope Pius IX. Some of them backed Maximilian I of Mexico and recognised him as a true ruler in the condition of restoring New Spain institutionality (included the restoration of Nahuatl and other indigenous language as officials of the state and the legal protection of the Republica de Indios), the Confessional state and the confiscated properties of the Catholic Church in Mexico and of the Indigenous Rural Communities (restoring Repartimento for indigenous communities that lacked legal property and ejido). However, the majority were disillusioned because the Regalist ideologies on Maximilian (in conflict with Clericalists and Ultramontanists) and his sympathy towards Recent Liberal reforms to develop a Modern state (but also in conflict with Liberal Mexicans due to oppose legal uniformity). Although, Maximilian through time was pushed by his Political Assessors and Councelors to approve Traditionalists demands (like restoring the officiality of Siete Partidas and Novísima Recopilación legal codes, or annulling for peasants the forced transition to a regime liberal of Private Property and also the State Monopoly over Public services, restoring the capacity of the Church and the indigenous corporations of "caciques" and "cabildos" to provide it) if he wanted to have support from the anti-republican masses, which he did after the quit of French forces in Mexico and the USA involvement in support of Liberal Party, but those traditionalists reforms (which involucrated a new Concordat with Holy See, more near to Integralist positions by renouncing to Patronato real) were too late to increase his support outside of the nearest rural areas in South Mexico. Although Maximilian personally wasn't a pro-Hispanic Traditionalist, as he also wasn't a Liberal, instead being more near to Enlightened Despot (closer to Bourbon Reformism, but with Josephinist revisions) who would try to take advantage of the elements of Tradition and Modernity, taking a lot of time some measures that contradicted classical and economic Liberalism by drawing on the "old" Indian legislation in addition of Cameralism (very popular in the Traditional Germanic Monarchies, giving importance to small peasant property compared to the lordly latifundia), expressed in the Urbarium Code of 1767 (which established the plots of the Hungarian peasants and prohibited their lord from seizing them), while also taking measures that contradicted Traditionalism by adhering to "modern" proposals of the utopian Socialism from the rural but enlightened proletariat (since Maximilian was influenced by Victor Considerant) in addition to Liberal Catholicism (which put him in conflict with the Papacy and on the verge of being declared a heretic or excommunicated due to syncretism with Modernist heresy, Jansenist and Gallicanist heresy).

Also in XX century, there were some Cristeros that were influenced by Carlism and supported the restoration of Traditional Monarchy on Mexico (even considering the reunification of Mexico with Spain in a Composite monarchy under the rule of Carlist Pretender), and XXI century there has been some "hermanamientos" between Carlists (of the Comunión Tradicionalista Carlista) and Cristeros of Monarchist tendency in their common support to Social Kingship of Christ and Panhispanismbased in Political catholicism.

Lusosphere

See also: Miguelist, Integralismo Lusitano, and Patrianovism

This refers to the supporters for the restoration of Portuguese Empire form of government (before Pombalist reforms introducing Enlightened absolutism in Kingdom of Portugal) around Lusosphere countries

Portugal

Symbol of Integralismo Lusitano movement

Some schoolars believes that the first signs of Traditionalist Monarchists appeared on Portuguese Restoration War in reaction of a perceived Spanish absolutism. However, the first formal expression of its defense was by the Miguelists during the Liberal Wars and its consequence through XIX Century. Then appeared in XX Century the Traditionalist and Integralist Catholic movement of Integralismo Lusitano (which have influence of Maurrassisme, and also influenced Spanish Integrists). Both Miguelists and Lusitan Integralists had a philosophical continuity with Catholic social teaching and Thomist conception of Natural law. Also there were some traditionalists factions in non-Miguelists groups, like the Ação Realista Portuguesa (which advocated the restoration of Traditional Monarchy under Manuel II of Portugal instead of Duarte Nuno, Duke of Braganza). During the fall of Estado Novo, there were some political movements, like Movimento de Ação Portuguesa, that supported Traditionalist Monarchim as an alternative against Salazarism and Portuguese transition to democracy.

Defenders of the organic monarchy and opponents of liberal individualism, they believed in groups derived from nature (Family, Parish and Municipality). They claimed that the basis of Integralism was the national tradition and that to reject it was to deny the constitutive work of the nation and to forget the sacrifices and efforts of previous generations. For the Integralists, the Nation is a great family perpetuated in time by the community of affections, of sufferings and joys, of pains and hopes. Agrarians and opponents of industrialism openly affirmed their counter-revolutionary attitude and their desire to, by putting an end to liberal parliamentarism and everything built since the beginning of the French Revolution, return to a "natural order": the agrarian society, the guild corporations, the crafts and the small business, under the direction of an organic and traditionalist monarchy.

— Mercedes Gutiérrez Sánchez and Fernando Jiménez Núnez, La recepción del Integralismo Lusitano en el mundo intelectual español

"Therefore, it defends the existence of a set of Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom (...): Portuguese fidelity to the Catholic religion, indivisibility of the kingdom and the assets of the Crown, establishment of the three estates, power of the Courts, oath of the kings when ascending to the throne, the right of the people to decide on taxes, the granting of offices to the Portuguese, etc. Everything is based, in legal matters, on a simple and essential principle: power comes from God to the People, who are the only ones who have power. grant it to the king. However, in addition to positive laws and pacts, there are also fundamental natural laws that moderate sovereignty and whose violation constitutes despotism

— Paulo Ferreira da Cunha (2004), António Ribeiro dos Santos e o Direito nas Poesias de Elpino Duriense, Estudos em Homenagem a Luís António de Oliveira Ramos

António Sardinha, Portuguese political thinker

Current Portuguese Monarchists that support Traditionalist Monarchism are the following groups:

• Causa Tradicionalista led by Luís Andrade Dos Santos, supporting Francisco van Uden. Also they have occasional reunions with Carlists, although have been criticised for being too Hispanist.
• People's Monarchist Party, supporting Pedro José, Duke of Loulé.
• Confederação Integralista Lusitana, having the Newspaper Nação Portugueza as its journal platform.

1 - We proclaim God, who is One and Triune, as King of Kings and foundation of all legitimacy; and the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, founded by Him, as the depositary and guardian of the sources of the Faith that is the salvation of the World - His Doctrine and His Authentic Magisterium; 2 - We consecrate our words and our actions to the simultaneously spiritual and temporal purpose of making the Social Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ a reality in Portugal; 3 - We therefore defend that the good government of Portugal and the laws by which it is governed must adopt and enforce the precepts of natural and Christian law, in the tolerance of individual beliefs and in respect for the freedom of responsible expression of Portuguese and foreigners with legally authorized stay or residence in our country; 4 - We understand Homeland to be the inseparable and inalienable whole, in whole or in part, of the Territory, People, Language, History, Culture, Laws and Symbols of Portugal; 5 - We consider it the unavoidable right and duty of all Portuguese to defend the Homeland; 6 - We demand that the rights, freedoms and guarantees that the Portuguese obtained from their legitimate kings and rulers, throughout their history, are always guaranteed by the laws in force; 7 - We see customs and traditions as a fundamental source of law and we privilege the principle of subsidiarity of government and administration in relation to the populations and the intermediate bodies of society; 8 - We want the real and effective participation of the Portuguese in the political-administrative bodies that affect them in the different aspects of their lives and that this participation be, as far as possible, through an organic and direct representation; 9 - We are convinced that municipalities must be the basic cell of the political-administrative organization, just as families must occupy the same position in the social structure; 10 - We propose, for the regulation of the economy and of patrimonial and labor relations, an exhaustive and coherent application of the guidelines contained in the Social Doctrine of the Church; 11 - We believe that sustainably managed resources and carefully preserved nature constitute the best heritage that we can transmit to future generations; and that the only way to ensure this legacy is to invest in traditional activities, means and methods of economic exploitation; 12 - We are legitimist monarchists and we defend the monarchical legitimacy stipulated in the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom, composed of legitimacy of blood and exercise, which must be recognized by acclamation in legitimately constituted Courts; 13 - We therefore position ourselves in opposition to the absolute monarchy and to any form of authoritarianism, just as we oppose revolutionary liberalism and its fruits; 14 - We recognize the Legitimate King as the august defender of the liberties of the Christian Res Publica and as its Supreme Magistrate in Justice, Armed Forces and Diplomacy.

— Causa Tradicionalista, Declaration of doctrinal principles

Notable figures in defense of Portuguese Traditional Monarchy through history were Miguel I of Portugal, José Acúrsio das Neves, António Ribeiro dos Santos, José Osório da Gama e Castro, José Agostinho de Macedo, Fortunato de São Boaventura, Francisco Antonio da Cunha de Pina Manique Miguel Sotto-Mayor, Pierre-Alexandre-Marie Thébaudin de Bordigné, Antonio Sardinha, Pequito Rebelo, Hipolito Raposo, Rui Ennes Ulrich, Alfredo Pimenta, Leão Ramos Ascensão, Almeida Braga, Caetano Beirão, Xavier Cordeiro, António Cabral, Freitas Branco, João Ameal, Lourenço Pereira Coutinho, Valentim Rodrigues. On contemporary era there are important figures like Gonçalo Sampaio e Mello, Leonor Raposo, Manuel Vieira da Cruz, Jose Manuel Quintas.

Brazil

During Brazilian empire era, there were Brazilians that were supporters of Miguelist and were against the Brazilian Constitutionalism for being too liberal, while also rejected Brazilian nationalism as artificial, wanting to reverse Independence of Brazil and seeing Brazilian Monarchy as non-legit, desiring to restore United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves.

Contemporaneous Brazilian Monarchists (which considers Pedro II of Brazil as the last legit monarch) that support the model of Traditional Monarchy are the ones related to the followers of Patrianovism political legacy, which were influenced by Portuguese Integralism. The Brazilian pretender, Bertrand of Orléans-Braganza, is a supporter of the model. Actual Brazilian monarchists groups that advocate for Traditionalist Corporatist Monarchy are the Ação Orleanista. Also there are Carlists in Brazil, like the "Circulo Cultural Jose Pedro Gavlvao de Sousa".

Francophonie

This refers to the supports for the restoration of Kingdom of France form of government based in Ancien régime corporatist institutionallity (before instauration of Absolutism, rejecting Jean Bodin's conception of Monarchy) around Francophone countries.

France

See also: Legitimists, Action Française, Ultra-royalist, and Catholic and Royal Armies

French Royalist flag. Mostly used by Legitimists.

French Catholic flag with the motto "Hope and Salvation of France". Mostly used by fusionist Orleanists

Monarchists in France that support the restoration of traditionalist monarchical model are the ones that considers themselves heirs of Ultra-royalist and Counter-revolutionary political thought of the Catholic and Royal Armies (like the expressed on Vendean genocide) against the totalising vision of political and social order that appeared on the French Revolution and defending that society was 'constituted' itself (not needing a Written constitution to arbitrarily defines such natural and organic constitution of Uncodified and Metaphysical nature) and that Liberal individualism and intrusions from the modern state (since Henry IV Centralisation) should be rejected for being unnecessary and artificial impositions. Also Traditionalist Monarchists have an Historiography of the French Revolution in which they believe that existed a legitimate monarchical movement of reform (based in Catholic League and Dévots opposition to Absolutist legacy of the Politiques and Huguenots) that was usurped by the French revolutionaries and the Freemasonry.

Marquis de la Tour-du Pin, French political writer.

Initially all of their followers were on the Legitimist faction until the deaht of Henri V (Count of Chambord) pretender without heirs, which provocated that traditionalist monarchism was also assimilated by "fusionists" Orleanists (factions that renegated July Monarchy's liberal reforms and usurpation, but saw Prince Philippe (Count of Paris) as the legit successor of French Throne and the House of Orléans with the duty to restore Traditional Monarchy) and then so appeared traditionalist factions on Orleanist supporters, like the Maurrassisme and Integral nationalist movement. Moreover, after Pope Leo XIII, some of Traditionalists Monarchists tried to participate in Republican institutionality, developing some political associations like Breton Regionalist Union.

Most of their followers actually are supporters of Louis XX pretension, and proper Louis has stated he supports Traditional Monarchy. However, there are also traditionalist on the ultra-conservatist section of the supporters of Jean, Count of Paris, like the Action Française. Foreign traditionalism monarchical groups, like Carlism, has declared his support for Traditionalist faction of Orleanists (although rejecting Action Française factions that supports condemned ideologies by the Catholic Church, like Nationalism and the Positivist elements of Maurrassisme)

Notable figures in defense of French Traditional Monarchy have been René de La Tour du Pin, Charles Maurras, Jacob-Nicolas Moreau, François-Xavier de Feller, Emmanuel Louis Marie, François-René de Chateaubriand, Joseph Alexis Walsh, Albert Marie de Mun, Jacques Piou, Régis de l'Estourbeillon, Patrice de MacMahon, Hubert Lyautey, Pierre Chaunu, Régine Pernoud.

Anglosphere

This refers fro the supports for the restoration of Medieval England, Scotland and Ireland mechanism of government (Kingdom of England, Scotland and Ireland before Acts of Union 1707 and Acts of Union 1800, along rejecting English Revolution political legacy and Whig history).

United Kingdom of Great Britain

See also: Jacobitism, Neo-Jacobite Revival, Legitimist Jacobite League of Great Britain and Ireland, Order of the White Rose (1886–1915), Royal Stuart Society, and Tory

Standard of British Legitimists

Jacobite Banner

British supporters of Traditionalist Monarchy are mostly followers of Jacobitist political though, or Tory linked with Devolution in the United Kingdom, despite that not everyone are supporters of Neo-Jacobite pretenders or the Royal Stuart Society, nor the House of Windsor actual policies. British traditionalists support the restoration of descentralized Union of crowns political union on United Kingdom and also the Executive power of the British Monarch (although before Henry VIII Absolutist model). The essence of their conception of the monarchy is in the respect for Scottish, Gaelic and Welsh freedoms and institutions (considering that Parliamentarianism and Common law imposed after English Revolution was against true liberty and social representation), as well as in the religious freedom of Irish Catholics and the reivindication of Romano-British and Celtic Christianity and culture instead of supremacy of Anglo-Saxon culture, spirituality and law.

G. K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc and Bernard Shaw, sympathisers of Traditional Monarchy

Some of British traditionalists are Anglicans of High church that supports a theological renovation based in Anglo-Catholicism and Anglo-Orthodoxy, and against Evangelical Anglicanism for being too Reformed. Others have been Scottish and English Catholics like G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. Historically the British Traditionalists have had support among Scottish clans (specially on Scottish Highlands) and Irish clans, along English nobility sympathyzer of Tory movement (which were a bit common during Victorian era).

Also, there were Jacobites (like Bertram Ashburnham, Roy Campbell) that allied to Carlists and supported their model of Monarchy as an equivalent to the one on Jacobitean political thought.

In the first place, perhaps, it may be suggested that the use of the word "Jacobite" in connection with Legitimism in this country is not very happy. It is employed because of the historical associations which appeal so strongly to the English as a nation. But it does not necessarily imply, as is too commonly supposed, that the Legitimists of this country aim solely at the restoration of the House of Stuart. But for the peculiarly local associations of the term "Jacobite" the Legitimist in England might with more propriety style himself a Carlist, and thereby identify himself more closely with his brother in France or Spain. The point (which in fairness ought not to be lost sight of) is that the Jacobite is simply an Englishman who professes the faith of Legitimism - a member (it might otherwise be expressed) of the English branch of a catholic or universal party.

The Legitimist in England is an upholder of the monarchical principal because he believes it to be one divinely appointed for certain social conditions, and also because in the particular social conditions which this country has evolved it has been found to work satisfactorily. He also (and for similar reasons) believes in the principle of primogeniture; and, linking the two together (as any man of ordinary intelligence would link them) he believes that their combination has the best possible results, while their severance the one from the other - as they are now severed in England - is an illogical state of affairs which must ultimately end in confusion.

From the Legitimist's point of view, either principle may be accepted by itself and independently of the other. Social systems may, and do, exist where the principle of primogeniture is accepted, but where the monarchical principle is rejected altogether. But a social system where the monarchical principle and the principle of primogeniture are both accepted, but where the sovereign is yet not the one entitled by the laws of primogeniture to occupy the throne, is an anomaly the justification of which must be sought outside logical reason. From this aspect the Legitimist in England appears more sane than those who call him mad.

— Melville Henry Massue, Marquis de Ruvigny et Raineval, and Cranstoun Metcalfe, Legitimism in England, September 1897 issue of 'The Nineteenth Century'

United States of America

See also: Monarchism in the United States

Charles A. Coulombe, traditionalist monarchical writer from USA.

On the United States, after the defeat of Jacobite risings, a lot of Jacobites (mostly Scottish immigrants) Exiled themselves to British America through XVIII century, and in the Thirteen Colonies they settled mostly on New York and North Carolina Colony and engaged themselves with political and legal issues of the Colonial Society, although keeping their political beliefs in secret due to the repression of British Empire and the hostility of Anti-Catholic Protestants that were majoritarian due to Propaganda campaign (which spreaded the perception of Scottish and Catholics as brutes). In the context of American Revolutionary War, most of Jacobites (like Allan Maclean of Torloisk, Hugh Mercer) were Loyalists that desired to maintain the union with the British crown and wait for a House of Stuart restoration (or to George III carry out political reforms) to Guarantee Autonomy of British Americans, in reaction to the liberal ideology of republicanism in Patriots (Whigs) and the stablishmen of a different American nation as such project was perceived too artificial and revolutionary in nature. So, American Jacobites enlisted in the 84th Regiment of Foot (Royal Highland Emigrants), 71st Regiment of Foot, Fraser's Highlanders or 42nd Regiment of Foot.

On recent times, there are Traditionalist Monarchist groups like the Legitimist League of American Jacobites, although are very marginal. Also there are Carlist Circles in former Spanish North America (modern Southwestern United States), like the "Circulo Carlista Camino Real de Texas".

Italy

See also: Sanfedismo, Neo-Guelphism, and Neo-Bourbonism

On Italy, most of the Traditionalist Monarchists cames from Neo-Bourbonist movements that are Kingdom of the Two Sicilies' legitimists (mostly loyals to Prince Pedro, Duke of Calabria), criticising the Unification of Italy for being an expansionist invasion from the northern Savoyard Kingdom of Sardinia against the rest of Italic peoples' Customary laws that were protected by the Italian states' traditional institutions, which both were abolished in the name of Italian nationalism. Some of this groups are the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George, Associazione Culturale Neo Borbonici (which had a conflict with Italian Wikipedia in the past), Parlamento del Sud, L’Alfiere (Pubblicazione Napoletana Tradizionalista). Although, those Sicilian and Neapolitan monarchical movements don't consider themselves necessarly as separatist, neither secessionist. Also there are Carlist Circles in Italy (mostly in former Spanish Italy, like Southern Italy) that supports those aspirations, for example, the "Circulo Carlista Generale Borge - Napoli".

However, not all traditionalist monarchists are against the existence of an unified Kingdom of Italy, although not wanting it as sole Nation state federated in a common Constitutional charter, but instead as a Confederation of Italian Kingdomes with their own "organic constitutions" (fundamental laws) and legislative institutions (Assises) without the limitations of an unified Civil law nor an Uniformitarian Italian Parliament that menace the Intermediate bodies of Local governments. Some of this groups, like the Fronte Monarchico Giovanile, considers valid to maintain the primacy of House of Savoy as Primus inter pares, but rejecting the bad influence of Il Risorgimento modernist tendencies and restoring the power of non-Savoyard Italian nobility. Other ones desires that the Papacy should lead this Italian Confederation, based in a Neo-Guelphism and Intransigent Catholicism reactionary ideal (having the final goal of restoring Holy Roman Empire from the Kingdom of Italy as see of power instead of the Kingdom of Germany).

Notable Italian figures in the defense of Traditional Monarchy have been Antonio Capece Minutolo, Carlo De Marco, Benedetto Marzolla, Domenico Acclavio, Luigi Corsi, Monaldo Leopardi, Giacinto de' Sivo, Ferdinando Russo, Silvio Vitale, Vittorio Messori, Gennaro De Crescenzo, Vincenzo Gulì, etc. Most of them has an historiography related to Movimento Neoborbonico and Sanfedist Counter-revolutionary ones, along Ecclesiastical history of the Catholic Church and Carlism literature influences.

(...) The traditional monarchy: It is within this conception, which saw natural bonds as its foundation and esprit de corps as the social glue, that the traditional monarchic institution must be placed. An ancient aphorism says that the State is the dress of a people and, just like a dress, it must be suitable for that body to make it feel at ease. The institutional form of the State, therefore, must be organic to the nation to truly belong to it, under penalty of the risk of "rejection crisis" just as happens with organs transplanted into a foreign body. The character of the traditional monarchy was based, in fact, on the same elements of the other social bodies: «The king placed at the head of the hierarchy, like the father at the head of the family, is both administrator and judge, as symbolized by his two attributes: the sceptre and the hand of justice. […] Essentially the king exercises a right of control: to ensure that what is established by customs is normally carried out, and to maintain the tranquility of order». Since, as St. Thomas Aquinas stated, «the people are not made for the prince, but the prince for the people», in carrying out his social role, in addition to a limited number of rights, the sovereign had many duties. As an ancient poem recalls: «first, he must love God and the Church; have a good heart, piety and compassion; he must prefer the common good above all things, have his people in great benevolence, be wise and diligent; be truthful and know how to command, slow to punish, do not hinder the good and render a just judgment to the wicked so that all goodness can be seen in him». Monarchical power was based on a tacit pact between king and people - which originated from the bond of loyalty and protection that bound king and vassal and was sealed by a solemn oath on the Gospels - and could be exercised only within the limits set by customs and laws to which the king was subject. (...) The principles of this royal model, universally valid from the High Middle Ages until about the 17th century, also belonged to the Bourbon kings, albeit with the transformations and deformations that the monarchic institution had undergone, slipping into absolutism or suffering from the corruption of the Enlightenment. Francis II was inspired by this royal model, or rather his formation, his education and the profound religious sense that animated him, made him a king on the model of the great figures of the Middle Ages. Paradoxically, the very choices and historical events that are attributed to him as faults and failures actually represent the moments in which he most significantly demonstrated his adherence to this model of King-Father of the nation, in whose hands is the life of his children. A direct testimony of how strongly he felt this very high responsibility is given to us by Minister Pietro Calà Ulloa who, reporting a passage from a conversation, reports Francis' words: "If I were not King, if I were not responsible for my crown, towards my people and towards my family, I would have laid down the burden a long time ago". Francis showed himself to be King-Father when he stopped his soldiers in Palermo, after Garibaldi's invasion, at the moment in which he could perhaps have closed the game with a few blows, but at the cost of destroying the city. Or when he left his beloved Naples, to avoid the devastation of a ferocious bombardment and a war fought house to house. His farewell proclamation is almost a compendium of the traditional values that inspired this choice: "What feelings filled my soul for all my peoples and for this illustrious city: to protect it from the ruins of war, to save its inhabitants and their properties, the sacred temples, the monuments, the public buildings, the art collections and everything that forms the heritage of its civilization and greatness and that, belonging to future generations, is superior to the passions of a moment." Sentiments also confirmed by the fact that when leaving, Francis did not even take his private wealth with him, indicating that the departure was a temporary separation imposed by superior needs and not a flight towards salvation, leaving the capital at the mercy of the enemy.

— Marina Carrese, La monarchia tradizionale nel regno di Francesco II di Borbone, ’Editoriale Il Giglio.

Economically, some of them reivindicates the corporative organization presented in the Feudo di San Leucio (along the Ferdinandopoli project) as an inspiration to solve the Social question in the Industrial societies, seeing the Statuto di San Leucio as a proto-Distributism economic policy and superior to Socialism to guarantee Social justice.

Poland

There are Monarchists in Poland, based in Catholic social teaching and Thomistic philosophy, that supports the model of Traditional Monarchy and the restoration of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth institutionallity before Constitution of 3 May 1791 liberal reforms, while also criticising the worst aspects of Golden Liberty system (like Liberum veto) that provocated the Partitions of Poland. Some of this Traditionalist Monarchists groups (which calls themselves "Rojaliści") are the Conservative-Monarchist Club, Confederation of the Polish Crown, the Monarchist-Reactionary Union and the Organisation of Monarchic Poles, along the Newspaper "Lojalni dla Polski" (Loyalty to Poland). Some Polish referents in defense of Traditional Monarchy have been Jacek Bartyzel, Norbert Wójtowicz.

Czechia

There are Monarchists in Czech Republic that defends the Traditional Monarchy based in Christian Integralism, Medieval Corporatism (includying Czech Traditionalist social organization, like Bohemian Estates of Bohemia-Moravia-Silesia, Bohemian Agrarian system or organic democracy through Hetman system) and Blessed Karl's aspirations to reform Austria-Hungary in a Danubian Monarchical Confederation based in Catholic social teaching and Traditionalist doctrine.

The largest group is Koruna Česká (declaring itself as both anti-communist and anti-liberal, while wanting a "Parliamentary monarchy" based in Estates of the realm), although a schism occurred in which the most conservative factions created their own "authentically traditionalist" movement, called Monarchist Civic Association (Monarchistické Občanské Sdružení/MONOS in Czech language), due to dissagrements with KC leadership for wanting to develop a "Traditionalist Constitutionalism" instead of rejecting Semi-constitutional monarchy, while also propossing a Confessional state but with Separation of church and state, among other postures near to Liberal conservatism and Atlanticism. Another ones are the Association of Moravian Monarchists. Some aristocrats of Czech nobility, like House of Schwarzenberg, have supported them. Non-Political Parties, like, St. Wenceslas Crown Academy, Royal Moravian Order of Knights of Saint Rostislav and Columbanus, etc. reivindicates and support the traditionalist monarchical institutions.

Historical reviews

Many Sociological analysis considers that the Traditional Monarchy have had historical conditions associated with the defense of those institutions that are guarantors of their continued independence against Western modernism (on Third World) and Bourgeois revolution or Proletarian revolution (on Western and Eastern civilization), along Social unit between different peoples that have Social cohesion under a pact of loyalt to a Traditional Monarchy (rejecting the Nationalist ideologies from Elitist origin because the menace of Political fragmentation of Multinational states). The traditionalist monarchical Sociology generated fascinating problems on the Social analysis from the defenders of Modernization theory due to showing Paradigms against the dogmas of Progresivist Historicism about a constant political superation through Secularization and Centralisation (like Whig history, Positivist sociology, Historical materialism and other hegemonic Historiographies about the fall of Ancien régime or Feudal Mode of production). So, the Traditional Monarchy movement isn't against Social Progress or Industrialisation as have been pejoratively accused, but is against an Accelerationist approach of Progress that could menace Customary laws, Corporatist Mechanism (like Municipal corporation on Rural areas, Religious institutions or Local government, that are menaced by Centralized government with their forced Urbanization, Secularism and Nationalization from both Capitalist and Proletarian states) and specially Traditional values, all of them rejected by Modern philosophiers if those don't adjust to their Ideology. The fall and decadence of Traditional Monarchy should be atribuited by Western Imperialism ideological influence and Political conspiracy from well-accommodated classes or organizations (like Bourgeoisie or Syndicates, both with origin on Urban area) that concentrates the political power, rather than Social movements against a Closed mind Oligarchical Elite. Also the defense of Traditional Monarchy from Common people can't be associated with ignorance and manipulation, but to a very well-defined awareness of their interests as social groups that reject such modernizing processes that seek to concentrate power in a State that detriments their local institutions and values, which are protected by the corporate institutionality and mechanist of the Traditional Monarchy (in which the Monarch is a guarantor not only of stability, but of political continuity with historical traditions and forms of government, that can't be suited by Political parties with their different interests and possibility of sectarianism).

The withering away of the European colonial empires has virtually eliminated what was widely believed to be a highly anachronistic type of political order. There still remain, however, much more antique and even more curious political systems in which legitimacy and power reside largely in the highly traditional institution of hereditary monarchy. Most of these monarchies exist today in countries which are beginning to undergo rapid social, economic, and cultural changes (...) While the traditional monarchies are typically at low levels of economic and social development, they also, typically, suffer some what less from problems of national identity and national integration than do most underdeveloped countries. Most ruling monarchies did not undergo colonial rule or had relatively indirect or brief experiences with it. They were usually located where the competing imperialisms of larger powers collided with each other and produced a stand-off which enabled the smaller, indigeneous monarchy to maintain its independence, however shakily. Thailand was between the English and the French, Nepal between China and India, Afghanistan and Iran between the English and the Russians, Ethiopia at the juncture of English, French, and Italian imperialisms. The colonial experiences of Libya and Morocco were, in some measure, limited by the competition between Great Britain and Italy, on the one hand, and France and Spain, on the other. Most of the other contemporary traditional monarchies are in the Arabian peninsula, in large parts of which neither Ottoman nor European rule was effectively exercised. In some instances, such as Ethiopia, Thailand, and Iran, claims can be made for the continuous existence of the monarchy through several centuries. While several traditional monarchies, such as Morocco and Ethiopia, have substantial ethnic minorities, even their problems of national integration seem relatively simple compared to those of most countries in Asia and Africa. One key problem for traditional monarchies, consequently, is how to preserve the headstart which independence and national institutions of authority have given them in the face of the need for rapid social and economic change and for broader political participation which challenges the capability of those institutions (...) . Societies which modernize late do not need the same degree of diversity or dispersion to develop proposals for modernizing innovations. Indeed, the only minimum requirement is the exposure of at least some groups in the society to the earlier experience of the West. Thus, in the societies which modernize late the proposal of innovations (in the sense of their promotion within the society by some significant social group) requires less organizational diversity dispersion of power than it did in those which modernized earlier (...). The change or destruction of these traditional forces requires the concentration of power in the agents of modernization trenched. Modernization is associated with a marked redistribution of power within the political system: the break-down of local, religious, ethnic, and other power centers and the centralization of power in the national political institutions.

— Samuel P. Huntington, 1966

Among Criticers of democracy, some Medievalist have considered that in Traditional Monarchy there was a "Organic Democracy" through the Intermediate Bodies that wer better Social organization and Institutionality than modern Representative democracy and Political parties to protect the Popular interests of diverse Social groups, avoiding the appearance of Absolutist regimes, Cyclical Economical Crisis, Sectarian divisions through Partisans, or the Rise of Totalitarian Dictatorships due to Ideology that have characterised Modern world since the Renaissance, and specially after Atlantic Revolutions, caused by Modernization process and Political revolution.

Medieval political theory was based on three firm foundation stones. One: that the object of government was to insure justice. Two: that society, from the household up, must find its focus in one man — father, count, duke, king, emperor — and in this solitary individual, society, in its several unitary forms, incarnates itself and achieves its dynamic symbol. Three: that all authority came from God; that therefore a king ruled by divine right, but this divine right gave no authority to rule evilly or unjustly. (...) And so, after this interlude of well-meant but futile democracy of the modern sort, we should do well to return to the old kingship. Not that of the Renaissance autocracies, which was the debasement of sovereignty, but to the elder sort under which a real democracy was not only possible but well assured. There may be liberty under a right monarchy: there has come a sort of slavery under the democracies of the modern form where a political oligarchy and a money oligarchy, now in alliance, now in conflict, have brought about grave disorder, social chaos, and the negation of the free and the good life, under the forms of a free commonwealth founded on assumptions that are baseless biologically, philosophically, historically, and from the standpoint of plain commonsense

— Ralph Adams Cram

See also

• Traditionalist conservatism
• Integralism
• Traditionalist Catholicism
• Traditionalism (perennialism)
• Royalism
• Carlism
• Traditionalism (Spain)
• Royalist (Spanish American independence)
• Miguelist
• Integralismo Lusitano
• Patrianovism
• Legitimists
• Action Française
• Jacobitism
• Loyalist (American Revolution)
• Neo-Jacobite Revival
• Toryism
• Platonist political philosophy
• Aristotelian Political Philosophy
• Thomism and Augustinianism
• Judeo-Islamic philosophies
• Buddhist kingship
• Confucian Political Philosophy