Monarchology

Here we have the “merely psychological” monarchology—the classical principles of princely conduct based upon appearances.

It is really monarchology, a biography of kings, with a record of battles and kingly doings, not a history of the people.

Or General news by John Botero Benesivs, divided into five parts. The First contains Cosmography, i.e., a description of the four parts of the world,[…]. The Third contains Monarchology, i.e., information is given about the world’s most notable Monarchies.

The relatively bloodless coup d’état of the Glorious Revolution of 1688–9, at which his Protestant son-in-law William seized the throne, brought to power a man with a healthy disdain for some of the more credulous aspects of monarchology.

Still, even if their overall approaches to politics differed, in The Law of Freedom in a Platform, the Digger referred to ‘kings alias conquerors’, a conception that was shared by Paine who developed a kind of monarchology that described the creation of monarchy as a standardised phenomenon.