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Global Monarchy: Royal Encounters in the Age of Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2024

David Motadel*
Affiliation:
Department of International History, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK
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Abstract

Monarchy is one of the oldest truly global social structures. On the eve of the imperial age, most of the world was governed by monarchs. But as the European empires expanded, this order was radically transformed. During the long nineteenth century, most non-European monarchies were conquered by imperial powers. Often, European imperial powers abolished them, imprisoning, killing, or exiling local rulers; in other cases, the imperial powers incorporated the conquered monarchies into new imperial orders of indirect rule. Yet, there were some monarchies that survived Europe’s imperial expansion. In fact, every country that retained its independence in the era of high imperialism was ruled by a monarch: Ethiopia, China, Japan, the Ottoman empire, Persia (Iran), and Siam (Thailand). To some extent, these monarchs lived in the same social worlds as their European counterparts, forming a global, status-based community. This article offers some observations on the relationship between the world’s monarchs in the age of empire by focusing on encounters between European monarchs and those of the few non-European countries that retained their independence.

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Article
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press.

I

Monarchy is one of the oldest truly global social institutions.Footnote 1 On the eve of the imperial age, most of the world was governed by hereditary rulers. As the European empires expanded, this order was radically transformed. Most non-European monarchies were conquered. In many cases, from the Aztec empire to the Zulu kingdom, the European imperial powers abolished them, imprisoning, killing, or exiling local rulers.Footnote 2 In other cases, though, the imperial powers incorporated these monarchs into new imperial orders of indirect rule. The list of these subject potentates is long and includes the monarchs of Indonesia, the rulers of the Indian princely states, the Malay sultans, the kings and emperors of Indochina, the monarchs of Africa, the khans of Central Asia, the monarchs of Tonga, Tahiti, and Samoa, and so on. Bolstering the imperial state, these colonized monarchs became part of the European empires. They interacted with the aristocrats of Europe within a complex imperial hierarchy.Footnote 3 Many of these non-European rulers even visited the imperial metropolises to pay tribute to their European suzerains. At the same time, some monarchs of conquered kingdoms toured Europe to plead their case to regain independence. The most famous of them was the exiled Zulu King Cetshwayo, who visited London in 1882 to ask Queen Victoria, unsuccessfully, for the return of his realm.Footnote 4

Yet, there were some monarchies that survived Europe’s imperial expansion. In fact, every country outside Europe that was not ruled, directly or indirectly, by the European empires or, in the independent settler colonies, by elites of European background in the era of high imperialism was governed by a monarch: Ethiopia, China, Japan, the Ottoman empire, Persia (Iran), and Siam (Thailand). The same is true for those countries that held out long against imperial encroachment but ultimately failed to maintain their sovereignty, such as Hawai‘i, Johor, Korea, Madagascar, and Morocco. To some extent, these monarchs lived in the same social worlds as their European counterparts, forming a global, status-based community (Figure 1). In the age of steam and telegraph, the world’s sovereigns forged connections though royal correspondence, the exchanges of gifts and orders, and, ultimately, royal visits.

Figure 1. British postcard showing ‘Ruling Monarchs’, including portraits of the king of Siam, the Ottoman sultan, the Meiji emperor of Japan, and the Guangxu emperor of China, 1908 (Alamy).

To be sure, the political framework in which these interactions took place was marked by the increasing global hegemony of the European empires and the relative decline in power of the non-European monarchical states. Royal relations, in fact, became a crucial part of the non-European countries’ struggles for sovereignty. This became most obvious in the actual encounters between European and non-European monarchs.

Visits of non-European monarchs to Europe’s capitals became a recurrent phenomenon in the years of high imperialism. It was a time when royal visits emerged as a crucial part of foreign affairs in Europe, providing a distinct instrument of relations between states.Footnote 5 Over the course of royal visits, monarchs, personifying their countries on the international stage, visualized relations between states.

In 1846, Ahmad Bey of Tunis, one of the most powerful potentates of the Ottoman realm, was received with great pomp in Paris. He was the first Muslim ruler to visit Christian Europe in peacetime. In 1866, Abu Bakar, last sovereign ruler of Johor, made the first of several trips to Europe where he was received at major courts and even the Vatican; he also visited India, Java, Hongkong, Japan, and China.Footnote 6 One year later, the Ottoman Sultan Abdülaziz, accompanied by his son Şehzade Yusuf Izzeddin and his two nephews Murad (later Murad V) and Abdülhamid (later Abdülhamid II), together with Egypt’s Khedive Ismail, visited Europe, attending the Universal Exposition in Paris, accompanied by Napoleon III, and enjoying a reception with Queen Victoria in Windsor, King Leopold in Liège, Wilhelm I in Koblenz, and Franz Joseph in Vienna.Footnote 7

As early as 1824, Hawai‘i’s King Kamehameha II and Queen Kamāmalu visited London but died there after catching measles to which they had no natural immunity.Footnote 8 In 1849–50, two Hawaiian princes – the future King Kamehameha IV and his brother, the future King Kamehameha V – journeyed across royal Europe.Footnote 9 They were followed by the widowed Queen Emma of Hawai‘i, who toured Europe in 1865–6.Footnote 10 In 1881, King Kalākaua of Hawai‘i, the first reigning monarch in history to circumnavigate the world, enjoyed receptions with the emperor of Japan, the king of Siam, the king of Italy, the queen of England, the king of Belgium, and the king of Portugal.Footnote 11 His wife, Queen Kapiʻolani, and his sister, Princess Liliʻuokalani, who later became the last queen of Hawai‘i, travelled to Europe six years later.Footnote 12

King Chulalongkorn of Siam (Rama V) toured Europe in 1897, visiting France, Britain, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, Russia, Denmark, and Sweden, and returned, more informally, in 1907.Footnote 13 The Siamese ruler met with Nicholas II in St Petersburg, William II in Berlin, Franz Joseph in Vienna, and Edward VII at Windsor. His son, Crown Prince Vajiravudh – later the sixth Chakri monarch of Siam – also frequented the courts of Europe.Footnote 14 Many other Siamese princes found themselves in Europe as well, often for extended periods of education or military training. The most famous among them was Prince Chakrabongse who stayed at the St Petersburg court for no less than eight years, where he was treated like a member of the family and married a Russian noblewoman.Footnote 15

Japan, too, sent several princes to Europe.Footnote 16 Among them was Prince Komatsu Akihito who, when he first went to England as a student, met with Queen Victoria in 1871; later, in 1886–7, he made an extensive journey across Great Britain, France, Germany, and Russia, also attending Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, and returned in 1902. Prince Arisugawa Takehito journeyed to Europe in 1881, meeting with Victoria at Osborne House; in 1889, as part of his world tour; in 1897, attending the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee; and in 1905, at the height of the Russo-Japanese War, when he attended the wedding of the German Crown Prince Wilhelm and met the English king in London. Prince Fushimi Sadanaru undertook a journey in 1885–6, touring France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, and England; he also attended Nicholas II’s coronation in 1896, visited Edward VII in 1907, and met with the newly crowned George V in 1910. The Ethiopian emperors, too, would send family members to Europe, although less frequently. The most notable example is the European tour of Rās Makonnen, Haile Selassie’s father, in 1902, on the occasion of the coronation of Edward VII at which he representing his cousin, Menelik II.Footnote 17

The most spectacular of these visits were the European tours of the Persian monarchs. In the summers of 1873, 1878, and 1889, Nasir al-Din Shah embarked on three European tours.Footnote 18 Travelling by train and steamship, he and his entourage journeyed from one end of Europe to the other. The shah dined with the tsar at the Winter Palace of St Petersburg, and enjoyed receptions given by King Leopold II in Brussels, King Umberto I in Turin, and banquets with the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph at Schönbrunn Palace. He also saw the World’s Fairs in Vienna (1873) and Paris (1878 and 1889). On his first visit to the French capital, endless crowds lined the Champs-Elysées as the Persian progress moved through the Arc de Triomphe. No less splendid were his receptions in Victorian Britain, where the Persians lodged at Buckingham Palace and exchanged insignia with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle (Figure 2). The shah visited steel mills, attended the great naval reviews in the English Channel, enjoyed Madame Tussauds’s wax museum and performances at the Royal Opera. In Berlin, he discussed grand strategy with Chancellor Bismarck, witnessed an assassination attempt on Wilhelm I, and watched military manoeuvres with Wilhelm II. Some years later, the shah’s son and successor, Muzaffar al-Din Shah, followed in his father’s footsteps. He, too, was received at European courts and mingled with Europe’s aristocracy at glamorous royal galas, banquets, and parades during three European tours in 1900, 1902, and 1905.

Figure 2. The reception of Nasir al-Din Shah at Windsor Castle, 20 June 1873, watercolour by Nicholas Chevalier from 1874 (Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 920788).

The visits of non-European royalty have often been portrayed as expensive leisure trips of despotic potentates. Certainly, amusement and adventure were among some of the guests’ motivations. And yet, there is some evidence to suggest that the monarchs also had a political interest in mingling with European royalty. All of them, in fact, emphasized the political nature of their visits.Footnote 19 Nasir al-Din Shah, for instance, gave two major reasons for visiting Europe. First, ‘meeting the great kings of Europe for the consolidation of good relations and the enhancement of friendship and mutual cooperation’.Footnote 20 Second, ‘collecting all information and gathering experiences, which can be valuable for the Iranian government and nation’. The shah’s grand vizier, Mirza Husayn Khan (Mushir al-Dawlah), one of the architects of the journey, emphasized in a letter to his monarch: ‘This royal effort is not merely for tourism; it is a great main road that will lead to Iran’s progress.’Footnote 21 Muzaffar al-Din Shah gave similar reasons at the outset of his first European journey.Footnote 22 King Chulalongkorn, in a memorandum, mentioned three motives for his European travels: to establish friendly relations with Europe’s monarchs and make his country known to the world; to study European administrational, legal, military, and educational innovations; and to repair Franco-Siamese relations which had been tarnished by a military confrontation in 1893.Footnote 23 The Siamese monarch declared ‘the advancement of royal friendships’ as a pillar of a new era of his country’s global diplomacy.Footnote 24 Privately, he explained that his tour was important in Siam’s struggle for sovereignty.Footnote 25 Sultan Abdülaziz, too, claimed to have educational and political-dynastic motives.Footnote 26 King Kalākaua of Hawai‘i also emphasized the political reasons for his journey.Footnote 27 Additionally, the visits could have a domestic function in that rulers could demonstrate to their subjects that Europe’s monarchs considered them as equals.

In Europe, the visiting sovereigns and their ministers tried to engage in diplomatic negotiations, hoping for legal and military guarantees that would secure their countries’ integrity and interests in a world dominated by expanding European powers, a world in which the few countries outside Europe that remained nominally independent faced the threat of European imperialism. Often, the visitors used their stays in European capitals to broker military agreements and to give out economic concessions in order to modernize their countries in the hope of catching up. These deals, of course, could make their states even more dependent on European powers.

Yet, there was another aspect of the state visits that made them even more significant to the guests – their ceremonial splendour. A formal royal reception in a European metropolis offered non-European monarchs the opportunity to present themselves on the same level as European rulers. Their participation in the rituals and ceremonials of a state visit gave expression to the guests’ dynastic legitimacy and their country’s sovereignty. To a certain extent, the ceremonial aspects of the visits could symbolically level asymmetrical power relations. State visits thus offered non-European potentates a way of integrating themselves and their countries into a system of international relations that was dominated by the European powers.

In order to enter this system, though, it was important for the non-European monarchs to interact within the social framework – etiquettes – of the European courts. To gain recognition, the staging of the visits had to meet a European standard that was, in the eyes of the dominant European powers, considered the ‘standard of civilization’. Meeting this very standard seemed to be a key condition of becoming accepted as a legitimate and sovereign member of the international community. We should not forget that notions of civilization, political legitimacy, and territorial sovereignty were closely connected in most contemporary European legal theories. In fact, statesemen, diplomats, and legal experts routinely distinguished between different degrees of civilization when dealing with non-European countries. Usually, the world was divided into three parts: the ‘civilized’, the ‘uncivilized’ (which could be colonized), and the ‘half-civilized’. The independent non-European countries were thereby routinely considered among the ‘half-civilized’. But as the concept of ‘civilization’ itself was not clearly defined, European policies towards non-European states did not follow clear lines, but were often ad hoc. And yet, although unpredictable, this international system left some room for action on the part of the few independent non-European sovereigns. The extensive European tours they undertook helped them to demonstrate their sovereignty and consolidate their countries’ global political position.

Overall, non-European and European monarchs interacted without too much difficulty at Europe’s courts. The relations between Europeans and non-Europeans can, however, not exclusively be understood in terms of a simple adaptation of the non-European monarchs to a set European standard of courtly practices of royal visits.Footnote 28

The visits occurred at the same time as visits among European royalty emerged as a major phenomenon. Encounters between European and non-European monarchies were part of the general nineteenth-century evolution of the courtly world.

In some cases, the guests were indeed confronted with unfamiliar courtly manners that resulted from a specific European ‘civilizing process’, described by Norbert Elias.Footnote 29 The non-European monarchs would then often adapt to their powerful hosts’ customs through preparation or ad hoc imitation. Yet, at times, though less commonly, they would reject these customs. And sometimes, compromises were reached through negotiations and renegotiations that allowed the hosts and guests to engage with each other in a hybrid ‘middle ground’.Footnote 30

In other cases, however, European and non-European monarchs shared aristocratic practices that made interaction easy. Indeed, European and non-European court cultures were not always a priori different from each other. Throughout the modern period, courtly practices had converged around the world. European and non-European monarchs, to some extent, both inhabited the same global social world.

More generally, it would therefore be misleading to characterize these royal visits per se as intercultural encounters, as this would be to assume (or construct) that the monarchs were separated by (two) discrete cultures. We should not assume that global spatial separation necessarily meant cultural separation. Culture is not always spatially determined. Social formations, with their intrinsic cultures, could cross global boundaries. The story of these royal visits will problematize culturalist scholarship that examines global encounters in terms of inter-cultural, trans-cultural, or cross-cultural relations, assuming an essentialist cultural difference between actors from different parts of the world. It is impossible to reduce the royal visits to encounters between East and West, Orient and Occident, or North and South. The story of these global royal meetings often transcends such binaries, blurring boundaries which are often assumed to be crucial.

Also, it is also worth adding that the very distinction between ‘European’ and ‘non-European’ monarchies is not always straightforward. The European monarchies, despite remarkable similarities, could differ significantly from one another, just as the non-European monarchies were in many respects very different from each other, and therefore neither European nor non-European monarchies necessarily formed clear entities. And, as mentioned, there could also be similarities across the European and the non-European worlds. In short, it is often difficult, if not impossible, to draw a clear line separating the European from the non-European royal world. Moreover, (European and non-European) monarchical practices were of course never static but evolving.

Finally, we need to acknowledge that the historical actors themselves, both inside and outside of Europe, regularly (not always) understood the visits as encounters between a European centre and a non-European periphery. They considered the idea of a European standard of great importance, a yardstick, and acted accordingly. We thus need to distinguish between the historical concepts used by contemporary actors to make sense of their world and the analytical concepts which we as historians use to analyse the past. We need to take seriously the actors’ conceptualizations of the encounters. And yet, we, as historians, also need to be careful not to uncritically reproduce historical concepts – such as the idea of a ‘standard of civilization’ – in our studies.

The European powers, on the other side, usually also had some interest in the visits. Some had political and economic stakes in the countries of the visiting monarchs, using the stays as opportunities to establish, maintain, and fortify their influence. Moreover, the European courts could also benefit from the royal spectacle of receiving monarchs from far-flung places. The situation of the monarchy in the late nineteenth century – under pressure from both a politicized proletariat and an increasingly powerful bourgeoisie – was weakened. It is worth remembering that the age of empire, a perilous time for monarchs in the world outside Europe, was also a revolutionary age and the golden age of the bourgeoisie, a perilous period for monarchs in Europe (and beyond). Royal visits offered European royalty an opportunity to assert their socio-political position and to emphasize the political relevance of the monarchy. The receptions of royalty from other parts of the globe, in this context, could give expression to the universality of the monarchical order.

Scholars have long shown relatively little interest in the global history of monarchy. Historians of royalty have conventionally primarily studied (European and non-European) monarchies within state borders, examining royal politics (and institutions) as well as royal ritual and court ceremonial.Footnote 31 There is some excellent comparative scholarship, however, that examines monarchy as a global phenomenon.Footnote 32 Among the earliest of these works are Clifford Geertz’s comparative study of royal practices in the early modern world and Reinhard Bendix’s global comparative history of the fall of kingship.Footnote 33 Encounters between monarchs, however, have been systematically (comparatively) studied primarily within Europe, most notably by Johannes Paulmann, and within the European empires, by David Cannadine and others.Footnote 34 This is surprising, given that monarchies are a genuinely global phenomenon.

II

The ceremonies employed for the non-European monarchs during their visits did not differ much from those usually provided for European royalty. Although general rules of protocol for royal visits were not formally institutionalized in the nineteenth century, by mid-century essential ceremonial procedures had been established by repetitive practice, and Europe’s courts employed them when receiving sovereigns from beyond Europe.Footnote 35

The encounters were only possible since European royalty accepted non-European monarchs, based on their status, in principle, as equals. It was in fact crucial that the European courts were willing to consider their guests’ royal status as more important than their ethnic origin – ‘crown above colour’, as David Cannadine put it.Footnote 36 (We should not forget that this was a time when other non-Europeans were put on display in European zoos.Footnote 37) The Europeans thereby followed a pre-racial view which dated back to European pre-Enlightenment perceptions of non-European aristocrats. The monarchical order was considered universal. The Europeans, in a way, distinguished between the (foreign) physical body and the (royal) symbolic body of the sovereign.Footnote 38 (It is worth adding that we can make the same observation for gender, as it was status that determined the powerful position of ruling royal women, such as Queen Victoria, at the time, and not their gender, and age, as minors could be monarch.)

This became obvious, for example, when Queen Victoria noted in her diary about a meeting with Queen Emma of Hawai‘i: ‘The lady looks rather like an uncivilised savage, but is, on the contrary, peculiarly civilised & well mannered, very pleasing & clever.’Footnote 39 A few years later, Prince Albert, the prince of Wales (later Edward VII), insisted on giving King Kalākaua precedence over the German Crown Prince Friedrich, countering German objections by ranking status over ethnicity: ‘Either the brute is a king or else he is an ordinary black nigger, and if he is not a king, why is he here?’Footnote 40

Moreover, despite the nationalization of the European monarchies after the Congress of Vienna, a sort of solidarity among monarchs remained strong in the nineteenth century, a phenomenon that has been described as ‘fraternity of monarchs’ or ‘royal cosmopolitanism’.Footnote 41 Generally, the non-European monarchs benefited from these European conceptions, despite the weakness and foreignness of the countries they represented.

As a consequence, during the visits, the guests were provided with modern means of transport, like trains or steamships, often accompanied by a guard of honour, and usually, during the official part of their visit, accommodated in palaces. Sultan Abdülaziz was pleased in 1867 when his Paris cortège consisted of the same ten royal carriages that had been provided for the recent visits of the Russian tsar and the Prussian king – the imperial carriage from the time of Louis XIV (Figure 3).Footnote 42 The main streets of Europe’s capitals were decorated with the guests’ colours and the hoisting of their flags, symbolizing the monarchs’ authority and their countries’ sovereignty. Also, the guests’ coats of arms usually became part of the ceremonial iconography.

Figure 3. Sultan Abdülaziz I and Napoleon III in Paris, 1867, engraving from 1868 (Brown Digital Repository, Brown University Library).

At the heart of the sojourns were the official ceremonial receptions with Europe’s monarchs. The personal meetings at times created emotional bonds. The most striking example is the encounter between Queen Emma of Hawai‘i and Queen Victoria at Windsor on 9 September 1865. Victoria noted in her diary:

After luncheon I received Queen Emma, the widowed Queen of the Sandwich Islands or Hawaii, met her in the Coridor & nothing could be nicer or more dignified than her manner. She is dark, but not more so than an Indian, with fine features & splendid soft eyes. She was dressed in just the same widow’s weeds as I wear.Footnote 43

Enchanted, Emma wrote to King Kamehameha V: ‘I have this moment returned from Windsor Castle where the Queen received me most affectionately, most sisterly.’Footnote 44 Queen Victoria invited Emma back, and to remain at Windsor overnight, subsequently commenting on the ‘good Queen Emma’: ‘She was amiable, clever, & nice, in all she said, speaking of her own country.’Footnote 45 The widowed queens became friends; a life-long correspondence between the two followed.Footnote 46 Similarity, Tsesarevich Nicholas, when visiting Siam in 1891, forged a lasting friendship with Chulalongkorn. After arriving in Russia in 1897, the Siamese sovereign noted in one of his letters home the warm welcome he had received at the court of his friend, who was now Tsar Nicholas II: ‘The mother of the Tsar even calls me “my son” and I told her that she was like my mother. She gives me a kiss every day and today I really feel like being her son, so I offered her my check to be kissed.’Footnote 47 The photographs taken of the monarchs during the visit, resembling family pictures, visualized their bond of friendship (Figure 4). The images were, to be sure, also of political significance. Chulalongkorn apparently even wanted to publish one of them in all countries he was to visit to show the world that he was a legitimate member of the global community of monarchs.

Figure 4. King Chulalongkorn, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, and Tsar Nicholas II, sitting in the centre, at Alexander Palace, south of St Petersburg, 1897. The Siamese king links arms with the tsar’s younger sister, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna (Alamy).

The visits gave the guests the opportunity to mingle in aristocratic high society at garden parties and soirées, banquets and gala dinners, operas and theatre performances. On such occasions, they would also meet with other foreign monarchs. This was particularly the case at major events such as jubilees or universal exhibitions. The Ottoman sultan attended the prize ceremony at the Universal Exhibition in Paris’s Palais de L’Industrie, where he sat on a throne, between the emperor and the empress, surrounded by foreign royalty, including the khedive of Egypt, the younger half-brother of the last Tokugawa shogun, Tokugawa Akitake (though not royalty), Prussia’s Crown Prince Friedrich (later German emperor), Prince Umberto of Italy (later king of Italy), and Britain’s Princes Albert and Arthur, the prince royal of the Netherlands, and Italy’s Prince Amadeo (later briefly king of Spain).Footnote 48 The Persian shahs frequently mingled with a cosmopolitan group of European and non-European royalty at courtly functions.Footnote 49 Attending a garden party during the festivities of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee Week in 1887, Liliʻuokalani recalled: ‘The procession moved along the gravelled walks of the palace garden, led by the great and good lady whose jubilee year we were celebrating. It was made up of kings and queens, princes and princesses, from most of the reigning families of the world.’Footnote 50

III

The visiting sovereigns, for their part, performed the ritualized (European) choreography of a state visit almost perfectly. There are several reasons for this. First, they had no problems coping with aristocratic practices which resembled those of their own courts. In fact, Europeans and non-European aristocrats shared much ceremonial ground. The list of examples is long.

Hunting, for instance, gave the guests an opportunity to present themselves according to European custom without difficulty. In most parts of the world, hunting excursions were common practice among the aristocracy. Muzaffar al-Din Shah in particular impressed the European courts with his shooting talent – although some envious European aristocrats made negative remarks about his marksmanship, which they claimed was vulgar.Footnote 51

Also, the custom of exchanging gifts and decorations during visits, a common practice in the European context, was familiar to most monarchs around the globe. Orders, which were rooted in the European medieval orders of chivalry, were increasingly used as a sign of aristocratic authority and legitimacy around the world.Footnote 52 Throughout the age of empire, non-European sovereigns created orders to align their honours systems with those of the European dynasties. European and non-European monarchs exchanged decorations via diplomatic missions and, more importantly, at royal visits. The reciprocal acts established bonds between the courts. The practice did not only involve the monarchs but members of their entire courts. The non-European courts were fully aware of the hierarchies of decorations; the European courts, on their part, spent significant time determining the right order appropriate for the rank of the monarchs’ entourages. John Breen, who studied the phenomenon in the case of imperial Japan, described these practices as ‘ornamental diplomacy’; yet for the monarchs they had not only a political but also a social function.Footnote 53

The Persians, for example, carried boxes of medals with them to Europe.Footnote 54 One of the highest Persian decorations, the Order of the Lion and the Sun (nishan-i shir va khurshid), had already been founded by Fath ‘Ali Shah in 1808, initially with the intention of honouring foreign officials.Footnote 55 Nasir al-Din Shah created, among other decorations, the Order of the Imperial Effigy (nishan-i timsal-i humayun), which, in Europe, was given to sovereigns. On the eve of his first European tour, Nasir al-Din Shah established the Order of the Sun (nishan-i aftab) for ladies. Nasir al-Din Shah, in turn, received the Belgian Order of Leopold, the German Order of the Black Eagle with diamonds and even the Order of the Garter, Great Britain’s highest order of chivalry. When Muzaffar al-Din Shah visited England in the summer of 1902, and was only offered a portrait of King Edward set in diamonds instead of the Order of the Garter, he refused it and, deeply upset, left the country. In fact, the episode led to serious tensions in Anglo-Persian relations – eventually, a special British delegation had to be sent to Tehran to give him the order.Footnote 56 The episode was followed as far away as Tokyo, where the Meiji emperor was himself eager to receive the order.Footnote 57

In 1867, Sultan Abdülaziz was also bestowed the Garter.Footnote 58 The traditional ceremony for conferring the order, which would have required the sultan to deliver his sword to the bishop at St George’s Chapel, had to be renegotiated to be acceptable to the Muslim ruler and caliph. The queen invested the sultan with the order at a ceremony on the royal yacht Victoria and Albert, decorated with Ottoman flags and Union Jacks, at Spithead (Figure 5). The investiture was not uncontroversial: Prime Minister Edward Smith-Stanley, Lord Derby, had recommended the Star of India. Considering the Garter unsuitable for non-Christians, the queen had agreed. Yet, the sultan was set on the order, as it had already been given to his predecessor, Sultan Abdülmecid, in Constantinople in 1856. Victoria reluctantly conceded, noting in her journal following the ceremony that she had ‘given the Sultan the garter, which he had set his heart upon’ although she ‘should have preferred the Star of India, which is more suited for those who are not Christians’.Footnote 59 She observed that the sultan was pleased, and had hailed the order as both ‘a public mark of friendship & as a personal souvenir’.Footnote 60 Evangelical circles at Windsor were pushing hard in the late nineteenth century to convince the court that only Christian rulers were to be honoured with the order. Abdülaziz also received the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour (Ordre Royal de la Légion d’Honneur) with brilliants from Napoleon III.Footnote 61 In Prussia, he conferred upon Wilhelm I the Order of Osmani (nişan-ı osmani) with brilliants, while he himself wore the Order of the Black Eagle (Schwarzer Adlerorden).Footnote 62 He also presented Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary with the Order of the Mecidi (nişan-ı mecidi) with brilliants, while receiving the Order of Saint Stephen (Sankt-Stephans-Orden), the highest Habsburg decoration.Footnote 63

Figure 5. Queen Victoria invests Sultan Abdülaziz I with the Order of the Garter on board the royal yacht Victoria and Albert, 17 July 1867, watercolour by George Housman Thomas from 1867 (Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 450804) (Alamy).

It was the king of Hawai‘i, however, who made the most prolific use of orders when visiting the courts of Europe.Footnote 64 William Armstrong, the son of American missionaries who served as Hawai‘i’s attorney general and, during the journey, royal commissioner of immigration, even claimed in his travelogue that obtaining more ‘insignia of military orders given to him by European sovereigns’ was ‘one of the objects of his tour’.Footnote 65 In his letters, Kalākaua left no doubt about their social and political importance at foreign courts. His government spent significant sums on the production of Hawaiian medals, most importantly the Order of Kamehameha, manufactured in Europe, even diverting state funds allocated for other purposes. ‘The only large expense that we have to undergo, is the exchange of Decorations with the several nations that we are most likely to make exchanges’, he informed his foreign minister at the beginning of his tour.Footnote 66 ‘All the advances of exchange will be made by them and it is natural we should return the same compliment.’ The expenses mounted quickly. At one point, when in Europe, Kalākaua instructed his sister, Liliʻuokalani, ‘not to order any more orders to be made in Paris’ since ‘they are now being made in England much cheaper than in Paris’.Footnote 67 He also introduced a more sophisticated classification system for his orders so that foreign officials could be honoured according to their rank.Footnote 68 In a letter to his chancellor, Charles Coffin Harris, he explained that this would help ‘to have our Orders and Decorations valued abroad’ while visiting foreign courts. Hawaiian medals proved to be quite popular across Europe. In return, Kalākaua received some colourful European orders, from the Portuguese Grand Cross of the Order of the Immaculate Conception (Ordem de Nossa Senhora da Conceição), presented to him by King Luís I of Portugal, to the German Order of the Red Eagle (Roter Adlerorden), given to him by Prince Karl of Prussia. Queen Victoria conferred on him the Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George as Honorary Member; thrilled, he wrote to his sister that ‘the honour confered [sic] upon me by Her Majesty the Queen is the highest honor I have received yet’ during his tour.Footnote 69 ‘While the King was decorated with many Orders, there was none which he sought so earnestly as those of the British Queen’, Armstrong explained in his diary.Footnote 70 It is worth noting, however, that he never received orders of the same grade, as monarchs of major non-European empires, like the Ottoman sultan, the Persian shahs, or the king of Siam. The calibration of orders, in fact, reinforced political (and ‘civilizational’) hierarchies among the powers.

The monarchs who had been bestowed with an order made sure to wear it as a sign of honour during meetings to confirm the mutual bond. Yet, medals were not the only material objects exchanged during the visits.

Gift-giving, too, had an important function in building bonds between courts during monarchical meetings. The act of gift-giving was part of a complex cultural system of obligation to give, receive, and reciprocate based on self-interest and solidarity that was indeed, in its basic form, a global historical phenomenon. The gift was, as Marcel Mauss put it, ‘in theory voluntary, disinterested and spontaneous’ yet ‘in fact obligatory and interested’.Footnote 71 It created a situation in which members were indebted to each other, morally and materially. Overall, politically, gift-giving could have a wide range of functions, ranging from gifts exchanged between equals as signs of legitimacy, loyalty, and amity to tributary gifts exchanged between patrons and clients. In the world of royalty, it symbolically connected European and non-European members of the global courtly community, strengthening political and dynastic ties. The quality of the gift was of course also to some extent a display of the quality of relations. The choice of an appropriate gift could be a delicate issue, as an inadequate gift could offend the recipient, thereby damaging the relations. Ultimately, gift-giving could also show the wealth, generosity, and power of the giver. The gifts were also often demonstrations of the craftsmanship and artistic capabilities of their countries, projecting civilizational greatness.Footnote 72 Some of the gifts offered by the visitors were quite exquisite. In 1887, The Illustrated London News reported about Kapiʻolani’s encounter with Victoria:

The Queen of Hawaii has presented to the Queen a piece of work made entirely of the feathers of a very rare bird (the oo bird) from the Sandwich Islands. It appears that there are only two of this particular feather in the bird, and it has taken some thousands of feathers to make the wreath, which is the work of the Hawaiian Queen’s own hands. It has been mounted on royal blue plush, set in a frame of gold, with the Royal arms and the arms of the Queen of Hawaii on either side, the whole being again surrounded by a border of royal blue, set with golden stars with eight points representing the eight islands of the Sandwich group.Footnote 73

Nasir al-Din Shah and Muzaffar al-Din Shah brought paintings, porcelain, and other gifts; in 1878, the Persians even presented an Arab stallion to Germany’s Crown Prince Friedrich.Footnote 74 In Qajar Persia, gifts (tuḥfah, hadiyah, ‘inayat, and, in a tributary sense, pishkish), and the ritualized ceremonies associated with their exchange, had long been central in Iranian political life and constituted a pillar of the Qajar state.Footnote 75 King Chulalongkorn gave in 1907 to the grand duke of Baden flame-painted screens (among other gifts).Footnote 76 They all received various gifts, in return, from cigarette cases to vases. It was not the gift alone but also the act of the exchange that mattered. At times, the entire procedure was shattered by the improper conduct of one of the monarchs. Chulalongkorn, for example, reported in a letter to his daughter that King Edward VII had ‘handed me a gold cigarette case with his initials set in diamonds beneath an enamel crown’, but, rather rudely, ‘would not wait for any thanks, but hurried me off to dinner’.Footnote 77

Military displays like parades and manoeuvres, which were held during royal visits in late nineteenth-century Europe to affirm the stability of alliances (and to demonstrate military might), were also comprehensible to the guests. In countries from Meiji Japan to Ottoman Turkey, military reviews could involve thousands of troops, demonstrating the authority and power of the monarchy. When Chulalongkorn visited Germany in 1897, he attended several military parades, manoeuvres, and espaliers with Wilhelm II in Potsdam. Impressed by the discipline and synchronized marches of the troops, he had some of his sons educated militarily in Germany.Footnote 78 Abdülaziz attended massive military reviews on the Champs-Elysées.Footnote 79 In Koblenz, he watched a review of 7,000 men.Footnote 80 The Habsburg emperor invited him to review an artillery regiment in Vienna, and an infantry regiment, an artillery battery, and the corps of Pioneers at the Danubian town of Klosterneuburg.Footnote 81 In England, he attended the great naval review at Portsmouth which was to have been the largest ever naval spectacle, although rough seas prevented its full execution.Footnote 82 The Persian shahs attended military reviews in Potsdam, at Paris’s Champ de Mars, and at Windsor Great Park.Footnote 83 Kalākaua, too, was impressed when seeing the queen’s annual Windsor Great Park review of no less than 50,000 military volunteers. At times, such spectacles could send overt political-military messages to the world, such as in 1905 when – at the height of the Russo-Japanese War during which London maintained the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902 – Japan’s Prince and Princess Arisugawa Takehito during their stay in England visited Vickers shipyard at Barrow-in-Furness to launch Japan’s battleship, Katori, and Princess Arisugawa met with a group of British and Japanese women who offered knitted woollens for Japanese soldiers.Footnote 84

Finally, also in terms of sartorial standards, the monarchs fit in remarkably well in Europe. Those contemporaries who had expected (hoped for) the guests to wear exotic garments were surprised (sometimes even disappointed). Most of the non-European monarchs wore Western dress, most commonly the European-style military uniform. Most of their countries had introduced European-style attire – especially European military dress – over the course of the nineteenth century.Footnote 85 Sometimes, these new costumes, through a process of hybridization, incorporated local designs. Often, for example, the monarchs combined their military uniforms with non-European headgear, such as the red fez, in the case of the Ottomans, or fur hats, in the Persian case.

In the end, all these shared practices helped the non-European rulers to interact with European royalty and gain recognition as ‘civilized’ monarchs in the global community. There are several reasons for the similarities in courtly practice. Some parts of monarchical culture, such as gift-giving, hunting, and military exercises, were part of global pre-modern courtly practices that were similar among royal elites around the world. Other parts of court culture had converged globally throughout the modern age. In the imperial age, courts around the world increasingly emulated European court culture, both for diplomatic and domestic reasons, as could be observed in dress codes, table manners, orders, and so on.

To be sure, there were of course significant variations in the forms of kingship. Yet, these were variations, not differences in principle. When Sultan Abdülaziz visited Great Britain, the court was eager to demonstrate that a parliamentary monarchy was as strong and splendid as an absolute monarchy.Footnote 86 Richard Lyons, London’s ambassador to the Sublime Porte, stressed during the preparations that it was important to generate as much splendour as possible, and that the loyalty of the subjects to the queen was visible. Siam’s Chulalongkorn commented on the lack of splendour of the monarchy when visiting Windsor. ‘Atmosphere at the English Court is very much like in an ordinary home, not so royal and formal as on the continent’, he noted in a letter to his favourite daughter, Princess Nibha, adding:

It must be pleasant to be a British King, so long as one does not want to have too much of one’s own way. One must let others do the work. They usually come and tell you about it before, and if you have any ideas of your own you can always state them. But if they persist in having their own way you must let it go, otherwise it might lead to a disastrous quarrel. This system works well in England, and this King knows very well how to make it work. He knows when to give way, yet he is clever enough to win respect.Footnote 87

Edward VII was well equipped to work that system, he thought: ‘He is large-hearted, a sportsman, and so very gay. I am most impressed with him, and no wonder he is so popular.’

IV

Still, certain parts of the social practices exercised in the European aristocratic domain were new to the visiting monarchs. The non-European guest had thus to adapt, reject, or renegotiate courtly practices; yet, given the asymmetric power relationship, the weaker non-European sovereigns were usually expected to accept them. Most of the non-European sovereigns were not accustomed to sitting through long royal banquets, balls, ballets, and operas, listening to music alien to their ears. But still they all showed a remarkable willingness to adapt to these customs.

Their adaptability to unfamiliar European-style rituals was also demonstrated throughout the reception and farewell ceremonies. They proved their ability to meet European standards in the ritual of the handshake, which was unfamiliar to many. The political meaning of the connecting handshake was deemed by Nasir al-Din Shah to be something strange, but clearly important in the European context.Footnote 88 In England, he would even perform the gesture of hand-kissing when meeting Queen Victoria. In his diaries, he frequently referred to these greeting rituals as ta‘aruf, a traditional Persian concept of politeness, the custom of exchanging courtesies without any liability. Abdülaziz, too, learned how to perform the handshake. When Franz Joseph saluted him, he was apparently so moved by this show of respect that he clasped the emperor’s hand in both of his.Footnote 89 Sometimes, the monarchs would even embrace each other. When the king of Portugal tried to bid Kalākaua farewell with a hug, his head hardly reached Kalākaua’s shoulder; towering over him, Kalākaua simply patted his back.Footnote 90

An equally difficult obstacle was table rituals (Figure 6). Some of the guests did not know how to eat with European cutlery. Three months before his first visit to Europe, Nasir al-Din Shah, who was accustomed to eating with his hands, learned how to eat with the European fork and knife. At European courts, the shahs even adjusted to the ritual of toasts, and raised their glasses to kings, queens, and emperors. This adaptation was anything but easy for the non-European monarchs. Muzaffar al-Din Shah described the rituals in his diary as something unusual. His father’s notes similarly reflect how confused he sometimes was by courtly table rituals, how he imitated European behaviour, and how hard it was, for instance, ‘to give a speech in front of so many people who were staring and observing us, the more so as I am not used to giving such speeches on such occasions. It was difficult.’Footnote 91 All other visiting monarchs engaged in similar table rituals. Wilhelm II, in 1897, raised his glass to Chulalongkorn, celebrating the ‘ties of friendship’ between the countries, followed by a toast made by the Siamese ruler.Footnote 92 Sultan Abdülaziz, in his 1867 speech at the London Guildhall, announced that establishing familiarity with the crowned heads of Europe would contribute to the ‘peaceful coexistence’ of Ottomans and Europeans.Footnote 93 Welcoming him as an ‘enlightened Sovereign’, the speech addressed to the sultan, given by the Recorder, Russell Gurney, expressed the wish that the visit would strengthen Anglo-Ottoman ties.Footnote 94 At the banquet given at the London Guildhall in 1881, the lord mayor rose to propose the health of King Kalākaua. Kalākaua had his table speech, which was to express his gratitude to the British empire, carefully prepared by Armstrong, who later recorded in his travelogue:

At his request I prepared the outlines of a speech which he attempted to memorise while dressing for the banquet; but late hours had made him sleepy, and his excellent memory was sluggish. I noticed that during the banquet he closed his eyes several times…When he arose to respond to the toast, he began, – ‘Your Royal Highness, my Lord Mayor, and gentlemen – ’ Then he hesitated; he had forgotten the prepared speech, and was adrift in an open boat on the squally and dangerous sea of an impromptu talk. He looked around the room, at the ceiling, at the three hundred guests who watched him, but was imperturbable as usual. He began by thanking the Royal Family and the Colonial Governors for their hospitality, and declared that no event in his tour around the world had given him more pleasure than his reception in London. Upon this there was much applause, and he instantly took courage for more speech…He continued for a few moments longer, and sat down with much satisfaction to himself and amid loud applause. His Royal Highness nodded pliantly to him across the broad form of the Lord Mayor, who sat between, and the King looked at me as if he said: ‘You see, I am able to take care of myself.’Footnote 95

Figure 6. Nasir al-Din Shah at a luncheon at the London Guildhall, engraving of 1889 (Alamy).

Finally, the presence of ladies at official events could cause difficulties. The sultan and the shahs, in particular, struggled.Footnote 96 In contrast to the homo-social, gender-segregated milieu of the Qajar and Ottoman courts, in Europe noblewomen took part in many official court activities. Male–female intimacy in the courtly sphere, such as a man leading a woman by the arm or public dancing at balls – habitually even with another man’s wife – was new to Qajar and Ottoman nobles. Differences were most explicitly exemplified in the physical appearance of court ladies – in the public display of the female body in low-cut ball gowns. Yet, despite all these problems, both Persians and Ottomans learned very quickly how to cope with the unfamiliar gender roles and how to interact appropriately with European ladies at court. Both regularly even escorted queens and empresses by the arm. The European courts, too, had little reservations about these encounters.Footnote 97 More challenging, in fact, was the question of a reception of a non-monogamous ruler – such as the monarchs of Persia, Siam, and the Ottoman empire – at European courts. The polygamous ruler would usually travel unaccompanied or, at times, be joined by one wife only to avoid quarrels over protocol.

In the end, in all these instances, the visiting sovereigns acted almost naturally in the European courtly sphere. The monarchs’ satisfactory performance in Europe was of course entirely in their own political interest. Although their very adaptation to European etiquette implied recognition of European hegemony, proper receptions at the courts across Europe helped them to promote the image of their countries and to present themselves on the world stage.

The European hosts routinely explicitly remarked on the ‘civilized’ conduct of their guests. Monarchs across Europe, including Queen Victoria, judged the shah ‘civilised’ after their European tour.Footnote 98 Charmed by the Hawaiian king, the English queen characterized him in her diary as ‘gentlemanlike & pleasing’.Footnote 99 ‘Our stay in London has been very successful’, the king wrote back home.Footnote 100 William Armstrong concluded: ‘So in kingly behaviour he was, and proved to be, the peer of any monarch he met on his tour.’Footnote 101 Yet, even the emphasis on the civilized conduct of the visiting monarchs implies alterity, as the civilizational question itself would never have been brought up in the first place during encounters among European royalty. Overall, the encounters were never fully free of racism, exoticism, and discrimination, as will be discussed later.

V

Royal visits were not without risk for the foreign monarchs, since they could also expose cultural differences leading to exclusion. In some cases, the visitors simply could not cope with European social customs. Sometimes, they lacked the skills; sometimes, they did not know what was expected; sometimes, European courtly practice clashed with their own ceremonial which was important in asserting authority and power within their own court. Indeed, the list of anecdotes about the visitors’ improper behaviour is long.

Problematic, for example, was the fact that some of the monarchs could not converse in French, the lingua franca of European royalty. These linguistic deficiencies resulted in conversations that were often reduced to a few ‘merci’s, ‘oui’s, and ‘non’s, and since their French was often not sufficient for a proper conversation, overall they spoke very little. This could be observed best during the tours of the Persian shahs.Footnote 102 In fact, the language barrier was a real burden to the shahs and made the visits appear unusual in a European context. The sultan had similar troubles. The queen’s private secretary, Charles Grey, informed the prime minister, Lord Derby, that a ‘passing visit’ of the sultan ‘would be the most agreeable to all parties, as he is said not to be able to speak a word of anything but Turkish!’Footnote 103 Others coped better. Hawai‘i’s Queen Emma, who spoke English fluently, learned French during her long journey across Europe. Chulalongkorn and Kalākaua could speak English, though very little French. Queen Victoria had ‘asked particularly where I learnt English as my accent was perfect’, Kalākaua proudly wrote to his sister.Footnote 104 ‘We learned’, Armstrong, recorded in his travelogue, ‘that the Queen had been in excellent humour during the King’s visit; it pleased her especially that he spoke the English language so easily and with an English accent; no other foreign sovereign who had visited England spoke it as fluently.’Footnote 105 This was a major advantage in the global world of royalty: ‘The King’s use of the English language gave him a great advantage over some visiting monarchs.’Footnote 106 Still, knowledge of English could not replace French at every court in Europe. Chulalongkorn related that when meeting Grand Duke Michael of Russia, who spoke only a little English, in Baden, they were reliant on a interpreter: ‘In the beginning, communication was certainly a bit laborious and halting, but later it was quite fluent.’Footnote 107 The lack of language skills, assumed essential at European courts, made the meetings appear alien to Europe’s courtly world.

Moreover, in some cases, the European sense of ritualized and ordered ceremony would clash with the guests’ informality. Many did not stick to the minutely detailed schedules that characterized the royal visits of nineteenth-century Europe. The European press – used to a proper ceremonial performance from their monarchs – frequently took offence at the disorganized behaviour of some of the guests. There were also numerous rumours circulating about the misconduct of the visiting royalty and their entourage. The most colourful tales circulated during the visits of the shahs, ranging from reports about secret prostitute parties to stories about the wild slaughter of animals in their suites. William Armstrong noted with satisfaction that his Hawaiian monarch ‘did not exhibit the habits of the Shah of Persia, who, while occupying Buckingham Palace, turned one of the drawing-rooms into a slaughter-house for chickens, because it was the custom in Persia to kill and cook in the presence of the ruler, in order to remove the risk of being poisoned’, a story which was a fabrication of the press.Footnote 108

The Europeans too were responsible for some changes. The courts regularly exoticized their guests. This was reflected in the introduction of exotic decorations to the ceremonial space. On the occasions of the visits of the shahs, for instance, parts of the decorations articulated stereotypical patterns of oriental taste which were mostly a creation of the European imagination and had little to do with Persian reality.Footnote 109 Palms, Persian carpets, and colourful pillows were arranged. In Berlin, a ‘Persian marquee’ was built at the train station to welcome the shah in 1889, and that year in London a gigantic oriental papier-mâché palace was constructed on the façades of some of the houses on the road to the guildhall. Usually the shahs, presented with these odd sights, could not understand quite what the hosts were intending to signal. Similarly, when Japan’s Prince and Princess Arisugawa Takehito had dinner at London’s Savoy Hotel in 1905, parts of the grounds were changed to mimic a Japanese garden.Footnote 110

Also, a look at the shahs’ itineraries in Berlin shows that their visits to the theatre were special as they only saw plays on oriental themes, most of them penned by Europeans.Footnote 111 In 1873, Nasir al-Din Shah watched the ballets Aladdin and Sardanapal. Both pieces are set in the Orient and articulate Orientalist stereotypes. In 1878, he visited the ballet Morgana, which incorporates pieces from the Arabian Nights. And in 1889, he attended Vincenzo Bellini’s ballet The Buccaneer, ‘with its oriental images and fantastic, colourful dances’, as a newspaper put it. Similarly, in London, Japan’s Prince Komatsu Akhihito, in 1886, was shown the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera The Mikado at the Savoy Theatre.Footnote 112 Later, officials in London became more sensitive. Shortly before the arrival of Japan’s Prince Fushimi Sadanaru in Great Britain in 1907, the court learned that a new D’Oyly Carte production of The Mikado was to open at the same time.Footnote 113 To avoid offending the guests, the Lord Chamberlain’s Office moved to suspend it.

The European monarchs at times made no secret of the fact that they considered their guests exotic aliens. Queen Victoria pressed Queen Emma, for example, about her people’s dress (and lack thereof): ‘How do your people dress?’, she asked, to which Emma responded: ‘Like common people in England.’ Victoria, not giving up: ‘But before that?’ Emma: ‘Very little dress indeed – cloth round body and neck covered with leaves and flowers.’ Victoria laughed.Footnote 114 Armstrong noted that during a reception given by Earl and Countess Spencer to the prince and princess of Wales in the Kensington Museum, ‘we heard the comments made upon the King: “I am told he has thirty wives.” – “He carries himself well.” – “The Prince has taken him up.” – “Where is his country; is it near America?” – “Was his grandfather a cannibal?”’Footnote 115 He observed that although the Hawaiians mingled ‘with the superior beings who constitute the highest class’, there was also

evidence of the fact that exaltation of rank does not remove the unpleasant environments of life; that the prince and the pauper have much in common; in fact, one who was familiar with the court life told me that it was full of annoyances and tribulations in spite of the sweet air of adoration which pervaded it.Footnote 116

The press, meanwhile, offered an ambivalent interpretation of the visits, at times emphasizing equality and at times difference. Overall, however, the newspaper coverage tended to become increasingly racist, exoticist, and imperialist over time (Figure 7).

Figure 7. King Kalākaua’s ‘royal amusement’ in Vienna, caricature by L. Appelrath, printed in Humoristische Blätter, 1881 (Alamy).

In short, status was not more significant than ethnicity in every situation. In fact, considerations of class and ethnicity were always situational. Although the visitors’ royal status was crucial in most official situations, prompting the European courts to provide a European ceremonial, in some situations their foreignness could also matter. The very fact that the non-European monarchs had to deal with this uncertainty made their situation more tenuous – less privileged – compared to those of the European monarchs who visited the courts of Europe. The visiting monarchs moved in both a monarchical world and a racist world.

It is also worth mentioning that these encounters could also reveal inequalities in status and power. The most extreme examples are Prince Khosrow Mirza’s visit to St Petersburg, where he apologized to the tsar for the murder of the Russian diplomat Aleksandr Griboedov by a Persian mob in Tehran, and the visit of the eighteen-year-old Chinese Prince Chun, who was sent to Europe after the Boxer rebellion in 1901 to offer regrets for the murder of the German diplomat Clemens von Ketteler.Footnote 117 The line between the royal visits of non-European sovereigns and the visits of subjugated rulers within the empire could be thin.

Ultimately, it was the European monarchs, as hosts, who decided whether a meeting took place at all. Some of the monarchs had to struggle to be granted access to Europe’s courts. Victoria, for example, tried to avoid the meeting with Abdülaziz in 1867 and Wilhelm II tried to reject Muzaffar al-Din Shah in 1902.Footnote 118 Kalākaua regularly struggled to be received by his European counterparts.Footnote 119 At times, it was politicians, concerned about their country’s foreign relations, who had to convince their monarchs to receive the foreign crowned heads. The British foreign secretary, Edward Stanley, Lord Stanley, lamented in his diary in spring 1867: ‘Queen writes, hoping that I will prevent the Sultan’s visit. How is that possible?’Footnote 120 ‘We shall have enough to do to induce her to be decently civil to the Sultan’, Edmund Hammond, permanent under-secretary of state for foreign affairs, wrote to Henry Wellesley, Lord Cowley, the crown’s ambassador to Paris, even considering putting pressure on her through parliament and the press.Footnote 121 The queen, who at the time was still secluded in deep mourning after the death of the prince consort in 1861, in the end, consented. Yet, according to the initial arrangements, she would not receive the Ottoman ruler until the naval review on day five of his visit; and even this encounter she hoped to keep brief, on board the Osborne.Footnote 122 Lord Derby had to bring up the ‘distasteful’ but ‘important’ matter before the queen.Footnote 123 And although she let him know that she found it ‘extremely inconvenient’ and ‘very annoying’, she agreed to stay at Windsor a few days longer than planned to receive the sultan there the day after his arrival.Footnote 124 To avoid being snubbed, some of the non-European monarchs travelled incognito in Europe, at least for parts of their journeys, while keeping the option for official receptions open.Footnote 125

Some monarchs from the lands beyond Europe simply could not get an invitation to the European courts, no matter how hard they pressed. When New Zealand’s weak Maori monarch, King Tawhiao, visited London in 1884, he spent four months sightseeing in London waiting for an audience with the queen, which in the end was not granted.Footnote 126 Likewise, in 1895, King Khama from southern African (today’s Botswana) was denied a meeting with Queen Victoria; he and his entourage were in fact treated rather rudely by the secretary of state for the colonies, Joseph Chamberlain, who was assigned to take care of them.Footnote 127 European monarchs were eager to keep the social field of the global aristocracy as exclusive as possible. In some cases, they simply denied non-European aristocrats physical (let alone symbolic) access. To the end, the social sphere of the global aristocracy was dominated by Europe’s hegemonic courts.

It is also noteworthy that the European powers usually only sent diplomats, and almost never their own rulers, to the non-European courts.Footnote 128 The only European monarchs who journeyed to an independent non-European country in the era of high imperialism were Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph and French Empress Eugénie who, in 1869, visited Sultan Abdülaziz in Constantinople; Wilhelm II, who paid state visits to Sultan Abdülhamid II in 1889 and in 1898, and to Sultan Mehmed V in 1917; and the last Habsburg ruler, Karl I, who, together with his wife Zita, visited the Ottoman monarch in 1918.Footnote 129 It was mainly Europe’s princes who at times ventured beyond Europe’s borders.Footnote 130 Among them was Prince Albert Edward (later Edward VII), Queen Victoria’s eldest son, who, in 1862, toured the Ottoman empire; in Jerusalem, he had a cross tattooed on his arm. His brother, Prince Alfred, Queen Victoria’s second son, went to Hawai‘i, where he was received with all pomp by Kamehameha V, and to Japan, where he met the Meiji emperor, in 1869. Prince George (later King George V) and Prince Albert Victor, the sons of Prince Albert Edward, were received in Tokyo in 1881, where the future British king attained a tattoo of a blue and red dragon and his brother a tattoo of a few storks. Prince Arthur of Connaught, Edward VII’s nephew, visited Japan in 1890, when on world tour, in 1906, when he invested the Meiji emperor with the Order of the Garter, and in 1912, when he attended the funeral of the emperor. Germany’s Prince Heinrich, the younger brother of Wilhelm II, visited the Japanese court in 1879, during his world tour as a naval cadet, and returned in 1912, to attend the emperor’s funeral. Tsar Alexander II’s fourth son, Grand Duke Alexei Aleksandrovich, met with the Meiji emperor in 1872. The tsar’s oldest son, Grand Duke Nicholas (later Nicholas II of Russia) in 1891 visited Japan, where he survived an assassination attempt (and got a dragon tattoo), and Siam. Italy’s Prince Tommaso, the duke of Genoa, who was King Umberto I’s cousin and brother-in-law, visited Tokyo during his world tour in 1879. Prince Waldemar, the youngest son of King Christian IX of Denmark, often visited the court in Siam, forging a personal friendship with King Chulalongkorn. Still, encounters between European and non-European monarchs usually took place in Europe, which reflected the increasing power asymmetry between the countries they represented.

Finally, it is worth pointing to the rare phenomenon of royal visits among non-European royalty in the age of empire. Nasir al-Din Shah paid a visit to the Ottoman sultan on his return journey from Europe in 1873, King Kalākaua, on his global journey, toured the courts of Japan, China, Siam, Johor, and Egypt in 1881, Prince Komatsu Akihito met Sultan Abdülhamid II in Constantinople in 1887, and Muzaffar al-Din Shah visited the Ottoman court after his European tour in 1900.Footnote 131 Strikingly, here too, interactions were in part based on European etiquette, from the handshake to the exchange of decorations. Global royal solidarity was shown during Kalākaua’s visit to Japan: he recalled that when a telegraphic message arrived announcing the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, the courts went into mourning.Footnote 132 ‘The King, as required by etiquette, went into retirement and grief over the loss of his Royal Russian Brother for the rest of the day’, he noted. Kalākaua was in shock: ‘This threw a solemn gloom over the Court and more so to all our arrangements and enjoyments for the rest of the day. The Ball given by the Masonic Fraternity at Yokohama to take place that evening was given up as well as the Ball at the Yenriokwan.’Footnote 133

To conclude, in the age of empire, European and non-European royal families created networks across borders. Monarchical meetings could thereby reveal cultural alterity but also remarkable similarities in terms of social structure. They reflected the emergence of the modern royal sphere as a global social milieu (Figure 8 and Figure 9).

Figure 8. Portrait of world sovereigns (Sejō kakkoku shaga teiō kagami), showing, besides European royalty, Persia’s Naser al-Din Shah, China’s Guangxu Emperor and Empress Dowager Cixi, and Japan’s Meiji emperor and his wife Empress Shōken, Japanese woodblock print by Yōshū (Hashimoto) Chikanobu, 1879 (Metropolitan Museum, New York, and Alamy).

Figure 9. Leaders of sixteen countries in a gathering envisage a desirable future world, showing the Meiji emperor (16), Queen Victoria (1), Queen Wilhelmina (2), Wilhelm II (3), Alfonso XIII of Spain (4), Christian IV of Denmark (5), Chulalongkorn (6), Guangxu Emperor (7), President William McKinley (8), Nicholas II (9), Oscar II of Sweden (10), President Émile Loubet (11), Franz Joseph (12), Gojong of Korea (13), Leopold II (14), Umberto I of Italy (15), Japanese illustration by unknown artist, 1903 (Public Domain).

The weaker non-European rulers employed these royal connections in the hope that they would help their monarchies improve relations with the dominant European great powers. To be sure, they regularly had to struggle with an environment that degraded, even infantilized, them. At times, it was the guests’ weakness and foreignness, rather than royal parity, that characterized the visits. Moreover, in some cases, the non-European courts had to learn that, ultimately, in Europe’s capitals, political, strategic, and economic concerns were considered more important than personal royal connections. And yet, overall, royal visits offered the rulers of the independent non-European world an opportunity to gain recognition of their country’s sovereignty and their monarchical legitimacy. It was not just military and economic might that determined the fate of powers in the imperial age.Footnote 134 The importance of monarchies – which shared culture and social status globally – should not be discarded. In the end, the colourful royal pageantry allowed non-European princes to mask their actual political weakness, which was considered vital in their struggles to keep European imperialism at bay.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Christof Dejung and Houchang E. Chehabi for their comments on earlier versions of this article. Moreover, I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers, whose thorough reports helped me to improve it.

References

1 Duindam, Jeroen, Dynasties: a global history of power, 1300–1800 (Cambridge, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, provides a masterful account of the phenomenon.

2 Aldrich, Robert, Banished potentates: dethroning and exiling indigenous monarchs under British and French colonial rule, 1815–1955 (Manchester, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Cannadine, David, Ornamentalism: how the British saw their empire (London, 2001)Google Scholar. The contributions in Aldrich, Robert and McCreery, Cindy, eds., Crowns and colonies: European monarchies and overseas empires (Manchester, 2016)Google Scholar; Aldrich, Robert and McCreery, Cindy, eds., Royals on tour: politics, pageantry and colonialism (Manchester, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and, on the end of empire, Aldrich, Robert and McCreery, Cindy, eds., Monarchies and decolonisation in Asia (Manchester, 2020)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, look at the phenomenon comparatively. Fitzpatrick, Matthew P., The kaiser and the colonies: monarchy in the age of empire (Oxford, 2023)Google Scholar, looks at the phenomenon in the German empire. Banerjee, Milinda, ‘Ocular sovereignty, acclamatory rulership, and political communication: visits of princes of Wales to Bengal’, in Mehrkens, Heidi and Müller, Frank Lorenz, eds., ‘Winning their trust and affection’: royal heirs and the uses of soft power in nineteenth-century Europe (London, 2016), pp. 81100Google Scholar, offers a fascinating case-study. The chapters in Parker, John, ed., Great kingdoms of Africa (London, 2023)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, provide overviews of non-European monarchies before and after colonization.

4 Theron, Bridget, ‘King Cetshwayo in Victorian England. A cameo of imperial interaction’, South African Historical Journal, 56 (2006), pp. 6087CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Johannes Paulmann, Pomp und Politik: Monarchenbegegnungen in Europa zwischen Ancien Régime und Erstem Weltkrieg (Paderborn, 2000).

6 A. Candilio and L. Bressan, ‘Sultan Abu Bakar of Johore’s visit to the Italian king and the pope in 1885’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 73 (278) (2000), pp. 43–53; and A. Rahman Tang Abdullah, ‘Sultan Abu Bakar's foreign guests and travels abroad, 1860s–1895: fact and fiction in early Malay historical accounts’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 84 (300) (2011), pp. 1–22; and, more generally, Keng We Koh, ‘Travel and survival in the colonial Malay world: mobility, region, and the world in Johor elite strategies, 1818–1914’, Journal of World History, 25 (2014), pp. 559–82. Eunice Thio, ‘British policy towards Johore: from advice to control’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 40 (211) (1967), pp. 1–41, looks at the situation in Johore more generally.

7 Judy Ayşe Upton-Ward, ‘European–Ottoman relations in the nineteenth century: the visit of Sultan Abdülaziz to Europe’, in Kemal Çiçek, ed., The great Ottoman–Turkish civilization, I (Ankara, 2000), pp. 458–68; and, more detailed, Ali Kemali Aksüt, Sultan Aziz’in Mısır ve Avrupa Seyahati (The travels of Sultan Aziz to Egypt and Europe) (Istanbul, 1944); Cemal Kutay, Sultan Abdülaziz’in Avrupa Seyahati (Sultan Abdülaziz’s travel to Europe) (Istanbul, 1970); and Nihat Karaer, Paris, Londra, Viyana: Abdülaziz’in Avrupa Seyahati (Paris, London, Vienna: Abdülaziz’s travel to Europe) (Istanbul, 2003). For a travel account, written by a clerk of his entourage, see Halimî Efendi, ‘Cennetmekân-ı Firdevsi Âşiyân Sultan Abdülaziz Han Hazretlerinin Avrupa Seyahatnâmesidir’ (‘This is the travelogue of His Excellency, Sultan Abdülaziz Khan, whose soul shall rest in the nests of the highest level of paradise, on Europe’), Tarih-i Osmani Encümeni Mecmuası, 7–8 (1919–21), pp. 90–101. An official report about the visit was published in the official gazette after the sultan’s return, see Takvim-i Vekayi 888 (13 Rabi‘ al-Thani 1284 / 14 Aug. 1867).

8 Julie Stewart Williams and Suelyn Ching Tune, Kamehameha II: Liholiho and the impact of change (Honolulu, HI, 2001).

9 Ruby Hasegawa Lowe, Kamehameha IV: Alexander Liholiho (Honolulu, HI, 1997), pp. 27–50. The travelogue kept by Liholiho on his 1849–50 journey has been published as Jacob Adler, ed., The journal of Prince Alexander Liholiho: the voyages made to the United States, England and France in 1849–1850 (Honolulu, HI, 1967).

10 Alfons L. Korn, The Victorian visitors (Honolulu, HI, 1958), pp. 202–88; and George S. Kanahele, Emma: Hawaiʻi's remarkable queen (Honolulu, HI, 1999), pp. 189–225. Queen Emma of Hawai‘i kept a travelogue and wrote letters during her time in Europe; parts of these sources were published in Korn, The Victorian visitors.

11 Helena G. Allen, Kalakaua: Renaissance king (Honolulu, HI, 1995), pp. 108–29; as well as Masaji Marumoto, ‘Vignette of early Hawaii–Japan relations: highlights of King Kalakaua’s sojourn in Japan on his trip around the world as recorded in his personal diary’, Hawaiian Journal of History, 10 (1976), pp. 52–63; Tin-Yuke Char, ‘A Hawaiian king visits Hong Kong, 1881’, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 16 (1976), pp. 92–106; Eduardo Mayone Dias, ‘Here comes “Kalakana”: King Kalakaua’s visit to Portugal as seen by the Portuguese press’, Biography, 7 (1984), pp. 74–90; Karl R. Wernhart, Der König von Hawaii in Wien 1881: Der Besuch des polynesischen Herrschers Kalakaua (Vienna, 1987); Douglas V. Askman, ‘Kalākaua and the British press: the king’s visit to Europe, 1881’, Hawaiian Journal of History, 52 (2018), pp. 27–55; Cindy McCreery, ‘Orders from disorder? King Kalākaua’s 1881 global tour and the Hawaiian monarchy’s late nineteenth-century deployment of royal orders and decorations’, History Australia, 18 (2021), pp. 219–40; and, focusing on his visits of the non-Western states, Lorenz Gonschor, A power in the world: the Hawaiian kingdom in Oceania (Honolulu, HI, 2019), pp. 76–86. Kalākaua kept a diary during his 1881 journey, which has not been published and is only available in the archives (Bishop Museum Library). His letters home, stored in the Hawai‘i State Archives, were published as ‘The royal tourist: Kalakaua’s letters home from Tokio to London’, ed. Richard A. Greer, Hawaiian Journal of History, 5 (1971), pp. 75–109. William N. Armstrong, Around the world with a king: the story of the circumnavigation of His Majesty King David Kalakaua (New York, 1904), republished in 2000, is a travelogue of a member of his entourage. Pacific Commercial Advertiser Company, ed., King Kalakaua’s tour round the world: a sketch of incidents of travel, with a map of the Hawaiian Islands (Honolulu, HI, 1881), is a contemporary report of events.

12 Emily V. Warinner, A royal journey to London (Honolulu, HI, 1975). Liliʻuokalani wrote a diary and a memoir, published as David W. Forbes, ed., The diaries of Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii, 1885–1900 (Honolulu, HI, 2019); and Lili‘uokalani, Hawaii’s story by Hawaii’s queen (Boston, 1898).

13 Chula Chakrabongse, Lords of life: the paternal monarchy of Bangkok, 1782–1932 (London, 1960), pp. 253–6, provides an overview of the 1897 and 1907 visits. More detailed case-studies are Niels P. Petersson, ‘König Chulalongkorns Europareise 1897: Europäischer Imperialismus, symbolische Politik und monarchisch-bürokratische Modernisierung’, Saeculum, 52 (2001), pp. 297–328; Suphot Manalapanacharoen, ‘König Chulalongkorn und die Stadt Berlin’, in Ulrich van der Heyden and Joachim Zeller, eds., ‘Macht und Anteil an der Weltherrschaft’: Berlin und der deutsche Kolonialismus (Münster, 2005), pp. 251–6; and the chapters in Pornsan Watanangura, ed., The visit of King Chulalongkorn to Europe in 1907: reflecting on Siamese history (Bangkok, 2009). Irene Stengs, Worshipping the great moderniser: King Chulalongkorn, patron saint of the Thai middle class (Singapore, 2009), pp. 55–66, looks at the importance of the visits of 1897 and 1907 in Thai memory culture. Chulalongkorn’s letters and travel notes written during his 1897 visit have been published in Thai. Chulalongkorn’s travelogue, in the form of letters which were sent to his daughter, Niphanophadol, in Bangkok during his 1907 tour, have been published as Chulalongkorn, Klai baan (Far from home) (Bangkok, 1923), and reprinted several times, including as Chulalongkorn, ‘Glai Baan’: Fern von Zuhause, far from home, loin des siens (Bangkok, 1997); German–Thai Society, ed., König Chulalongkorns Reisetagebuch: ‘Glai Baan’ (Fern von Zuhause) 1907 (Bonn, 1998), only includes the letters written from Germany.

14 Chakrabongse, Lords of life, p. 234.

15 Narisa Chakrabongse, ed., Letters from St. Petersburg: a Siamese prince at the court of the last tsar (Bangkok, 2022), is the correspondence between the prince and his father, the king, during this time.

16 Peter Kornicki, ‘First encounters: from 1868 to 1902’, in Peter Kornicki, Antony Best, and Hugh Cortazzi, eds., British and Japanese royal and imperial relations, 1868–2018: 150 years of association, engagement and celebration (Folkestone, 2019), pp. 3–71, looks at several visits of Japanese princes, including Komatsu Akihito (pp. 29–35 and 49–50), Arisugawa Takehito (pp. 45–7), and Fushimi Sadanaru (pp. 47–8); and Antony Best, ‘A royal alliance: court diplomacy, 1902–1941’, in Kornicki, Best, and Cortazzi, eds., British and Japanese royal and imperial relations, 1868–2018, pp. 75–140, offers further insights into the various visits of Japanese princes, including Komatsu Akihito (pp. 78–9), Arisugawa Takehito (p. 82), and Fushimi Sadanaru (pp. 87–90 and 92); and, for an overview, ‘Appendix 1 (Chronology of Royal and Imperial Visits 1868–2018)’, in Kornicki, Best and Cortazzi, eds., British and Japanese royal and imperial relations, 1868–2018, pp. 221–6, shows that there were more than twenty visits of Japanese princes to Europe between 1870 and 1914. Antony Best, British engagement with Japan, 1854–1922: the origins and course of an unlikely alliance (London, 2021), also examines the visits of these princes, including Komatsu Akihito (pp. 37–9 and 158), Arisugawa Takehito (pp. 83–4 and 158), and Fushimi Sadanaru (pp. 155–6).

17 Izabela Orlowska, ‘Abyssinia’s monarchy and European imperial domination’, in H. E. Chehabi and David Motadel, eds., Unconquered states: non-European powers in the imperial age (forthcoming); and, on Ethiopian–European royal relations more generally, Gian Paolo Calchi Novati, ‘Barbarians, despots or brothers? European diplomacy and Ethiopian monarchs in the XIX century’, Journal of Ethiopian Studies, 40 (2007), pp. 309–30.

18 David Motadel, The shah’s grand tour: global monarchy in the age of empire (forthcoming). Some thoughts on the visits were published in David Motadel, ‘Qajar shahs in imperial Germany’, Past & Present, 213 (2011), pp. 191–235. The shahs’ travelogues of the 1873, 1878, 1889, 1900, and 1902 visits (none exists for the visit of 1905) were all published. Two of them have been translated into English, as Naser al-Din Shah, Diary of his majesty the shah of Persia during his tour through Europe in A.D. 1873, ed. and trans. James W. Redhouse (London, 1874); Naser al-Din Shah, A diary kept by his majesty the shah of Persia, during his journey to Europe in 1878, ed. and trans. Albert Houtum Schindler and Baron Louis de Norman (London, 1879). The uncensored versions of Nasir al-Din Shah’s travelogues were published by the Iranian National Archive during the 1990s: Ruznama-yi khatirat-i Nasir al-Din Shah dar safar-i avval-i Farangistan (The diary of Nasir al-Din Shah on his first journey to Europe), ed. Fatimah Qaziha (Tehran, 1377/1998); Ruznama-yi khatirat-i Nasir al-Din Shah dar safar-i duvvum-i Farangistan (The diary of Nasir al-Din Shah on his second journey to Europe), ed. Fatimah Qaziha (Tehran, 1379/2000); and Ruznama-yi khatirat-i Nasir al-Din Shah dar safar-i sivvum-i Farangistan (The diary of Nasir al-Din Shah on his third journey to Europe), ed. Fatimah Qaziha and Muhammad Isma‘il Rizvani, 2 vols., I (Tehran 1378/1999), which was first published in 1369/1990, and II (Tehran, 1374/1995), which was first published in 1369/1990. Muzaffar al-Din Shah only produced diaries on his first and second visits; see Muzaffar al-Din Shah Qajar, Safarnama-yi Mubaraka-yi Shahanshahi (Travelogue of the blessed king of kings) (Bombay, 1320/1903), reprinted as Safarnama-yi Mubaraka-yi Muzaffar al-Din Shah bih Farang (The diary of Muzaffar al-Din Shah on his journey to Europe), ed. ‘Ali Dihbashi (Tehran, 1361/1982); and Muzaffar al-Din Shah Qajar, Duvvumin Safarnama-yi Muzaffar al-Din Shah bih Farang (The diary of Muzaffar al-Din Shah on his second journey to Europe), ed. Fakhr al-Mulk (Tehran, 1362/1983).

19 Mustafa Serdar Palabıyık, ‘The sultan, the shah and the king in Europe: the practice of Ottoman, Persian and Siamese royal travel and travel writing’, Journal of Asian History, 50 (2016), pp. 201–34, at pp. 205–14, on the motives.

20 Motadel, ‘Qajar shahs in imperial Germany’, pp. 192–3.

21 Firaydun Adamiyat, Andishah-’i taraqqi va hukumat-i qanun: ‘asr-i Sipahsalar (Tehran, 1351/1972), p. 260; English translation in Naghmeh Sohrabi, Taken for wonder: nineteenth-century travel accounts from Iran to Europe (Oxford, 2012), p. 81.

22 Motadel, ‘Qajar shahs in imperial Germany’, p. 193.

23 Stengs, Worshipping the great moderniser, p. 61.

24 Ct. in ibid.

25 Pornsan Watanangura, Naruemit Sodsuk, and Khanittha Boonpan, eds., The first visit of King Chulalongkorn to Europe in 1897: a collection of letters and documents from the first visit to Europe of King Chulalongkorn in 1897 (Bangkok, 2003), p. 79.

26 Upton-Ward, ‘European–Ottoman relations in the nineteenth century’, p. 458.

27 Armstrong, Around the world with a king, pp. 6 and 18.

28 Hedley Bull, ‘The emergence of a universal international society’, in Bull and Adam Watson, eds., The expansion of international society (Oxford, 1984), pp. 117–26; and Gerrit Gong, The standard of civilization in international society (Oxford, 1984), are the most important works that look at the ‘expansion of international society’ in terms of non-European adaptation to a European ‘standard of civilization’. Tim Dunne and Christian Reus-Smit, ‘Introduction’, in Dunne and Reus-Smit, eds., The globalization of international society (Oxford, 2017), pp. 3–17; and Dunne and Reus-Smit, ‘The globalization of international society’, in Dunne and Reus-Smit, eds., The globalization, pp. 18–40, offer a critique of this view by arguing that there was a ‘globalization of international society’ which involved both European and non-European countries. More generally, this critique can be seen as part of the more general critique of Eurocentric diffusionism offered by J. M. Blaut, The colonizer’s model of the world: geographical diffusionism and Eurocentric history (New York, NY, 1993), pp. 1–49.

29 Norbert Elias, The civilizing process (2 vols., Oxford, 1969–82). Jeroen Duindam, Myths of power: Norbert Elias and the early modern European court (Amsterdam, 1995), offers a critical assessment.

30 Richard White, The middle ground: Indians, empires, and republics in the Great Lakes region, 1650–1815 (Cambridge, 1991), on the ‘middle ground’; and Homi K. Bhaba, The location of culture (London, 1994), discusses cultural hybridity more generally.

31 The literature on the history of monarchy is massive. Among the most influential works in the field, focusing on politics and ritual, are Richard S. Wortman, Scenarios of power: myth and ceremony in Russian monarchy (2 vols., Princeton, NJ, 1995–2000); Matthew Truesdell, Spectacular politics: Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte and the Fête Impérial, 1849–1870 (Oxford, 1997); John C. G. Röhl, The kaiser and his court: Wilhelm II and the government of Germany (Cambridge, 2003), which was first published as Kaiser, Hof und Staat (Munich, 2002); Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, The Emperor’s Old Clothes: constitutional history and the symbolic language of the Holy Roman Empire (New York, NY, 2015), which was originally published as idem, Des Kaisers alte Kleider: Verfassungsgeschichte und Symbolsprache des Alten Reiches (Munich, 2008); and the contributions published in David Cannadine and Simon Price, eds., Rituals of royalty: power and ceremonial in traditional societies (Cambridge, 1987); Sean Wilentz, ed., Rites of power: symbolism, ritual and politics since the middle ages (Philadelphia, PA, 1985); Janet Nelson and Frans Theuws, eds., Rituals of power: from late antiquity to the early middle ages (Leiden, 2000); and Jörg Berns and Thomas Rahn, eds., Zeremoniell als höfische Ästhetik in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit (Tübingen, 1995); and the books in the ‘Palgrave Studies in Modern Monarchy’ series. Selim Deringil, The well-protected domains: ideology and the legitimation of power in the Ottoman empire, 1876–1909 (London, 1998); Takashi Fujitani, Splendid monarchy: power and pageantry in modern Japan (Berkeley, CA, 1996); and Edhem Eldem, Pride and privilege: a history of Ottoman orders, medals and decorations (Istanbul, 2004), are some of the most important works on monarchies beyond Europe.

32 Duindam, Dynasties, offers a global comparative study of monarchies in the late medieval and early modern periods. Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly, Projecting imperial power: new nineteenth century emperors and the public sphere (Oxford, 2021), though focusing on European dynasties, is a global comparative study of monarchies in the modern period. Dominic Lieven, In the shadow of the gods: the emperor in world history (London, 2022), provides a broader view. Milinda Banerjee, Charlotte Backerra, and Cathleen Sarti, ‘The royal nation in global perspective’, in Banerjee, Backerra, and Sarti, eds., Transnational histories of the ‘royal nation’ (New York, NY, 2017), pp. 1–17, looks, comparatively, at the nationalization of monarchies around the world, while Dieter Langewiesche, ‘Monarchy – global: monarchical self-assertion in a republican world', Journal of Modern European History, 15 (2017), pp. 280–307, examines, comparatively, the crisis of monarchy. Monarchy is also briefly discussed in the classical works of nineteenth-century global history by C. A. Bayly, The birth of the modern world, 1780–1914: global connections and comparisons (London, 2004), pp. 426–30; and Jürgen Osterhammel, The transformation of the world: a global history of the nineteenth century (Princeton, NJ, 2014), pp. 501–2 and 579–93, which was first published as Jürgen Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung der Welt: Eine Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 2009), pp. 718–20 and 828–48.

33 Reinhard Bendix, Kings or people: power and the mandate to rule (Berkeley, CA, 1978); and Clifford Geertz, ‘Centres, kings and charisma: reflections on the symbolics of power’, in Geertz, Local knowledge: further essays in interpretative anthropology (New York, NY, 1983), pp. 121–46.

34 Paulmann, Pomp und Politik. Major case-studies are Daniela Rosmus, Die Schweiz als Bühne: Staatsbesuche und politische Kultur 1848–1990 (Zurich, 1994); Roderick McLean, Royalty and diplomacy in Europe, 1890–1914 (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 186–21; Nicolas Moll, Besuchspolitik: Staatsbesuche als Ritual und Werkzeug nationalstaatlicher Politik in Deutschland und Frankreich, 1871–1969 (Freiburg, 2002); Ian Radforth, Royal spectacle: the 1860 visit of the prince of Wales to Canada and the United States (Toronto, 2004); Matthew Glencross, The state visits of Edward VII: reinventing royal diplomacy for the twentieth century (London, 2015); and Jan Hennings, Russia and courtly Europe: ritual and the culture of diplomacy, 1648–1725 (Cambridge, 2016). For studies on encounters within the European empires, see the literature in n. 3, especially the important work of David Cannadine and the contributions in the volumes edited by Robert Aldrich and Cindy McCreery. There are numerous case-studies of encounters between European and non-European monarchs; see nn. 6–15 of this article for a full list. Palabıyık, ‘The sultan, the shah and the king in Europe’ looks at motives, organization, and travel writing, but not at the royal encounters themselves.

35 Paulmann, Pomp und Politik, p. 410.

36 Cannadine, Ornamentalism, pp. 6–10.

37 Sadiah Qureshi, Peoples on parade: exhibitions, empire, and anthropology in nineteenth-century Britain (Chicago, IL, 2011), on Britain; Olivier Razac, L’écran et le zoo: spectacle et domestication des expositions coloniales à Loft Story (Paris, 2002), on France; Hilke Thode-Arora, Für fünfzig Pfennig um die Welt: Die Hagenbeckschen Völkerschauen (Frankfurt, 1989); Gabi Eißenberger, Entführt, verspottet und gestorben: Lateinamerikanische Völkerschauen in deutschen Zoos (Frankfurt, 1996); and Anne Dreesbach, Gezähmte Wilde: Die Zurschaustellung ‘exotischer’ Menschen in Deutschland, 1870–1940 (Frankfurt, 2005), on Germany; Werner Michael Schwarz, Anthropologische Spektakel: Zur Schaustellung ‘exotischer’ Menschen, Wien, 1870–1910 (Vienna, 2001), on the Habsburg empire; Rea Brändle, Wildfremd, hautnah: Völkerschauen und ihre Schauplätze in Zürich, 1880–1960 (Zurich, 1995), on Switzerland. The chapters in Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, Gilles Boetsch, Éric Deroo, and Sandrine Lemaire, eds., Zoos humains: De la Vénus hottentote aux reality shows (Paris, 2004), provides a broad overview.

38 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The king’s two bodies: a study in medieval political theology (Princeton, NJ, 1957), famously made this distinction in a different context.

39 Queen Victoria’s journals (Princess Beatrice’s copies), RA, VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W), vol. 54 (1 Dec. 1864 – 31 Dec 1865), pp. 330–1 (Monday, 27 Nov. 1865).

40 Ct. in Christopher Hibbert, Edward VII: a portrait (London, 1982), p. 144, which was first published in 1976.

41 Johannes Paulmann, ‘Searching for a “royal international”: the mechanics of monarchical relations in nineteenth-century Europe’, in Martin H. Geyer and Johannes Paulmann, eds., The mechanics of internationalism: culture, society and politics from the 1840s to the First World War (Oxford, 2001), pp. 145–76, at pp. 148 and 159.

42 Upton-Ward, ‘European–Ottoman relations in the nineteenth century’, p. 459.

43 Queen Victoria’s journals (Princess Beatrice’s copies), RA, VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W), vol. 54 (1 Dec. 1864 – 31 Dec. 1865), pp. 258–9 (Saturday, 9 Sept. 1865).

44 Ct. in Kanahele, Emma, p. 200.

45 Queen Victoria’s journals (Princess Beatrice’s copies), RA, VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W), vol. 54 (1 Dec. 1864 –31 Dec. 1865), pp. 330–1 (Monday, 27 Nov. 1865); and ibid., p. 331 (Tuesday, 28 Nov. 1865).

46 Rhoda E. A. Hackler, ‘“My dear friend”: letters of Queen Victoria and Queen Emma’, Hawaiian Journal of History, 22 (1988), pp. 101–30.

47 Phaladisai, Sitthithankit, Phra borommarup song ma (The great venerable equestrian statue) (Bangkok, 1994), p. 46. The translation is from Stengs, Worshipping the great moderniser, p. 92. On the photographs, see ibid., pp. 92 and 266 (n. 44); one was printed in the 12 Sept. 1897 issue of L’Illustration.

48 Upton-Ward, ‘European–Ottoman relations in the nineteenth century’, p. 460.

49 Motadel, The shah’s grand tour.

50 Liliʻuokalani, Hawaii’s story by Hawaii’s queen, p. 171.

51 Motadel, ‘Qajar shahs in imperial Germany’, p. 220.

52 Samuel Clark, Distributing status: the evolution of state honours in Western Europe (Montreal, 2016), offers a general account on the politics of medals in European history. Robert Aldrich and Cindy McCreery, ‘European royals and their colonial realms: honors and decorations’, in Christina Jordan and Imke Polland, eds., Realms of royalty: new directions in researching contemporary European monarchies (Bielefeld, 2020), pp. 63–88, on the importance of royal orders within the European colonies and the proliferation of new orders and decorations, both European colonial orders and orders of colonial courts. Eldem, Pride and privilege, looking at the Ottoman empire; and McCreery, ‘Orders from disorder?’, looking at Hawai‘i, are important case-studies on the independent non-European world.

53 John Breen, ‘Ornamental diplomacy’, in Robert Hellyer and Harald Fuess, eds., The Meiji Restoration Japan as a global nation (Cambridge, 2020), pp. 232–48.

54 Motadel, ‘Qajar shahs in imperial Germany’, p. 218.

55 Hyacinth Louis Rabino, Les tribus du Louristan: Médailles des Qādjārs (Paris, 1916); Hyacinth Louis Rabino, Coins, medals, and seals of the shâhs of Îrân, 1500–1941 (Hertford, 1945); Muhammad Mushiri, ‘Nishan’ha va Midal’ha-yi Iran az Aghaz-i Saltạnat Qajariyyah ta Imruz’, Barrisi’ha-yi Tarikhi, 6 (1972), pp. 185–220; Muhammad Mushiri, ‘Nishan’ha va Midal’ha-yi Iran dar Dawrah-yi Qajar’, Barrisi’ha-yi Tarikhi, 9 (1974), pp. 175–240; Angelo M. Piemontese, ‘The statutes of the Qājār orders of knighthood’, East and West, 19 (1969), pp. 431–73; and H. L. Rabino, ‘Nishan’ha-yi Dawrah-yi Qajar’, trans. Jahangir Qa’im-Maqami, Yaghmā, 18 (1965), pp. 318–23, provide overviews.

56 Denis Wright, The Persians amongst the English: episodes in Anglo-Persian history (London, 1985).

57 Best, ‘A royal alliance’, p. 79; and Best, British engagement with Japan, 1854–1922, pp. 111–12.

58 Upton-Ward, ‘European–Ottoman relations in the nineteenth century’, pp. 462 and 467.

59 Queen Victoria’s journals (Princess Beatrice’s copies), RA, VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W), vol. 56 (1 Jan. 1867 – 31 Dec. 1867), pp. 183–6 (Wednesday, 17 July 1867).

60 Ibid.

61 Upton-Ward, ‘European–Ottoman relations in the nineteenth century’, p. 460.

62 Ibid., p. 463.

63 Ibid., p. 464.

64 McCreery, ‘Orders from disorder?’, on the importance of orders during Kalākaua’s 1881 royal tour.

65 Armstrong, Around the world with a king, p. 18.

66 Kalākaua to William L. Green (minister of foreign affairs), 6 Apr. 1881, Shanghai, published in ‘The royal tourist’, pp. 78–80, at p. 79.

67 Kalākaua to Liliʻuokalani, 10 Aug. 1881, Paris, published in ‘The royal tourist’, pp. 105–6, at p. 105.

68 Kalākaua to C. C. Harris (chancellor), 15 Mar. 1881, Tokyo, published in ‘The royal tourist’, pp. 76–8, at p. 77.

69 Kalākaua to Liliʻuokalani, 24 July 1881, London, published in ‘The royal tourist’, pp. 99–102, at p. 100.

70 Armstrong, Around the world with a king, p. 242.

71 Marcel Maus, The gift: forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies (London, 1954), p. 1, which was first published as Marcel Maus, ‘Essai sur le don: forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés archaïques’, L’Année Sociologique, n.s. 1 (1923–4), pp. 30–186. Natalie Zemon Davis, The gift in sixteenth-century France (Madison, WI, 2000), pp. 3–9, offers an overview of the anthropological literature.

72 Rachel Peat, ed., Japan: courts and culture (London, 2020), a catalogue of an exhibition of gifts given by the Japanese imperial dynasty to British royalty, offers some fascinating insights into this dimension.

73 Warinner, A royal journey to London, p. 43.

74 Motadel, ‘Qajar shahs in imperial Germany’, p. 218.

75 Assef Ashraf, ‘The politics of gift exchange in early Qajar Iran, 1785–1834’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 58 (2016), pp. 550–76, see particularly pp. 570–5 on gifts in diplomatic relations. Ann K. S. Lambton, ‘Pīshkash: present or tribute?’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 57 (1994), pp. 145–58, provides a broad overview.

76 König Chulalongkorns Reisetagebuch, p. 101 (23rd letter, 83th night, Monday, 17 June 1907).

77 Chakrabongse, Lords of life, pp. 254–5.

78 Manalapanacharoen, ‘König Chulalongkorn und die Stadt Berlin’, p. 253.

79 Upton-Ward, ‘European–Ottoman relations in the nineteenth century’, p. 460

80 Ibid., p. 463.

81 Ibid., p. 464.

82 Palabıyık, ‘The sultan, the shah and the king in Europe’, p. 219.

83 Motadel, The shah’s grand tour; and Motadel, ‘Qajar shahs in imperial Germany’, p. 218.

84 Best, ‘A royal alliance’, p. 82.

85 David Malitz, ‘The monarchs’ new clothes: transnational flows and the fashioning of the modern Japanese and Siamese monarchies’, in Banerjee, Backerra, and Sarti, eds., Transnational histories, pp. 155–75, on sartorial Europeanization. Gonschor, A power in the world, p. 83, offers some thoughts on the case of Hawai‘i. Philip Mansel, Dressed to rule: royal and court costume from Louis XIV to Elizabeth II (New Haven, CT, 2005), offers a more general account of the politics of clothes in the history of Europe’s courts.

86 Upton-Ward, ‘European–Ottoman relations in the nineteenth century’, p. 459.

87 Chakrabongse, Lords of life, pp. 254–5.

88 Motadel, ‘Qajar shahs in imperial Germany’, pp. 214–15.

89 Upton-Ward, ‘European–Ottoman relations in the nineteenth century’, p. 463.

90 Dias, ‘Here comes “Kalakana”’, p. 76. Armstrong, Around the world with a king, p. 271, reports the incident as well.

91 Motadel, ‘Qajar shahs in imperial Germany’, pp. 216–17.

92 Manalapanacharoen, ‘König Chulalongkorn und die Stadt Berlin’, pp. 253–4.

93 Palabıyık, ‘The sultan, the shah and the king in Europe’, p. 213.

94 Anonymous, ‘Visit of the sultan to the city’, Times, 19 July 1867.

95 Armstrong, Around the world with a king, p. 236.

96 David Motadel, ‘The German other: Shah Nasir al-Din’s perceptions of difference and gender during his visits to Germany, 1873–1889’, Iranian Studies, 44 (2011), pp. 563–79, as well as Upton-Ward, ‘European–Ottoman relations in the nineteenth century’, p. 459.

97 Nurfadzilah Yahaya, ‘Class, white women, and elite Asian men in British courts during the late nineteenth century’, Journal of Women’s History, 31 (2019), pp. 101–23, on European attitudes to encounters and relationships between non-European aristocrats (and commoners) and European women in the imperial age.

98 Motadel, ‘Qajar shahs in imperial Germany’, p. 235.

99 Queen Victoria’s journals (Princess Beatrice’s copies), RA, VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W), vol. 74 (1 Jan. 1881 – 9 Aug. 1881), pp. 261–2 (Monday, 11 July 1881).

100 Kalākaua to Liliʻuokalani, 24 July 1881, London, published in ‘The royal tourist’, pp. 99–102, at p. 101.

101 Armstrong, Around the world with a king, p. 12.

102 Motadel, ‘Qajar shahs in imperial Germany’, pp. 226–8.

103 Grey to Derby, 9 June 1867, Balmoral, published in The letters of Queen Victoria, second series (1862–78) (2 vols., 1862–9), I, ed. George Earle Buckle (London, 1926), pp. 430–1.

104 Kalākaua to Liliʻuokalani, 12 July 1881, London, published in ‘The royal tourist’, pp. 93–6, at p. 95.

105 Armstrong, Around the world with a king, p. 225.

106 Ibid., p. 216 and, similarly, p. 251.

107 König Chulalongkorns Reisetagebuch, p. 90 (23rd letter, 79th night, Thursday, 13 June 1907).

108 Armstrong, Around the world with a king, p. 216.

109 Motadel, ‘Qajar shahs in imperial Germany’, pp. 231–2.

110 Best, ‘A royal alliance’, p. 82.

111 Motadel, ‘Qajar shahs in imperial Germany’, pp. 230–1.

112 Kornicki, ‘First encounters: from 1868 to 1902’, p. 50.

113 Best, ‘A royal alliance’, 89; and Best, British engagement with Japan, 1854–1922, p. 155.

114 Ct. in Korn, The Victorian visitors, p. 241; and Kanahele, Emma, p. 200.

115 Armstrong, Around the world with a king, p. 231.

116 Ibid., p. 226.

117 Klaus Mühlhahn, ‘Kotau vor dem deutschen Kaiser? Die Sühnemission des Prinzen Chun’, in Mühlhahn and Mechthild Leutner, eds., Kolonialkrieg in China: Die Niederschlagung der Boxerbewegung 1900–1901 (Berlin, 2007), pp. 204–11; Thoralf Klein, ‘Sühnegeschenke: Der Boxerkrieg’, in Van der Heyden and Joachim Zeller, eds., ‘Macht und Anteil an der Weltherrschaft‘, pp. 208–14; and Firuza I. Melville, ‘Khosrow Mirza’s mission to St Petersburg in 1829’, in Stephanie Cronin, ed., Iranian–Russian encounters: empires and revolutions since 1800 (New York, NY, 2013), pp. 69–94.

118 Upton-Ward, ‘European–Ottoman relations in the nineteenth century’, p. 459; and Motadel, ‘Qajar shahs in imperial Germany’, p. 209.

119 Wernhart, Der König von Hawaii in Wien 1881, especially, for an overview, pp. 142–3.

120 John Vincent, ed., Disraeli, Derby and the Conservative party: journals of Edward Henry, Lord Stanley, 1849–1869 (Hassocks, 1978), p. 309 (21 May 1867).

121 Ct. in Upton-Ward, ‘European–Ottoman relations in the nineteenth century’, p. 459.

122 Grey to Derby, 9 June 1867, Balmoral, published in The letters of Queen Victoria, I, pp. 430–1.

123 Derby to Victoria, 3 July 1867, London, published in ibid., pp. 441–2, at p. 441.

124 Victoria to Derby, 4 July 1867, Windsor, published in ibid., pp. 442–4, at pp. 442–3.

125 Volker Barth, Inkognito: Geschichte eines Zeremoniells (Munich, 2013), on the history of incognito as a ceremonial form of travel.

126 Vincent O’Malley, ‘Kingitanga and crown: New Zealand’s Maori king movement and its relationship with the British monarchy’, in Aldrich and McCreery, eds., Crowns and colonies, pp. 163–76, at pp. 168–9; and Michael Belgrave, Dancing with the king: the rise and fall of the king country, 1864–1885 (Auckland, 2017), pp. 294–338.

127 Neil Parsons, King Khama, Emperor Joe, and the great white queen: Victorian Britain through African eyes (Chicago, IL, 1998).

128 A. C. Wood, ‘The English embassy at Constantinople, 1660–1762’, English Historical Review, 40 (1925), pp. 533–61; Tseng-Tsai Wang, ‘The audience question: foreign representatives and the emperor of China, 1858–1873’, Historical Journal, 14 (1971), pp. 627–34; James L. Hevia, ‘The Macartney embassy in the history of Sino-Western relations’, in Robert A. Bickers, ed., Ritual and diplomacy: the Macartney mission to China, 1792–1794 (London, 1993), pp. 57–79; James Hevia, Cherishing men from afar: Qing guest ritual and the Macartney embassy of 1793 (London, 1995); John Breen, ‘The rituals of Anglo-Japanese diplomacy: imperial audiences in early Meiji Japan’, in Gordon Daniels and Chihiro Tsuzuki, eds., The history of Anglo-Japanese relations, V: The social and cultural perspectives, 1600–2000 (New York, NY, 2002), pp. 60–76; Sabine Mangold, ‘Oriental slowness? Friedrich Rosen’s expedition to the sultan of Morocco’s court in 1906’, in Markus Mösslang and Torsten Riotte, eds., The diplomats’ world: the cultural history of diplomacy, 1815–1914 (Oxford, 2008), pp. 255–83; and Antony Best, ‘The role of diplomatic practice and court protocol in Anglo-Japanese relations, 1867–1900’, in Mösslang and Riotte (eds.), The diplomats’ world, pp. 231–53, provide studies of receptions of Europeans at sovereign non-European courts. A fascinating Western source of these encounters is Lord Macartney, An embassy to China, ed. J. L. Cranmer-Byng (London, 1962).

129 Friedrich Scherer, Adler und Halbmond: Bismarck und der Orient, 1878–1890 (Paderborn, 2001), pp. 319–32, on Wilhelm II’s first visit; Jan Stefan Richter, Die Orientreise Kaiser Wilhelm II. 1898: Eine Studie zur deutschen Aussenpolitik an der Wende zum 20. Jahrhundert (Hamburg, 1997); Alex Carmel and Ejal Jakob Eisler, Der Kaiser reist ins Heilige Land: Die Palästinareise Wilhelms II., 1898 (Stuttgart, 1999); and, for concise accounts, Horst Gründer, ‘Die Kaiserfahrt Wilhelm II. ins Heilige Land 1898: Aspekte deutscher Palästinapolitik im Zeitalter des Imperialismus’, in Heinz Dollinger, Horst Gründer, and Alwin Hanschmidt, eds., Weltpolitik – Europagedanke – Regionalismus (Münster, 1982), pp. 363–88; and Matthew P. Fitzpatrick, ‘Performing monarchy: the kaiser and kaiserin’s voyage to the Levant, 1898’, in Aldrich and McCreery, eds., Royals on tour, pp. 110–24; and the chapters published in Klaus Jaschinski and Julius Waldschmidt, eds., Des Kaisers Reise in den Orient, 1898 (Berlin, 2002), on the second visit; and Serpil Kırel and Oya Kasap Ortaklan, ‘Alman İmparatoru II. Wilhelm’in Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nu Son Ziyareti (1917)’, Sinecine, 9 (2018), pp. 113–58, on the final visit. Bernhard Kronegger, ‘Imperial pilgrimage to Jerusalem: the journeys of Franz Joseph and Wilhelm II between religious tradition and political calculation’, Römische Historische Mitteilungen, 61 (2019), pp. 117–34; and Lukas Hofmann, ‘Der Staatsbesuch Kaiser Karls I. in Konstantinopel und die Beziehungen zwischen Österreich-Ungarn und dem Osmanischen Reich im Ersten Weltkrieg’ (Diplom thesis, Vienna, 2012), on the Habsburg visits.

130 Dana Bentley-Cranch, Edward VII: image of an era, 1841–1910 (London, 1992), pp. 40–2, on Prince Albert Edward’s journey. Warinner, A royal journey to London, pp. 42–3; Donald Keene, Emperor of Japan: Meiji and his world, 1852–1912 (New York, NY, 2002), pp. 183–7; and Kornicki, ‘First encounters: from 1868 to 1902’, pp. 13–29, and, for an eyewitness report, Liliʻuokalani, Hawaii’s story by Hawaii’s queen, pp. 30–4, on Prince Alfred’s journey. Keene, Emperor of Japan, pp. 350–1; and Kornicki, ‘First encounters: from 1868 to 1902’, pp. 35–43 and 55, on the journeys of Prince George and Prince Albert Victor. Keene, Emperor of Japan, pp. 632–6 and 711; Kornicki, ‘First encounters: from 1868 to 1902’, pp. 43–4; and Best, ‘A royal alliance’, pp. 83–7 and 93–4, on Arthur of Connaught’s journeys. Keene, Emperor of Japan, p. 321; and Kornicki, ‘First encounters: from 1868 to 1902’, p. 52, on Prince Heinrich’s journey. Keene, Emperor of Japan, p. 224; and Kornicki, ‘First encounters: from 1868 to 1902’, p. 27, on Grand Duke Alexei Aleksandrovich’s journey. Keene, Emperor of Japan, pp. 445–53; and Kornicki, ‘First encounters: from 1868 to 1902’, pp. 51–2 and 55, on Grand Duke Nicholas’s journey. Keene, Emperor of Japan, p. 321; and Kornicki, ‘First encounters: from 1868 to 1902’, p. 52, on Prince Tommaso’s journey. Chakrabongse, Lords of life, p. 235, on Prince Waldemar’s journey. Miriam Magdalena Schneider, The ‘sailor prince’ in the age of empire: creating a monarchical brand in nineteenth-century Europe (London, 2017), looks at the phenomenon of the ‘sailor prince’ in comparative perspective.

131 Literature in nn. 11, 16, and 17. Rebecca E. Karl, Staging the world: Chinese nationalism at the turn of the twentieth century (Durham, NC, 2002), pp. 58–63, offers some insights into the lack of formal reception in Qing China.

132 Armstrong, Around the world with a king, pp. 73–7.

133 Marumoto, ‘Vignette of early Hawaii–Japan relations’, p. 60.

134 Paul Kennedy, The rise and fall of the great powers (New York, NY, 1987).

Figure 0

Figure 1. British postcard showing ‘Ruling Monarchs’, including portraits of the king of Siam, the Ottoman sultan, the Meiji emperor of Japan, and the Guangxu emperor of China, 1908 (Alamy).

Figure 1

Figure 2. The reception of Nasir al-Din Shah at Windsor Castle, 20 June 1873, watercolour by Nicholas Chevalier from 1874 (Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 920788).

Figure 2

Figure 3. Sultan Abdülaziz I and Napoleon III in Paris, 1867, engraving from 1868 (Brown Digital Repository, Brown University Library).

Figure 3

Figure 4. King Chulalongkorn, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, and Tsar Nicholas II, sitting in the centre, at Alexander Palace, south of St Petersburg, 1897. The Siamese king links arms with the tsar’s younger sister, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna (Alamy).

Figure 4

Figure 5. Queen Victoria invests Sultan Abdülaziz I with the Order of the Garter on board the royal yacht Victoria and Albert, 17 July 1867, watercolour by George Housman Thomas from 1867 (Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 450804) (Alamy).

Figure 5

Figure 6. Nasir al-Din Shah at a luncheon at the London Guildhall, engraving of 1889 (Alamy).

Figure 6

Figure 7. King Kalākaua’s ‘royal amusement’ in Vienna, caricature by L. Appelrath, printed in Humoristische Blätter, 1881 (Alamy).

Figure 7

Figure 8. Portrait of world sovereigns (Sejō kakkoku shaga teiō kagami), showing, besides European royalty, Persia’s Naser al-Din Shah, China’s Guangxu Emperor and Empress Dowager Cixi, and Japan’s Meiji emperor and his wife Empress Shōken, Japanese woodblock print by Yōshū (Hashimoto) Chikanobu, 1879 (Metropolitan Museum, New York, and Alamy).

Figure 8

Figure 9. Leaders of sixteen countries in a gathering envisage a desirable future world, showing the Meiji emperor (16), Queen Victoria (1), Queen Wilhelmina (2), Wilhelm II (3), Alfonso XIII of Spain (4), Christian IV of Denmark (5), Chulalongkorn (6), Guangxu Emperor (7), President William McKinley (8), Nicholas II (9), Oscar II of Sweden (10), President Émile Loubet (11), Franz Joseph (12), Gojong of Korea (13), Leopold II (14), Umberto I of Italy (15), Japanese illustration by unknown artist, 1903 (Public Domain).