composite monarchy

Noun

composite monarchy (plural composite monarchies)

1. (historical) A type of monarchy, common in Europe during the early modern period, in which a single ruler governed several territories as if they were separate kingdoms, each with its own local traditions and legal structures.
   • 1995 [Routledge], Conrad Russell, Chapter 8: Composite monarchies in early modern Europe, Alexander Grant, Keith Stringer, Uniting the Kingdom?, 2003, Taylor & Francis e-library, page 133,
     All multiple kingdoms are composite monarchies, but not all composite monarchies are multiple kingdoms.
   • These historians have rediscovered what J. R. Seeley realised a century ago: that England, just like France, was a composite monarchy, just as Britain, just like the Spanish Monarchy, was a multiple kingdom.⁷⁰ In the former, a diversity of territories, peoples, institutions and legal jurisdictions...2000, David Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire, Cambridge University Press, page 22

   Synonyms:

   composite state, personal union