Talk:Regicide

Alleged regicides before Pope Sixtus V gave his broader definition of regicide

I have removed these from the list:

Alleged regicides before Pope Sixtus V gave his broader definition of regicide

1962 BC Amenemhat I, of Egypt by his own bodyguards 1526 BC Mursili I, King of the Hittites by his brother-in-law Hantili I unknown date in late 2nd millennium BC, Eglon of Moab by Ehud 1155 BC Ramesses III of Egypt from a neck wound inflicted by conspirators 11th century BC Agag of Amalek by the prophet Samuel 1005 BC Ish-bosheth of Israel, slain by his own captains 900 BC Nadab of Israel, slain by own captain Baasha 885 BC King Elah of Israel, murdered by his chariot commander Zimri 841 BC Jehoram of Israel, murdered by Jehu 836 BC Athaliah, Queen of Judah, by rebels that placed Jehoash on the throne 797 BC Jehoash of Judah by his own servants at Miloh 771 BC King You of Zhou by the Marquess of Shen 767 BC Amaziah of Judah assassinated at Lachish 752 BC Zechariah of Israel murdered by Shallum 740 or 737 BC Pekahiah, King of Israel, assassinated by Pekah, son of Remaliah 732 BC Pekah, King of Israel, by Hoshea 681 BC Sennacherib, King of Assyria, assassinated in obscure circumstances 641 BC Amon of Judah, assassinated by own servants 465 BC Xerxes I of Persia by his chief bodyguard Artabanus 424 BC Xerxes II of Persia by his brother Sogdianus 336 BC Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great in unclear circumstances 317 BC Philip III of Macedon, executed by his stepmother Olympias 309 BC Alexander IV of Macedon, assassinated at the age of 14 by the regent Cassander 294 BC Alexander V of Macedon, murdered by Demetrius Poliorcetes 281 BC Seleucus I Nicator, assassinated by Ptolemy Ceraunus 249 BC Demetrius of Cyrene, assassinated by his wife Berenice II 246 BC Antiochus II Theos, poisoned by his wife Laodice I 241 BC Agis IV of Sparta, executed by ephors without a regular trial 233 BC Deidamia II of Epirus, assassinated during a republican revolt 227 BC Archidamus V of Sparta, assassinated possibly by orders of his co-ruler Cleomenes III 223 BC Seleucus III Ceraunus, assassinated in Anatolia by members of his army 223 BC Diodotus II of Bactria, killed by the usurper Euthydemus I 214 BC Hieronymus of Syracuse, assassinated by conspirators 207 BC Qin Er Shi through forced suicide put on him by his eunuch Zhao Gao 206 BC Ziying executed by Xiang Yu 185 BC Brihadratha Maurya of India, assassinated by Pushyamitra Shunga during a military parade 149 BC Prusias II of Bithynia, assassinated by supporters of his son 120 BC Mithridates V of Pontus, poisoned at a banquet 116/111 BC Ariarathes VI of Cappadocia murdered by Gordius for Mithridates VI of Pontus 104 BC Jugurtha, King of Numidia, captured by Roman army, paraded in Rome and starved to death in prison 100 BC Ariarathes VII of Cappadocia murdered by Mithridates VI of Pontus 80 BC Ptolemy XI Alexander II, lynched by the citizens of Alexandria 51 BC Ariobarzanes II of Cappadocia, assassinated by Parthian favorites 42 BC Ariobarzanes III of Cappadocia, executed by Gaius Cassius Longinus 36 BC Ariarathes X of Cappadocia, executed by Mark Antony 30 BC Caesarion, executed by Octavian 29 BC Antiochus II of Commagene, executed by Octavian 25 AD the Gengshi Emperor by strangulation from Xie Lu 41 Caligula by a group of conspirators supported by the Roman senate 69 Galba by the praetorian guard 69 Vitellius by Vespasian's troops 96 Domitian by a group of court officials 190 Emperor Shao of Han forced to drink poison by rebels 192 Commodus strangled by his wrestling partner supported by a group of conspirators 193 Pertinax murdered by Praetorian guard 193 Didius Julianus executed on orders by the senate 217 Caracalla murdered by a conspiracy 218 Macrinus, executed by Elagabalus 222 Elagabalus murdered by Praetorian guard 235 Severus Alexander murdered by the army 238 Maximinus I murdered by Praetorian guard 238 Pupienus murdered by Praetorian guard 238 Balbinus murdered by Praetorian guard 253 Trebonianus Gallus by his own troops 253 Aemilian by his own troops 268 Gallienus murdered by his own commanders 275 Aurelian assassinated by Praetorian guard 276 Florianus assassinated by his own troops 282 Marcus Aurelius Probus assassinated by his own troops 307 Severus II forced to commit suicide by Maxentius 310 Maximian forced to commit suicide by Constantine I 325 Licinius executed on orders by Constantine I 350 Constans killed by supporters of Magnentius 359 Gratian murdered by army faction 423 Joannes captured and executed by eastern Roman army 453 Emperor Wen of Liu Song by Crown Prince Liu Shao 455 Valentinian III assassinated 456 Emperor Ankō of Japan, by Prince Mayowa 565 Diarmait mac Cerbaill, King of Tara, by Áed Dub mac Suibni 592 Emperor Sushun of Japan, by Soga no Umako 618 Emperor Yang of Sui, strangled by soldier in coup 656 Uthman ibn Affan, Sunni Caliph, assassinated by rebels 710 Emperor Zhongzong of Tang poisoned by his wife Empress Wei 904 Emperor Zhaozong of Tang by soldiers sent by Zhu Quanzhong 908 Emperor Ai of Tang poisoned on orders by Zhu Quanzhong 1072 Sancho II of Castile and León assassinated by Vellido Dolfos 1192 Conrad of Montferrat, King of Jerusalem, assassins unknown to history 1199 Richard I of England shot with crossbow by Pierre Basile 1206 Muhammad of Ghor, Sultan of the Ghurid Empire, assassinated while doing evening prayers 1296 Przemysł II, King of Poland, by the Margraves of Brandenburg, some Polish families, or maybe both 1323 Emperor Gong of Song, forced to commit suicide by Emperor Yingzong of Yuan 1323 Emperor Yingzong of Yuan by a plot formed among Yesün Temür's supporters 1359 Berdi Beg of the Golden Horde by his brother Qulpa 1402 the Jianwen Emperor was claimed to have been burned to death in his palace by Zhu Di 1483 Edward V of England by either Richard III or some other party 1520 Moctezuma II, Emperor of the Aztecs, by either the Spanish or his own people 1532 Huáscar, Emperor of the Incas, executed by his brother Atahualpa 1533 Atahualpa, Emperor of the Incas, executed by the Spanish

When I originally defined the list I chose to use the definition that Pope Sixtus V use and listed those since his edict. The reason for why I did not go before that date are based on:

1. The principle of Nulla poena sine lege makes it difficult to retrospectively define certain acts as regicide, if at the time it was not regicide. Even the English Parliament shied away from explicitly creating a crime regicide and instead the regicides were simply exempted from the Indemnity and Oblivion Act (General Pardon) and tried for high treason (which if not for the General Pardon would have been true for any that fought for Parliament in the Civil War). This is similar to the Nazi's who were tried for Crimes Against Humanity and not genocide because prior to the ratification of the Genocide Convention there was not such crime under international law.
2. The further one goes back in time the more difficult it is to judge if a person was a reigning monarch or a vassal of some other greater king, or a war lord. Or ruler who was defined as an emperor/dictator/tyrant and not a monarch as understood side the late 16th century. Fore example the Roman emperors were styled emperor because they were not kings (for reasons of Roman history), so including them in this list is going to be contentious.
3. The further back one goes the more difficult it is to decide if a person was a monarch at the time of their death. Taking an example from this list and a couple that are not included Edward II of England, Richard II of England, Edward V of England a case can be made for including and excluding all three. In the case of Edward V of England as the child was never anointed or proclamed then was he king? Clearly the editor who included him thought he was. The last Russian Tzar is included in the list so why not Richard II of England. This quickly becomes a minefield of opinion and OR.
4. The further one goes back in history the harder it can be to be definitive about the facts for example another name in the list Moctezuma II according to his article "In the subsequent battles with the Spaniards after Cortés' return, Moctezuma was killed. The details of his death are unknown, with different versions of his demise given by different sources". If killed by the Spanish his death would not have been considered a regicide (Nulla poena sine lege), and how many reputable sources describe his death as a regicide?
5. Another dubious one is Richard I of England he was killed in battle. People killed in battle are not murdered (laws of war), so a King killed in battle is not the subject of regicide. If they were then an obvious contenders for this list would be Richard III of England and Gustavus Adophus.

Lists are binary and it is difficult (often OR) to judge whether someone should be included especially for lists about topics like this. This is why the the article List of massacres to List of events named massacres. Restricting the list to those Kings who have been killed since Pope Sixtus V gave his broader definition allows this article to build up a list that includes more primary sources, and clear international relations (recognitions of monarchies by other states we could use the Treaty of Westphalia 1648), but there are only three killings listed before that date and all of them were recognised as Monarchs (because they were also heads of state); and more importantly should allow for plenty of non-contradictory secondary sources stating that those killing in the list are widely seen as regicides. -- PBS (talk) 18:52, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

I disagree with the reasoning here, because 'regicide' is commonly thought of as killing of a reigning monarch, whether or not it fits the stricter definition of Pope Sixtus V. The Pope's definition is perhaps implying a particular kind of sin against the law of God, since killing a monarch in the heat of battle and assassinating him in peace are not equally culpable if you think that the monarch is ordained by divine right, since the latter is deliberate acting against God's chosen one and the former is not necessarily so. This has little to do with the article we have here, however, because we are not concerned with the issue of how it might be a sin in God's eyes, we are rather concerned with the issue of regicide simply as an academic topic in an encyclopedia.

Edward the martyr of England was widely considered to be a regicide, even a martyrdom. The King of Spain was upset with the conquistadores when he heard that they had killed kings among the Amerindians, since he saw this as the crime of regicide. In the biblical narrative, King David refused to kill Saul, because he said he was the Lord's anointed and he killed the man who said he killed Saul, because he 'raised his hand against the Lord's anointed'. Diarmait mac Cerbaill's murderer was prophesied by St Columba to be cursed for what he had done in killing the king of Ireland. I really can't see how this would make any sense for the topic of regicide if we excluded these things, despite the fact that they were clearly thought of as regicides historically.

Hence, I see no reason why a Wikipedia article needs to follow the definition of the Pope on this topic. It is essentially like if we pick one particular political scientist who defined what a genocide is and only allow a list of genocides that include genocides according to the particular definition of that thinker... but as far as Wikipedia is concerned, I think the question is why would we do it like that? You could also say if you made an article on bishops on Wikipedia according to Catholic definition from the transmission of the laying on of hands, you could also argue that all of the bishops of the Anglican or Lutheran churches were not truly bishops, and therefore if you made a list of bishops, you would then exclude them from the list... but why would we make an encyclopedia like that?

If the definition was universally accepted, it might make sense, but it isn't. The article should be concerned with regicide as a topic in general; if there is a list, then it ought to include every killing of a ruler that fits the Wikipedia definition of notable and which was ever called a regicide by some common definition that existed, explicitly or implicitly. Reesorville (talk) 10:47, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

"ought to include every killing of a ruler that fits the Wikipedia definition of notable" using the/a Wikipedia definition would create a list using original research. Any killing in such a list must be backed up by reliable sources stating it was a regicide.

A problem is that as one goes further back in time it gets more and more difficult to define what a regicide is. For example the Roman emperors were not kings, so are their deaths regicide? In medieval England questions of whether a person was king or not when they were killed (nb killed not necessarily murdered) is debatable. For example was Richard I a victim of regicide? What about Edward II or the Edward prince in the tower? If the elder of the princes in the tower was killed first then was the death of his younger brother also a regicide? One can also argue that as Mary Queen of Scots was lawfully killed in a state execution, rather than by Queen Elizabeth personal command so why is she mentioned as a regicide and not everyone else complicit in the killing (as is done with Charles I)?

The problem with adding names before the Pope decree is it will be an arbitrary list. There used to be a "list of massacres" it was moved to "List of events named massacres" simply because it proved impossible to build a OR free list. Even now it is not of much use as it is arbitrarily selective, because authors may us the word butchery or slaughter as in Slaughter of the Innocents instead of massacre so the list is inevitably selective and as such fall victim to a none NPOV.

Another example is Tyrant. At one time there was a List of tyrants it was deleted as "inherently POV". The article Tyrantand it does not have a list of tyrants to make it so.

Take another example there used to be an article that included "Terror bombings", the problem is it was, even with a rule that says two reliable sources have to have called it "terror bombing" it was always going to be a subset of strategic aerial bombing (with a for tactical aerial bombings to season it). This is because those who favoured bombing consider damaging enemy morale a legitimate war aim (eg to use a modern euphemism Shock and awe), while those who do not call it a terrorist act.

So even if we were to do as has been done with some contentious lists and create rules eg "Criteria for including events in this list" on the talk page of talk:List of ethnic cleansings, creating a list based on exclusion of those that are not called regicides in reliable sources is going to be a synthesis and OR. At least by listing the killings since Mary Queen of Scots, the list does not become full of so much OR and is somewhat informative. -- PBS (talk) 12:05, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

I would argue that all of those examples should be included in the list including Mary, Queen of Scots, the Roman Emperors, Richard I and so on. I don't see an issue with OR here, you'll have to explain further. It is generally accepted as a historic fact that Qin Ershi was forced to commit suicide by Zhao Gao - where would the OR come from? You could maybe claim that the details of some cases are debatable, but that is not OR - if necessary you could just put a note saying that the details of some cases were debatable. It is true that many of these cases can be contested as regicides depending on various definitions, but that can also be noted. I think that if everything is included then it is not arbitrary. I think it is only arbitrary if you exclude some on the basis of one definition over the other, by saying that such and such is not a regicide because this condition is not met, which is what using the definition of the Pope would essentially be doing. From what you describe, I think that would essentially be the flaw in the list of massacres or terror attacks as well, since they must have suffered from the problem of people of people disagreeing about using one definition over the other, rather than including those considered such by all definitions. I recommend putting what is considered a regicide by any commonly accepted definition into the list, and then just make a note that depending on the definition of regicide, certain things may not be counted. My biggest reason for including these, however, is that it is really quite clear that many of these other instances were treated as regicide historically, some in very deep ways. The very idea of regicide as being such a horrible crime, in the west at least, has deep connections with the biblical narrative of Saul and David, which would actually have not been considered regicide under the Pope's definition since it related to killing of the king in war.Reesorville (talk) 13:39, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

There's been no further discussion here for a year. I'm going to put the pre-1600s list back in, unless there is further debate. Reesorville (talk) 13:06, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

There is and will be further debate. "It is generally accepted as a historic fact that Qin Ershi was forced to commit suicide by Zhao Gao - where would the OR come from?" It is OR to call it a regicide unless most historians do. Most killings of kings before the Pope proclaimed Elizabeth I a regicide were not and are not described as such. -- PBS (talk) 17:15, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

What do we consider 'most historians' to include? If we are going to use historians from English-speaking nations in modern times, then this is not wholly representative of 'most historians'. Killings of monarchs throughout history in many places were considered grave acts against the natural order because it was believed that the monarch ruled by divine or heavenly mandate, and there are a lot of writers from past times that wrote them as such, even if some modern period historians in the west, which is just a small portion of the world as a whole, didn't count them as such. I feel it is a serious POV issue to base the article on that definition alone and exclude all others. Reesorville (talk) 02:31, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

I just did a search on baidu with the Chinese word for regicide (弑君 - shi jun) along with names Zhao Gao or Qin Ershi and found websites all over the place describing Zhao Gao as committing 弑君 against the Emperor by the forced suicide. Apparently even Qin Ershi's words at the time to Zhao Gao's son-in-law that carried it out were: "朕乃真龙天子，你敢弑君！” - 'Zhen' (it means 'I' but it is a special personal pronoun used only for the Emperor) am the true dragon son of heaven, and you dare to commit regicide!“ (https://read.qidian.com/chapter/NZjpy6l4mZ_v7_WH3wfEdQ2/0jJ1NjnCZ9D6ItTi_ILQ7A2) Are there sources that show that the historiography of the event, which occurred in the 3rd century BC, that considered it to be a regicide began only after the Pope's condemnation of Elizabeth in the 16th century? Reesorville (talk) 13:59, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

I've waited a month and there has been no further debate or discussion. Hence, I am going to add the longer list back into the article again. If the above user or any other user disagrees with this, I think it is reasonable to insist that they should discuss it here first and wait for the conclusion to the discussion before editing it back again. Reesorville (talk) 09:49, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Section "The regicide of Charles I of England"

Shouldn't it be in a separate article? This one ("Regicide") is a generic one and should not dwell on specific regicides, unless there is something peculiar that can contribute to better understanding of the concept. Staszek Lem (talk) 16:53, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I agree. The emphasis on the execution of Charles I (and on Britain in general) in this article is strange. Ichthyovenator (talk) 12:49, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Iran: Naser al-Din Shah Qajar was killed by Mirza reza Kermani

Iran: Naser al-Din Shah Qajar was killed by Mirza reza Kermani 185.83.196.122 (talk) 12:19, 21 August 2023 (UTC)