A puppet ruler is a person who holds a title of political authority, but is loyal to or coerced by outside persons or groups. When a foreign government wields such outside control, the puppet ruler's territory is referred to as a puppet state. Internal factors, such as non-elected officials, may also exert power over the puppet monarch. A figurehead monarch, as a source of legitimacy and perhaps divine reign, has been the used form of government in numerous circumstances and places throughout history.

There are two basic forms of puppet monarchs: a figurehead monarch who is a puppet of another person or a group in the country who rules instead of the nominal ruler; and a puppet government, who is occupied or under the controlling influence of a foreign power. Examples of the first type are the Emperors who were the puppets of the shōguns of Japan and the kings who were the puppets of the mayors of the palace in the Frankish kingdom. Client kingdoms under the Roman Republic and Roman Empire and the Empire of Japan's colonial relationship with the Manchukuo under Puyi are examples of the second type.

Incumbent rulers may rely on puppet rulers to circumvent term limits.

List of puppet kings and queens

Classical antiquity

• Qin Er Shi, Emperor of China's Qin Empire – dominated by his eunuch Zhao Gao

• Emperor Xian of Han of China – dominated by the warlord Dong Zhuo, his successors Li Jue and Guo Si, and finally the Wei Kingdom before being forced to abdicate in favor of Cao Pi.

• Later Wei emperors would themselves be dominated by the Sima clan until Cao Huan abdicated in favor of Sima Yan

• Philip II Philoromaeus of the last Seleucid, King of Syria – ruled as client king for the Roman Republic and Pompey

Late antiquity

• Leo I the Thracian, Roman emperor appointed by Aspar, but broke free

• Libius Severus, second Roman emperor appointed by Ricimer

• Olybrius, third Roman emperor appointed by Ricimer

• Glycerius, Roman emperor appointed by Ricimer's nephew, Gundobad

• Romulus Augustulus, Roman emperor appointed by his general father, Orestes

Post-classical period

• Ecgberht I of Northumbria puppet ruler for the Danes

• Baldwin I, Latin Emperor – installed to rule the Latin Empire by the Republic of Venice after the Fourth Crusade

• John, King of England – nominally ruled as a vassal for Pope Innocent III after 1213

• John Balliol of Scotland – puppet king for King Edward I of England

• Musa, a puppet Ilkhan ruler in Mongol Persia

• John III of Trebizond, Trapezuntine emperor under Niketas Scholares during the Trapezuntine Civil Wars

• Abdallāh, puppet khan of the Golden horde under Mamai during the Great Troubles

• Henry VI Lancaster of England – largely dominated by his wife Queen Margaret of Anjou and advisors such as William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk

Early modern period

• John Sigismund Zápolya, Ottoman puppet king of Hungary contesting Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I of Habsburg's claim to the throne

• Manco Inca, Sapa Inca of Tawantinsuyu – installed by the Spanish Empire, later revolted and founded the Neo-Inca State

• Simeon Bekbulatovich Russian Tsar – ruled for one year as Puppet monarch of Ivan the Terrible

• Moctezuma II, Tlatoani (Emperor) of Tenochtitlan and Aztec Triple Empire

• Joseph Nasi, an Ottoman puppet ruler in the Duchy of Naxos

Napoleonic era

• Elisa Bonaparte, Italian ruler as Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Princess of Lucca and Piombino

• Pauline Bonaparte, briefly the Duchess of Guastalla in 1806

• Louis Bonaparte of the Kingdom of Holland

• Jérôme Bonaparte, of Kingdom of Westphalia created from territories of Prussia and the former Holy Roman Empire (present-day cultural Germany) after the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt

• Joseph Bonaparte, of Napoleonic Spain during the Peninsular War and of the Neapolitan Kingdom after the French invasion of Naples

• Elector and later King, Frederick Augustus I of Saxony, appointed as Napoleonic Duke of Warsaw (present-day Poland, Belarus, and Lithuania)

Late modern period

• Rulers of the princely states of India under paramountcy of the British East India Company and later the British Raj

• Hussein Shah of Johor – proclaimed Sultan of Johor by the British Empire during the succession crisis of the Johor Sultanate.

• Mubarak al-Sabah – signed an agreement with the British Empire to make the Sheikhdom of Kuwait a British protectorate

• Pedro V of Kongo – ruled the Kingdom of Kongo (modern-day Angola, Gabon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Republic of the Congo) as a client king for the Portuguese Empire

• Gungunhana – Portuguese client ruler of the Gaza Empire, exiled after unsuccessful rebellion against Portuguese rule

• Osman Mahamuud – client king of the Majeerteen Sultanate (modern-day Puntland) for the Italian Empire

• Muhammad Rahim Bahadur II and Isfandiyar Jurji Bahadur – Russian client rulers of the Khanate of Khiva

• Guangxu Emperor of Great Qing – dominated by Empress Dowager Cixi

• Emperor Gojong and Sunjong of Korea – ruled as puppets of the Japanese Empire after the Russo-Japanese War

• Aimone of Savoy, King of Croatia – appointed by Fascist Italy after the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia as figurehead for Ante Pavelić's Ustaše regime

• Aisin-Gioro Puyi, Emperor of Manchukuo – former Emperor of China appointed to lead Japan's puppet state of Manchukuo

• Bảo Đại, Emperor of Vietnam – emperor of the French protectorate of Annam and Japanese-occupied Vietnam, later chief of state of the State of Vietnam

• Sisavang Vong, King of Luang Phrabang – client king of the French protectorate of Laos

• Tashi Namgyal and Palden Thondup Namgyal – ruled Sikkim as protectorate of India after 1950.

• Sisowath Monivong, of Cambodia – king of the French protectorate of Cambodia

• José Gil Fortoul, Victorino Márquez Bustillos and Juan Bautista Pérez – Three presidents of early-20th-century Venezuela were widely considered puppet rulers under Juan Vicente Gómez's de facto rule.

Puppet governments

A puppet does not have to be a national ruler or even a person. For example, Oscar K. Allen was widely recognized to be Huey Long's puppet while serving as governor of Louisiana. The government of Manchukuo was controlled by the Japanese government.

References