Long Reigns.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 200, 23 April 1887, Page 5

q Reigns.

Tin jubilee } ear of Her Majesty the Queen, wliii-h is to be celebrated this year, and which w ill be the occasion of great pubiie inteios-t tluoughout the civilised world, van e\eat a» noteworthy as it is rare. It is especially worthy of notice in the case of a Soveiei^n whose character is so virtuous ami whose leign has been so prosperous as that of our much-kned Queen. It is not, ho\\e\er, with this aspect of the question that we propose to deal at present, but to place bcfoi c our readers a view of some of the longest reigns recorded in history. Few moinuchs, indeed, have swayed the -ceptie foi half a century, the period now all bub attained by Queen Victoria, w ith the prospect, humanly speaking, of adding many more years to that number, and even ii w e take forty years as the limit, the list w ill not be found overwhelmingly long. Beginning with sacred history, we find that Saul reigned over Israel for forty years fiom the time of his selection at Mizpah to that disastrous day when he and his thivc sons, together with many of the mighty men of Israel, " fell down slain on Mount Gilboa." David, his successor, reigned also for foi ty yeais, seven of them in Hebion as king of Judah, and thirty-three in .Jerusalem over all Israel, while his son .Solomon's reign came short of that period by one year. After the partition of the kingdom into two, we find that of the kings of Judah, Asa, Joash, and Uzziah occupied the throne of David for forty-one, forty, and fifty-two years respectively. These are numbered among the good kings, while Manasseh's wicked reign lasted for the long space of fifty-five years. Of the kings of the ten tribes, Jeroboam 11. ruled in bamaria forty -one years and, like his namesake, the son of Nebat, he did evil in the sight of the Lord, but was in other respects a capable ruler. Turning from sacred history to profane, and looking first at the great empires of antiquity, we find that in the seventh century (b.c.) Deioces reigned over the Medes fox fifty-three years, during which he built the ouco famous city of Ecbatana, while Cyaxares, the next but one in succession, reigned forty years. It was he who overthrew Nineveh and its effeminate ruler, Sardanapalus. The neighbouring lealm of Persia was governed for the same length of time by Artaxerxes I. (Longimanus), whose immediate predecessor and successor, it is interesting to note, occupied the throne for seven months and two months respecthely. Artaxerxes 11. enjoyed the royal title for six and foity years. Esarshaddon, the son of Sennacherib, was master of the Assyrian Empire for foity-nine years, and the celebrated Nebuchadnezzar, during a rule of forty-three years' duration, raised the kingdom and city of Babylon to their highest glory. Alyattes, the second last king of Lydia, and predecessor of Crcesus, leigned over that country for the long peiiod of fifty-se\en years. A lomantic episode in Egyptian history is I'elated by Herodotus-Sabaco, or Sebichos, the fitst of the twenty-fifth dynasty, quitted the country of his own accord after ruling it for half-a-century, and on his departure the previous king, Anysis, who had been in hiding all that time, came forward and finished his reign, thus fctrangely interrupted. Later on we have Psammetichus occupying the throne of the Pharaohs for fifty-three years, and Amasis for fortyone. The Republican institutions which largely prevailed throughout ancient Greece made the number of its States having kings to be somewhat small, and even wliere the first magistrate bore the kingly title, his chances of a long reign were sadly minimised by the internecine wars so continually being waged. Agesilaus, one of the greatest of the sons of Sparta, was king over that warlike State for thirty-seven years ; and Philip V. , the ally of Hannibal against the Romans, ruled in Macedonia for tour years longer. Of the kings of ancient Rome, Nuraa Pompilius wore the diadem forty-three years, Servius Tullius exceeding that period by one year. The Roman Empire, merging, as it afterwards did, into the Holy Roman Empire, forms the connecting link between ancient and modern history. Augustus wore the imperial purple for forfcy-one years, a period reached by none of his successors for a thousand years until Henry IV. (the Great), who was Emperor for exactly the half century. After another long interval— nearly five hundred years — the famous Charles Y. abdicated, after swaying the destinies of the Empire for nearly thirtynine years, while Leopold I, one of the subsequent Emperors, bore the title for forty-seven years. The Popes were closely connected with the Emperors, but only six of those successors of St. Peter satin his chair for longer than twenty years, the late Pope, Pius IX., heading the list with a pontificate of thirty-two years' duration. Eight French kings occupied the throne for lengthened ". ms ; Philip 1. , forty-nine years ; his gn. [son, Louis VII., fortythree years ; Lo is VII. was succeeded by his son Philip Augustus, who reigned for the same length of time as his father ; Louis IX (St. Louis) exceeded thia by a year. Charles VI., in whose time was fought the battle of Agincourt, reigned fortyone years ; and about a century later this term was exceeded by two years by Francis 1. , who also was unfortunate in the field, being defeated and taken prisoner by the Emperor Charles the Fifth at the great battle of Pavia in 1525. But the longest of long reigns is that of Louis XIV., "le grand Monarque," who, succeeding to the crown at the early ago of five, kept it for no less than seventy- two years, leaving it to his great-grandson, Louis XV,, who, in his turn, held it for fifty-nine.

The Elector Frederick William, the founder of the greatness of Prussia, held the title forty-eight years, two years longer than the reign of the great Frederick. Coming now to our own country, we have among the Kings of Scotland William I. ruling that portion of the island for almost half a century, and David 11. bearing the title of King of Scotland for forty years, a great portion of which, however, he spent as an exile in France or as a prisoner in England. Of English sovereigns, Henry 111. reigned fifty-six, the warlike Edward 111. fifty-one, and the unf ultimate lieniy VI. for foitynino years. Good Queen Be->b n'lgncd forty - iive yeais, and hoi successor, .James, bpent thirty-bix years of his wise-foolish life as King o' Scots, and twenty more on the throne of England, making fifty m\ in all. King George the Third ascended ihe throne in 17b'O and occupied it until his death in 1820, a period of sixty years, his jubilee being celebrated by the nation in 1806. — B.C.