Regnal years of English monarchs Britain), from 1066 to the present day. These are official "de jure" dates, and may or may not coincide with whether a particular king had "de facto" power or not at that time. For example, as the Commonwealth era was suppressed in the official record, the regnal years of Charles II are measured from 30 January 1649 (the day his father Charles I was executed); as a result, when Charles II actually became king, on 29 May 1660, he was already in his 12th regnal year. (For the "de facto" tabulation of English rulers, see any conventional list of English
Monarch In cases where the monarch serves mostly as a ceremonial figure (e.g. most modern constitutional monarchies) real leadership does not depend on the monarch. A form of government may in fact be hereditary without being considered monarchy, such as a family dictatorship. Monarchies take a wide variety of forms, such as the two co-princes of Andorra, positions held simultaneously by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Urgel (Spain) and the elected President of France (although strictly Andorra is a diarchy). Similarly, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia is considered a monarch despite only holding the position for five years at a