A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of government, but not necessarily a particular monarch. Most often, the term royalist is applied to a supporter of a current regime or one that has been recently overthrown to form a republic.
In the United Kingdom, today the term is almost indistinguishable from "monarchist" because there are no significant rival claimants to the throne. Conversely, in 19th-century France, a royalist might be either a Legitimist, Bonapartist, or an Orléanist, all being monarchists.
The Wars of the Roses were fought between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians
During the English Civil War the Royalists or Cavaliers supported King Charles I and, in the aftermath, his son King Charles II
Following the Glorious Revolution, the Jacobites supported the deposed James II and his Stuart successors to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland
Following the Glorious Revolution, the Loyalists supported the Williamite dynasty, and after the ascension of George I to the British throne in 1714, the Hanoverian dynasty to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland
Monarchism in Russia
During the Russian Civil War, the Royalists constituted a part of the White Army.
During and especially towards at the end of World War II in Yugoslavia, the royalist Chetniks supported the exiled king of Yugoslavia.
Monarchism in France
Legitimists, French royalists upholding Salic Law
Chouannerie, a royalist group during the French Revolution
Ultra-royalists, a 19th-century reactionary faction of the French parliament
Orléanists, who, in late 18th and 19th century France, supported the Orléans branch of the House of Orléans, which came to power in the French monarch July Revolution
Bonapartists, supporters of the Bonaparte imperial line.
Nanboku-cho Seijunron (南北朝正閏論) – The debate on legitimacy in the Nanboku-cho period.