King-Emperor

A king-emperor (the female equivalent being queen-empress) is a sovereign ruler who is simultaneously a king of one territory and emperor of another. This title usually results from a merger of a royal and imperial crown, but recognises the two territories as different politically and culturally as well as in status (emperor being a higher rank than king). It also denotes a king's imperial status through the acquisition of an empire or vice versa. The dual title signifies a sovereign's dual role, but may also be created to improve a ruler's prestige. Both cases, however, show that the merging of rule was not simply a case of annexation where one state is swallowed by another, but rather of unification and almost equal status, though in the case of the British monarchy the suggestion that an emperor is higher in rank than a king was avoided by creating the title "king-emperor" or "queen-empress" instead of "emperor-king" or "empress-queen". The British Crown had officially taken over the governing of British India from the East India Company in 1858, in the aftermath of what the British called 'the Indian Mutiny'. Henceforth, India (including British India and the Princely States) was ruled directly from Whitehall via the India Office. In 1876, Queen Victoria was recognized as Empress of India by the British Government, via the Royal Titles Act 1876; this title was proclaimed in India at the Delhi Durbar of 1877. She was thus the Queen-Empress, and her successors, until George VI, were known as King-Emperors. This title was the shortened form of the full title, and in widespread popular use. The reigning King-Emperors or Queen-Empress used the initials R I (Rex Imperator or Regina Imperatrix) or the abbreviation Ind. Imp. (Indiae Imperator/Imperatrix) after their name (while the one reigning Queen-Empress, Victoria, used the initials R I, the three consorts of the married King-Emperors simply used R). British coins, and those of the British Empire and Commonwealth dominions, routinely included some variation of the titles Rex Ind.