Interregnum

Interregnum is the name sometimes used for the period between the abolition of the monarchy in February 1649 and the restoration of Charles II in May 1660. Royalists insisted that Charles II had become king as soon as his father was executed.

In Scotland, two interregna followed the death of Queen Margaret, the Maid of Norway, in September 1290. The first lasted until the nomination of John Balliol in November 1292. The second followed his deposition by Edward I in July 1296 and lasted until the coronation of Robert I, the Bruce, in March 1306.

Interregnum, term applied in German history to the period between the death of Konrad IV, the last Staufen, in 1254 and the election of Rudolf I, the first Habsburg, in 1273. It was marked by the election of rival kings from ruling houses abroad (Richard of Cornwall and Alphonso of Castile in 1257), who failed to establish themselves in Germany. The absence of any central authority was exploited by the territorial princes to augment their powers and domains, and the period was one of widespread anarchy.

The election of Rudolf of Habsburg in 1273 after his destruction of the power of Ottokar II of Bohemia, did not at once rectify the disorder, but began the process of restoration. The Interregnum is the severest phase of a much longer crisis, styled by Schiller ‘die kaiserlose Zeit’, which lasted from the deposition of Friedrich II in 1245 to the coronation of Karl IV in 1355.