Viceroy
After the unification, at the end of the 15th century, later kings of Spain came to appoint numerous viceroys to rule over various parts of the increasingly vast Spanish Empire in Europe, the Americas, and overseas elsewhere.
In Europe, until the 18th century, the Habsburg crown appointed viceroys of Aragon, Valencia, Catalonia, Navarre, Portugal during the brief period known as the Iberian Union, Sardinia, Sicily, and Naples.
These units gathered the local provinces which could be governed by either a crown official, a corregidor (sometimes alcalde mayor) or by a cabildo or town council.
The Bourbon Reforms introduced the new office of the intendant, which was appointed directly by the crown and had broad fiscal and administrative powers in political and military issues.
The government started seven years after the discovery of sea route to India by Vasco da Gama, in 1505, under the first viceroy, Francisco de Almeida (b.1450–d.1510).
Initially, King Manuel I of Portugal tried to distribute power with three governors in different areas of jurisdiction: a government covering the area and possessions in East Africa, Arabian Peninsula and Persian Gulf, overseeing up to Cambay (Gujarat); a second one ruling the possessions in India (Hindustan) and Ceylon; and a third one from Malacca to the Far East.
The typical duration in office was usually three years, although powerful viceroys might extend their tenure; of the thirty-four governors of India in the 16th century, only six had longer mandates.
After the end of the Iberian Union in 1640, the governors of Brazil that were members of the Portuguese high nobility started to use the title of Viceroy.
Although the Proclamation of 1858 announcing the assumption of the government of India by the Crown referred to Lord Canning as "first viceroy and governor-general", none of the warrants appointing his successors referred to them as viceroys, and the title, which was frequently used in warrants dealing with precedence and in public notifications, was basically one of ceremony used in connection with the state and social functions of the sovereign's representative.
[13] Under the terms of the Government of India Act 1919, viceroys shared some limited aspects of their authority with the Central Legislative Assembly, one of the first steps in the establishment of Indian home rule.
The portraits of the governors-general still hang in a room on the ground floor of the Presidential Palace, one of the last vestiges of both the viceroys and the British Raj.
The term has occasionally been applied to the governors-general of the Commonwealth realms, for example Gough Whitlam in 1973 told the Australian House of Representatives: "The Governor-General is the viceroy of the Queen of Australia".
The French position of "adjunct département director, delegate for the sea and coast of the Atlantic Pyrenees and Landes" carries the title of "viceroy of Pheasant Island".
As viceré of Albania of Victor Emmanuel III of Italy were the Marchese Francesco Jacomoni di San Savino and after his departure General Alberto Pariani.
An equivalent office, called the Exarch, was created in the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire towards the end of the sixth century for governors of important areas too far from the imperial capital of Constantinople to receive regular instruction or reinforcement.
In cultures all over the continent of Africa, the role of viceroy has been subsumed into a hereditary noble as opposed to strictly administrative position.
Elsewhere, subordinate inkosis under the rule of a paramount chief like the King of the Zulu Nation of Southern Africa or subordinate baales in the realms of the reigning obas of West African Yorubaland continue to occupy statutorily recognized positions in the contemporary countries of South Africa and Nigeria as the customary representatives of their respective principals in the various areas that are under their immediate control.
[33] The Mughal Empire had a system of administration which involved both official governors appointed from the capital, and local feudal lords (zamindars).
Adopting the title of viceroy was yet another way to walk the thin line between challenging the Sultan's power explicitly and respecting his jurisdiction.
Titles such as pasha, beylerbey, bey, and agha denote officials who were, at least nominally, appointed to their positions by the Sublime Porte rather than hereditary privilege.
During the Han, Ming and Qing dynasties, there existed positions of viceroys having control over various provinces (e.g., Liangguang = Guangdong and Guangxi, Huguang = Hubei and Hunan).
