Protector, sometimes spelled protecter, is used as a title or part of various historical titles of heads of state and others in authority.
Political and administrative
Heads of state
Iran
Wakil ar-Ra`aya (rendered as Protector of the People) was the (or a?) title of the Persian imperial Monarch under the
Zand dynasty - those rulers refused (except the last as noted) the style
Shahanshah. The founding ruler adopted the style; it appears that his successors used the same style, although documentation is obscure
1773 - 1 March 1779 Mohammad Karim Khan Zand (b. c.1707 - d. 1779)
6 March 1779 - 1779 Abu al-Fath Khan Zand (1st time) (b. 1755 - d. 1787) - jointly with 6 March 1779 - 19 June 1779 Mohammad Ali Khan Zand (b. 1760 - d. 1...)
19 June 1779 - 22 August 1779 Abu al-Fath Khan Zand (2nd time)
22 August 1779 - 14 March 1781 Mohammad Sadeq Khan Zand (d. 1782)
15 March 1781 - 11 February 1785 Ali Morad Khan Zand (d. 1785)
12 February 1785 - 17 February 1785 Baqer Khan Khorasakani
18 February 1785 - 23 January 1789 Jaafar Khan Zand (d. 1789)
23 January 1789 - 10 May 1789 Seyd Morad Khan Zand
10 May 1789 - 30 October 1794 Lotf Ali Khan Zand (b. c.1766 - d. 1794); he again adopted the traditional style
Shahanshah March 1794 - 30 October 1794
Europe
Lord Protector (plural: Lords Protectors) is a title that has been used at times in British constitutional law for the head of state.
In
Iceland, one Sovereign was styled Alls Íslands Verndari og Hæstráðandi til Sjós og Lands ("Protector and supreme authority of all of Iceland on land and sea") 25 June - 22 August 1809 (an intermezzo between Danish Governors styled Stiftamtmadur):
Jørgen Jørgensen (b. 1780 - d. 1841; nicknamed Hundadagakonungur "the Dog-Day King").
In
Estonia, State-protector is a common rendering of
Riigihoidja, a single Head of state and Head of government of that Baltic republic, 24 January 1934 - 24 April 1938 (acting to 3 September 1937), Konstantin Päts (b. 1874 - d. 1956), earlier five times State Elder, thereafter the first and only President before the Soviet takeover.
In
Finland (linguistically close to Estonian), State Protector is a common rendering, besides Regent, of two Finnish Heads of State 18 May 1918 - 27 July 1919, the first incumbent being also the last of the previous — untitled — acting heads of state.
In the elective kingdom called "Commonwealth" of Poland & Lithuania (August 1655 – 23 February 1660), King
Karl X Gustaf (b. 1622 - d. 1660) (as King of Sweden), in Polish Karol X Gustaw, was styled Protektor Rzeczypospolitej ('Protector of the Republic', i.e. the (Polish-Lithuanian) Commonwealth) as challenger to the duly elected king Jan II Kazimierz during the middle part of his reign (17 January 1649 - 16 September 1668).
in
Haiti: Sylvain Salnave (b. 1826 - d. 1870), one of the three members of the previous Provisional Government, was President 4 May 1867 - 27 December 1869 and Protector of the Republic to 16 June 1867
in present
Nicaragua: on 20 April 1823 general
José Anacleto Ordóñez was proclaimed General en Jefe del Ejército, Protector y Libertador de Granada; he acted as head of state (e.g. in a treaty ), but set up a Governing
Junta (it's unclear whether he was a member) which continued to govern after Granada's accession[clarification needed] to the
Central American Federation on July 2
in
Brazil, 12 October 1822 - 15 November 1889, the imperial style was Imperador Constitucional e Defensor Perpétuo (Constitutional Emperor and perpetual defender)
Foreign hegemons
Napoleonic France
in most of Germany, east of the Rhine, except Prussia, from 25 July 1806 to 19 October 1813, the French Emperor,
Napoleon I, bore the additional title of protecteur de la Confédération du Rhin, i.e. Protector of the
Confederation of the Rhine, generally known as Rheinbund ('Rhenan League'), uniting the German princes that had bowed to the conqueror. The actual presidency of its diet and council of Kings was held by a German prince, the
Fürstprimas ('Prince-primate').
Bonaparte had a similar position in Switzerland (then called the
Helvetic Republic/
Swiss Confederation) under French occupation, but there his style was Médiateur de la Confédération Helvétique (Mediator, 1809 - 31 December 1813), while the chairmanship of the Diet (legislative assembly, since 10 March 1803), the acting Head of the Confederation, with the title Landammann der Schweiz(in German)/Landamman de la Suisse(in French)/Landamano della Svizzera(in Italian), fell simply to the
chief magistrate of the canton hosting it.
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany was represented by a Reichsprotektor ('Reich protector') in the Czech puppet-state it installed on 16 March 1939 under the explicit name Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren, the "
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia". (This excluded the ethnically German regions, which were annexed as ReichsgauSudetenland.) The Reichsprotektor held the real executive power, not the native President and Prime Minister. The German incumbents, after a month under a Military Governor, were:
In the French empire, the Protecteur des Indigènes 'Protector of the Natives' was a colonial official charged with the protection of an indigenous community; ironically, such 'native' status was also awarded to the (Asian) immigrants -thus officially named- on the island of
La Réunion.
Since the thirteenth century it has been customary at Rome to confide to some particular Cardinal a special solicitude in the
Roman Curia for the interests of a given religious order or institute, confraternity, church, college, city, nation, etc. Such a person is known as a Cardinal Protector.
Islamic
The title Hâdim ül Haramain ish Sharifain or Khādim al-Ḥaramayn al-Sharifayn,
Arabic for 'Servant of the Noble Sanctuaries', notably
Mecca and
Medina (the destinations of the
hajj pilgrimage; both in the
Grand Sherif's peninsular Arabian territory; the third being
Jerusalem, part of an province) was awarded to Sultan
Salim Khan I by the Sherif of Mecca in 1517, a year after his conquest of Egypt and assuming of the title of
Commander of the Faithful, and
Successor of the Prophet of the Lord of the Universe, i.e. Caliph; both remained part of the full style of his successors on the throne.