But going beyond this personal tragedy there is a more general question: how can the ruler maintain his functions in the situation of permanent danger and absolute mistrust between him and his aides?
And it won't be a state where the ruler maintains power by coercion over the majority of his people.
Carolingian rulers maintained that, as holders of one of the swords, they had special rights and duties to protect the church.
As Iran was isolated by sanctions, Oman's rulers maintained that Iran had a role as a regional power.In 2009, an opportunity arose for Oman to bring the two sides together.
The Republic has been saved from a right-wing takeover of the judiciary that would have validated new laws designed to prevent large swaths of the electorate from voting, thus ensuring that the rulers maintained their "majority," overturned Roe v. Wade and enshrined Citizens United.
Meanwhile, Saudi rulers maintain a hereditary monarchy that is brutal with dissenters and retrograde in attitudes toward women and anyone with religious views that vary from their strict version of Sunni Islam.
Acclaimed as the strongest Hawaiian ruler, he maintained his kingdom's independence throughout the difficult period of European discovery and exploration of the islands a task that proved too great for his successors.
Dalriada developed gradually as an independent kingdom under ambitious rulers and maintained a separate existence until 843, when one of them Kenneth MacAlpin, as Kenneth I united the Scots of Dalriada with the Picts of northeastern Scotland, founding a new hybrid kingdom that eventually became Scotland.
Yet, under Henry, the last German ruler to maintain his hegemony in western Europe, the popes themselves seemed to become mere imperial bishops.
He was the last Yuan ruler to maintain firm control over China, but he never exercised real power over Mongol territories in Russia and the Middle East.
