Monarchism is the advocacy of the establishment, preservation, or restoration of a monarchy as a form of government in a nation. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government out of principle, independent from the person, the monarch.

In this system, the Monarch may be the person who sits on the throne, a pretender, or someone who would otherwise inhabit the throne but has been deposed.

In 1687-88, the Glorious Revolution and the overthrow of King James II established the principles of constitutional monarchy, which would later be worked out by Montesquieu and other thinkers. However, absolute monarchy, theorized by Hobbes in the Leviathan (1651), remained a dominant principle. In the 18th century, Voltaire and others encouraged "enlightened absolutism", which was embraced by the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II and Catherine II of Russia.

Absolutism continued to be the dominant political principle of sovereignty until the 1789 French Revolution and the regicide against Louis XVI, which established the concept of popular sovereignty upheld by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Monarchy began to be contested by the Republican principe. Counterrevolutionaries, such as Joseph de Maistre or Louis de Bonald, sought the restoration of the Ancien Régime, divided in the three estates of the realm, and the divine right of kings.

Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" (French: Jeanne d'Arc,IPA: [ʒan daʁk]; ca. 1412 – 30 May 1431), is a folk heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in what is now eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the coronation of Charles VII of France. She was captured by the Burgundians, transferred to the English in exchange for money, put on trial by the pro-English Bishop of Beauvais Pierre Cauchon for charges of "insubordination and heterodoxy," and was burned at the stake for heresy when she was only 19 years old.

Twenty-five years after her execution, an inquisitorial court authorized by Pope Callixtus III examined the trial, pronounced her innocent, and declared her a martyr. Joan of Arc was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920. She is – along with St. Denis, St. Martin of Tours, St. Louis IX, and St. Theresa of Lisieux – one of the patron saints of France. Joan said that she had visions from God that instructed her to recover her homeland from English domination late in the Hundred Years' War. The uncrowned King Charles VII sent her to the siege of Orléans as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence when she overcame the dismissive attitude of veteran commanders and lifted the siege in only nine days. Several additional swift victories led to Charles VII's coronation at Reims and settled the disputed succession to the throne.