10 Greatest Kingmakers

Revealing the power brokers who reshaped empires and controlled successions throughout history

The men and women who held the real levers of power

Among the many things that history can teach us, it’s clear that succession – whether royal or political – is not as straightforward as you might presume. As the term would suggest, a kingmaker is a person or group who’s instrumental in arranging these successions, either because they’re not eligible themselves or they don’t want the position. Usually, historical kingmakers were well connected politically and some of them even had ties with the military too, which gave them the ability to manoeuvre successions as they saw fit – often through the means of manipulation and bloodshed. Even though these kingmakers did not take the top job for themselves, they often sought to exert their power and influence through the people they chose, to varying degrees of success, although not every kingmaker had this goal in mind. There have been plenty of times in history where the true power lay behind the scenes and there are many historical figures who can be described as kingmakers. Here, we’ve chosen ten people who certainly prove how diverse the term ‘kingmaker’ can really be.