Sinchi Roca II

King of  Nouvelle Alexandrie
Coat of Arms of Nouvelle Alexandrie
His Majesty
Sinchi Roca II
Third King of the Federation
since 2.XIV.1735 AN
Reign	2.XIV.1735 AN– present
Coronation	12.III.1736 AN
Predecessor	Sinchi Roca I
Residence	Palace of Carranza
Royal House	House of Inti-Carrillo
Presidents	Marissa Santini Juan Pablo Jimenez José Manuel Montero Marcos Ferreira Gonçalves
Consort	Queen Adelaide
Issue	Sayari, Princess of Rimarima Nathan, Viscount of Paruro Urpi, Marchioness of Yucay Xanthorr, Count of Anapia Phaedra, Countess of Amantaní

Sinchi Roca II (born Uturuncu Alexandre Francisco Quispe Rivière Inti-Carrillo y Ayreon-Kalirion; 15.VIII.1689 AN, aged 72 AN years) is the King of Nouvelle Alexandrie, reigning since 1735 AN. The third monarch of the House of Inti-Carrillo, he serves as head of state of the Federation of Nouvelle Alexandrie and, in the tradition of his house, holds the Wechua sacral title of Sapa Wechua.

Born at Punta Santiago as the eldest son of King Sinchi Roca I, he was invested as Prince of Rimarima in 1710 AN and served as crown prince for twenty-five years, twice acting as regent during his father's final illness. He acceded to the throne on 2.XIV.1735 AN on the death of Sinchi Roca I and was crowned at the Cathedral of Viracocha in Parap on 12.III.1736 AN, in a ceremony that joined Wechua and Alexandrian Nazarene rites.

Sinchi Roca II's reign is noted for its restraint in the exercise of royal power. His intervention during the Spring Crisis of 1739, when he refused to endorse an attempted military coup and rallied the armed forces to constitutional authority, is regarded as the decisive act of his reign and the model for the modern Crown's role as guardian of the constitutional order. In the decades since he has presided over a period of institutional modernization and, in 1760 AN, over the formation of the Federal Accord government following the Federation's first election to an enlarged Cortes Federales. His wife, Queen Adelaide, reigns in her own right as Empress of the Natopians, linking the two houses without merging their crowns.

The King is widely regarded as approachable, and opinion polling has consistently placed him among the most trusted figures in national life.

Early life and education

Sinchi Roca II was born on 15.VIII.1689 AN in Punta Santiago, Alduria, the eldest son of King Sinchi Roca I and Queen Abigail, a princess of the Ayreon-Kalirion house of Shireroth. As a member of the House of Inti-Carrillo he stood second in line to the throne at birth, behind his father.

He was educated by private tutors at the Palace of Carranza in Cárdenas, with an early emphasis on New Alexandrian history, languages, and governance alongside the traditions of the Wechua people; he became fluent in Wechua, which he still uses in ceremonial settings. At sixteen he entered the Royal Military Academy of Nouvelle Alexandrie, where he trained as an officer and studied strategic leadership.

Prince of Rimarima

In 1710 AN, at the age of twenty-one, Uturuncu was invested as Prince of Rimarima at Rimarima in the Wechua Nation, the title traditionally borne by the heir apparent. Over the following quarter-century he represented the royal family at home and abroad and took up a series of causes that would carry into his reign. He championed rural development through the "Green Heartlands" project, which brought sustainable farming and renewable energy to more than five hundred villages, and founded the Royal Wechua Cultural Foundation in 1715 AN to restore ancient sites and support traditional artisans. His "Brightest Stars" scholarships funded the education of more than ten thousand young people from poor families. He also undertook numerous diplomatic missions within the Raspur Pact.

As his father's health failed, the Prince of Rimarima served as regent in 1734 AN and again in 1735 AN, assuming the working duties of the Crown in the months before his accession.

Accession and coronation

King Sinchi Roca I died on 2.XIV.1735 AN at the Palace of Carranza, and Uturuncu acceded to the throne the same day as Sinchi Roca II, the third monarch of the Inti-Carrillo dynasty. He took his regnal name in deliberate homage to his father, signaling continuity with the previous reign.

The coronation of Sinchi Roca II and Queen Adelaide took place the following year, on 12.III.1736 AN, at the Cathedral of Viracocha in Parap. Held under the theme "Honoring the Past, Embracing the Future," it was the third coronation in the Federation's history and the most elaborate to that point. The rite joined Wechua and Alexandrian Nazarene traditions: the King was invested according to Wechua custom by the high priest Tupac Yupanqui and anointed by Archbishop Alejandro Suarez of Parap, taking his oaths in both Wechua and Alexandrian. He was crowned with the newly made Crown of Luminescence, and the ceremony was followed by a fifteen-day royal procession of nearly two thousand kilometers from Parap to Cárdenas. An estimated 277 million viewers watched the broadcast, then the largest audience in the nation's history.

Reign

By 1760 AN Sinchi Roca II had reigned for twenty-five years, a period spanning four governments, the Spring Crisis of 1739, and the enlargement of the Federation with the accession of a new Region. Though the monarchy's role is largely ceremonial, his reign has twice placed the Crown at the center of national events: once in defense of the constitution, and again in the orderly formation of a government after an inconclusive election.

Early reign, 1736–1739

The first years of the reign were given over to the programs Sinchi Roca II had announced at his coronation and to the causes he had championed as Prince of Rimarima. He endowed the Royal Innovation Fund to support science and technology, extended royal patronage to the Queen Adelaide Foundation for Education, and lent the Crown's name to the "Digital Nouvelle Alexandrie" and "Green Nouvelle Alexandrie" agendas, carrying the environmental and educational work of the Green Heartlands years onto a national footing. The King settled quickly into the working rhythm that would characterize his reign, receiving the head of government in a standing weekly audience and keeping a full schedule of ceremonial and public engagements managed by the Royal Household.

The reign did not begin untroubled. An attempt to disrupt the coronation itself, later known as the Shattered Crown plot, had been broken up in 1736 AN, and the young dynasty's standing was still being established when it faced its gravest test three years into the reign.

Spring Crisis of 1739

In the early hours of 3.III.1739 AN, elements of the army's III Combined Arms Corps under General Ricardo Montero moved to seize power from the government of Premier Marissa Santini, beginning what became known as the Spring Crisis of 1739. Representatives of the plotters approached the King, then at his Valencian residence of La Alborada in Chambéry, and sought his endorsement. He refused it outright and ordered the Federal Royal Guards to protect the institutions of state. Later that morning he broadcast by radio from Chambéry, declaring the coup unlawful and invoking what he called his sacred duty to the constitutional order.

On 4.III the King returned to the capital aboard a loyal air force flight, an operation the press later named "Crown Return," and addressed the nation from the El Fuerte command bunker in the uniform of commander-in-chief, ordering all units back to their lawful authority. With the rising collapsing, he received the renewed oaths of more than a hundred thousand troops at a loyalty ceremony in Cárdenas on 5.III, and that evening delivered his "Unity and Democracy" address from the balcony of the Palace of Carranza to a crowd estimated at three-quarters of a million. Post-crisis polling put approval of his conduct at ninety-two percent.

The crisis reshaped the reign's understanding of the Crown. The King gave assent to the reform program that followed, including the reorganization of the officer corps under the banner of "Operation Clean Hands" and the establishment of a Military Ethics and Constitutional Education Command, which he opened in person in 1740 AN. The joint Spring Proclamation of the King, the Premier, and the Council of State fixed 12.III as National Unity Day, marked each year since by The Spring Tribute, a ceremony of renewed military loyalty at Federation Park at which the King receives the armed forces' oath. His conduct in the crisis is widely regarded as the precedent for the modern monarchy's role as guarantor of constitutional government.

Modernization of the monarchy, 1740s

With the crisis behind him, Sinchi Roca II turned to the place of the monarchy in a changing country. He established the Royal Innovation Prize in 1742 AN to reward achievement in science and technology, and in 1743 AN the Royal Household opened an official website, the first of several steps, among them audiences conducted over social platforms, meant to bring the Crown within reach of ordinary New Alexandrians. The effort suited the King's own turn of mind, and his conviction that the standing of the monarchy rested on public confidence rather than on distance. In 1746 AN he and Queen Adelaide undertook the Grand Federal Tour, a progress of some four months through all twelve Regions that drew large crowds and marked the public debut of the heir apparent, Princess Sayari.

The decade's central event for the dynasty was the marriage of the heir apparent, Sayari, Princess of Rimarima, to Prince Janus of Neridia on 15–16.XII.1750 AN. The broadcast drew an estimated 205 million viewers. The same year the Crown marked the Sapphire Jubilee, the sixty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the monarchy at Punta Santiago in 1685 AN, with celebrations reaching from the capital to the Regions; the Sapphire Jubilee Bridge-Tunnel, a fixed link begun that year, was named to commemorate it.

Foreign affairs and the two crowns

The Federation was drawn into the Fourth Euran War in 1745 AN, after the military government that had seized power in Oportia launched a pre-emptive strike, Operation Lightning Dawn, against its neighbors. Nouvelle Alexandrie joined the Constancian-led Committee of Euran Salvation coalition, contributing land and naval forces to a campaign that ended the same year in a Raspur Pact victory and the fall of the Oportian junta. As commander-in-chief the King stood at the constitutional head of the Federal Forces, though operational authority rested with the Council of State; he lent the Crown's voice to the war effort and to the relief of the displaced. A decade later, in 1755 AN, Oportia would enter the Federation peacefully as its thirteenth Region.

Across his reign the King has carried the Crown into the Federation's diplomacy in person. His state visit to Vegno in 1738 AN was among his first as monarch; he visited Oportia in 1747 AN, and his visit to East Zimia and the Wallis Islands in 1751 AN coincided with that state's accession to the Concord Alliance Treaty.

The decade also recast the royal family's standing abroad. In 1752 AN Queen Adelaide succeeded to the throne of Natopia, taking the regnal name Clara and reigning as Empress of the Natopians while remaining queen consort of Nouvelle Alexandrie. The Treaty of Dynastic Separation, concluded at the time of the couple's marriage, kept the two crowns distinct and set them to pass to different children, so that Sinchi Roca II became the husband of a reigning empress with no prospect of the two crowns ever passing to a single sovereign.

The 1759 election and the Federal Accord

The general election of 1759 AN, the first held for a Cortes enlarged to 801 seats after Oportia's accession, returned no party to a majority. In the government formation that followed, Sinchi Roca II exercised one of the Crown's few discretionary powers. He first commissioned José Manuel Montero, whose party held the most seats, to try to form a government; when Montero reported that he could not, the King commissioned Marcos Ferreira Gonçalves as formateur. Gonçalves drew together three parties in the Federal Accord, a coalition commanding 448 of the 801 seats.

The King opened the Fourteenth Cortes Federales on 12.I.1760 AN at the Legislative Palace in Cárdenas and delivered the Speech from the Throne, which set out the new government's program: the prosperity of ordinary households, integrity in public life, investment in science and skills, security abroad, and the Federation understood as a union of many peoples. The last of these the speech distilled in a line that drew wide notice: "We are not one people who tolerate our differences. We are many peoples who have chosen one another." The Federal Assembly installed the government over the following days, and Gonçalves took office as President of the Government on 15.I.1760 AN, with Montero passing into opposition.

Constitutional role

As head of state under the Proclamation of Punta Santiago, Sinchi Roca II reigns as a constitutional monarch whose functions are largely ceremonial. He appoints the President of the Government after elections, opens and may dissolve the Cortes Federales, grants royal assent to legislation, receives and appoints ambassadors, and serves as commander-in-chief of the Federal Forces, though the direction of the armed forces rests with the Council of State. His acts require the countersignature of the responsible minister, and he is barred from taking part in parliamentary debate; the monarch is inviolable and not politically accountable.

In practice his reign has settled a reading of the Crown as a reserve of stability rather than an instrument of policy. His conduct during the Spring Crisis and his handling of the 1760 AN government formation are the examples most often cited for the office's modern character.

Public image and personal life

Sinchi Roca II's personal manner departs sharply from the formality of his office. He is a keen motorcyclist, riding an Ahvaz Montaraz 850 through Cárdenas and Parap behind a dark visor, and the Palace has confirmed that he rides without escort in the Wechua Nation highlands and along the coast of Santander, a habit formed in his years as Prince of Rimarima. The Palace has confirmed one account of his stopping to bring fuel to a rider stranded on a remote highland road; mechanics in the two cities have separately reported servicing a motorcycle for a cash-paying customer knowledgeable about engines, which the Palace has neither confirmed nor denied.

He answers letters from schoolchildren in his own hand and has kept up correspondence with some of the young people who first wrote to him as Prince of Rimarima. Palace staff note that he prefers to stand through long meetings, a habit attributed to his military training. He keeps a kitchen garden at the Palace of Carranza and has been seen buying produce at Cárdenas markets with only one or two aides; during the Recession of 1726, while crown prince, he volunteered without announcement at food-distribution centers in Rimarima. He speaks Wechua fluently and brings Wechua ceremonial elements into state occasions, an expression of the monarchy's close ties to the Wechua Nation. As Sapa Wechua he keeps the Palace of Chinchero at Parap, the traditional Wechua royal seat, and serves as royal patron of the Royal Academy of the Wechua Language. The Crown's residences are administered by the Royal Estates Commission.

Marriage and family

On 3.III.1720 AN the Palace of Carranza announced the engagement of Uturuncu, then Prince of Rimarima, to Crown Princess Adelaide of Natopia, eldest child of Empress Vadoma I; the couple married the following year. Because Adelaide was heir to the Natopian throne, the Treaty of Dynastic Separation was concluded to keep the two crowns apart, and in 1752 AN she acceded as Empress of the Natopians, reigning in Natopia while remaining queen consort of Nouvelle Alexandrie.

The couple have five children: Sayari, the heir apparent, who married Prince Janus of Neridia in 1750 AN; Nathan, Viscount of Paruro and heir to Natopia; Urpi, Marchioness of Yucay; Xanthorr; and Phaedra. Among the King's grandchildren is Prince Inti, Duke of Vilcabamba, the son of Sayari and Janus, who stands second in line to the throne. The Princess of Rimarima gave birth to twins, Prince Pachacútec and Princess Anahí, on 9.XII.1760 AN; they follow Prince Inti in the line of succession.

Queen Mother Abigail, widow of Sinchi Roca I, survives at court.

Titles and styles

• 15.VIII.1689 AN to 1710 AN: His Royal Highness Prince Uturuncu of Nouvelle Alexandrie
• 1710 AN to 2.XIV.1735 AN: His Royal Highness The Prince of Rimarima
• 2.XIV.1735 AN to present: His Majesty The King of Nouvelle Alexandrie

In addition to his primary title, Sinchi Roca II holds numerous other titles, including:

• First Consul of Alduria
• Sapa Wechua
• Wechua Qhapaq
• Intip Churin
• Lord of the Thirteen Regions
• Son of Inti
• Prince of Shireroth
• Progeny of the Once-Living God
• Knight of the Holy Lakes
• Scion of the King of Kings

In Shireroth, he is styled His Serenity. Before 1704, he was styled Imperial Highness.

Honors and awards

• : Knight Commander of the Order of the Royal Blood (1722 AN)
• : Grand Knight Commander of the Order of the Royal and Imperial Blood (1744 AN)
• /: Knight of the Order of the Golden Skull (1750 AN)
• : Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Woven Crown (1750 AN)

See also

• Monarchy of Nouvelle Alexandrie
• Foreign relations of Nouvelle Alexandrie