page_title: Monarchism in Canada
section_title: Colonial era
hierarchical_section_title: Monarchism in Canada / National identity / Legal and cultural sovereignty / Colonial era
caption_attribution_description: English: International Convention at Quebec of Delegates of the Legislatures of Canada: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, October 27, 1864, Quebec City, Canada East Français&#160;: Assemblée internationale à Québec des délégués des législatures du Canada&#160;: Nouvelle-Écosse, Nouveau-Brunswick, Île-du-Prince-Édouard et Terre-Neuve.
context_page_description: Canadian monarchism is a movement for raising awareness of Canada's constitutional monarchy among the Canadian public, and advocating for its retention, countering republican and anti-monarchical reform as being generally revisionist, idealistic, and ultimately impracticable. Generally, Canadian monarchism runs counter to anti-monarchist republicanism, but not necessarily to the classical form of republicanism itself, as most monarchists in Canada support the constitutional variety of monarchy, sometimes referred to as a crowned republic. These beliefs can be expressed either individually—generally in academic circles—or through what are known as loyal societies, which include monarchist leagues, legions, historical groups, ethnic organizations, and sometimes police and scout bodies. Though there may be overlap, this concept should not be confused with royalism, the support of a particular monarch or dynasty; Canadian monarchists may appreciate the monarchy without thinking highly of the monarch.
context_section_description: From Canada's colonial period until the end of the Second World War, monarchism was prevalent among the region's inhabitants. Even after the transfer of New France to the British in 1763, a faction of the French-speaking population was loyal to the British Crown and its institutions of government, while the Catholic Church in Quebec fostered monarchism in a different form by urging its parishioners to appreciate the absolutist monarchy system that existed in France. The majority could  be lured to neither the republicanism that boiled south of the border, nor to the revolution and regicide that took place in France in 1789.
  At the same time, those who remained loyal to the British monarchy and its empire during the American Revolutionary War faced repercussions then and after the conflict. By seeking refuge in the Canadas and settling much of what is now Ontario and the Maritimes, they, who came to be known as the United Empire Loyalists, brought with them their support for the Crown and gave root to the idea that the monarchy stood for "beliefs and institutions ... considered essential in the preservation of a form of life different from, and superior to, the manners, politics, and social arrangements of the United States." Republicans were seen as being generally of American origin, having thus been taught to admire republican government as the best in the world and to ridicule monarchism, "a few individuals, who unfortunately, are led by those, whose hostility to the British constitution is such, that they would sacrifice any and every thing to pull it down, in order that they might build up a Republic on its ruins."
  Predominantly, Canadians retained their loyalty to Britain's constitutional monarchy, a feeling that was only intensified by the American invasions of the Canadas in 1812. Further, the republican rebellions of 1837—with their significant minority of conservative followers who critiqued Canada's Westminster parliamentary constitutional monarchy as both too democratic and too tyrannical in comparison to their preferred American model of checks and balances—failed to inspire the majority of colonists to espouse a break with the Crown. The Orange Order played a role in maintaining this allegiance, as, after expressed fears that the order's establishment in Upper Canada would cause conflict between Protestants and Roman Catholics, in 1830 the Grand Orange Lodge of British America's first Grand Master, Ogle Robert Gowan, moved to diminish the organization's religious exclusivity and instead have the order exist partly to foster appreciation of the King and constitution.
caption: Many of the monarchist Fathers of Confederation at the Quebec Conference, October 1864
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