The sobriquet Most Faithful King (Rex Fidelissimus) was a title awarded by the Pope as spiritual head of the Catholic Church to a to Portuguese monarchy.
The title remains attached to monarchs descended from whoever received the original sobriquet. The sobriquet can be awarded to either a king or a queen.
The only European monarchy that has received the sobriquet Fidelissimus was the now-defunct monarchy of Portugal. King John V of Portugal was favoured with the title of Rex Fidelissimus in 1748 by Pope Benedict XIV.
Famous quotes containing the words faithful and/or majesty:
“A faithful lover is a character greatly out of date, and rarely now used but to adorn some romantic novel, or for a flourish on the stage. He passes now for a man of little merit, or one who knows nothing of the world.”
—Anonymous, U.S. women’s magazine contributor. Weekly Visitor or Ladies Miscellany, p. 20 (April 1803)
“History is a child building a sand-castle by the sea, and that child is the whole majesty of man’s power in the world.”
—Heraclitus (c. 535–475 B.C.)