sub-sovereign

plural sub-sovereigns

1. historicalrareA subordinate sovereign.

   1 more example

   It might have been done, in the firſt place, as an inſtance of her great deference and reſpect to the Lord Treaſurer Burleigh, perhaps, the firſt man, and miniſter, of his age; and to prove, that, though ſhe [sc. Queen Elizabeth] was ſovereign of the whole Kingdom, that every man, according to the laws of her realm, was a ſort of ſub-ſovereign, in his own caſtle, and over his own domains.

   1797, John Horn, A History Or Description, General and Circumstantial, of Burghley House, the Seat of the Right Honorable the Earl of Exeter, page 121, line 22