← Encyclopedia of Tarot · lesson 86/121
Kings
The Kings are the highest-numbered rank of the court cards in most decks: four enthroned men, one in each suit, each holding his suit's emblem like a sceptre. They are the court's mastery turned outward. Where a King appears, readers often see authority, responsibility, experience and the capacity to decide — the suit's quality put to work in the world and answerable for its results.
The rank
Where the Queens hold the suit from within, the Kings direct it. A King has learned what the suit can do and now uses it to lead, to build, to judge or to provide. That makes the rank stable and capable, and also exposes its typical failings: rigidity, control, the use of power for its own sake, or a coldness that comes from carrying too much. Many readers find it helpful to ask, of any King, what he is responsible for and how well he carries it.
Across the four suits
- King of Wands — the visionary leader; vision, nerve, the ability to inspire others to follow.
- King of Cups — emotional maturity and calm; the counsellor who stays steady on rough water.
- King of Swords — intellectual authority; judgement, law, clear and sometimes stern reasoning.
- King of Pentacles — material mastery; enterprise, security, provision, generosity with resources.
As people
Older practice read a King as a mature man of authority in the querent's life — a father, a boss, an official — sorted by the colouring of the suit. Waite's own significator rules are an exception worth knowing: he gave the King to a younger man and the Knight to a man of forty or more, which only makes sense once the Golden Dawn's naming is understood (below). Modern readers usually take the rank symbolically: a King can describe anyone of any age or gender who holds responsibility, or the querent's own authority in the matter.
Names in other decks
The King is the re of the early Italian decks and the Roi of the Tarot de Marseille, and in ordinary playing cards he is the highest court everywhere. But the names shift in the occult decks, and this is where most confusion begins:
- The Golden Dawn called its mounted figure the King and its enthroned or chariot-riding male figure the Prince. So the card that the Rider–Waite–Smith deck calls King is the Golden Dawn's Prince — a younger ruler, son of the King and Queen. Waite kept the traditional name but, in his significator rules, kept the Golden Dawn's ages.
- In the Thoth Tarot, Crowley used the court Princess, Prince, Queen and Knight. There is no card called King; the Rider–Waite–Smith King corresponds to the Thoth Prince, drawn riding a chariot, and the Thoth Knight is the senior figure.
Not everyone accepts this mapping. Some modern authors set the Rider–Waite–Smith King beside the Golden Dawn King instead, reasoning from the name and the throne. Both views are found, and it is worth knowing which one a book follows.
The Golden Dawn attribution
In the Golden Dawn scheme the Prince — the Rider–Waite–Smith King — is Air, the stage in which the suit's force, born of Fire and Water, goes out into action. Each was titled "Prince of the Chariot" of his element, and each was given a span of the zodiac:
- King of Wands — Air of Fire, 20° Cancer to 20° Leo
- King of Cups — Air of Water, 20° Libra to 20° Scorpio
- King of Swords — Air of Air, 20° Capricorn to 20° Aquarius
- King of Pentacles — Air of Earth, 20° Aries to 20° Taurus
Each span runs from the last decan of one sign into the next, and the greater part of each lies in a fixed sign — the signs that hold and sustain. Authors who make the Kings Fire and the Knights Air, by contrast, read the King of Wands as Fire of Fire. These are differences of school, not errors, and the cards can be read well under either.
In a reading
A King can be a person with authority in the situation, the querent themselves in a position of responsibility, or advice to take charge of the matter in the way his suit suggests — by vision, by steadiness, by clear judgement or by practical provision. Several Kings in one spread are often read as a situation shaped by people with power, by institutions or by matters of responsibility. Reversed, for readers who use reversals, a King may show his authority misused, absent or hardened.