[ad. F. vice-royauté: see VICE- and ROYALTY. Stressed either on the first or second syllable.]
1. The office, rank or authority of a viceroy.
1703. Lond. Gaz., No. 3883/1. The Ambassador is not contented…, having entertained great hopes of being advanced to the Viceroyalty of Naples.
1749. Smollett, Gil Blas, VIII. ii. Here I saw commanders and knights of Calatrava and St. Iago, solliciting for governments and viceroyalties.
1800. Hist. Ind., in Asiat. Ann. Reg., 29/2. Pedro Malcarenhas, on whom the viceroyalty devolved on the decease of Meneses.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., vi. II. 156. Sunderland … offered to procure for Tyrconnel supreme military command, enormous appointments, anything but the vice-royalty.
1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq., I. vi. 475. This fact, coupled with Thurkill’s similar viceroyalty in Denmark, shows that Cnut [etc.].
b. In quasi-concrete use: A viceroy or viceregal household.
1842. Lover, Handy Andy, ix. Fancy might suggest that the house rejoiced, as it were, in its honoured position,… because it was under the nose of viceroyalty.
1909. Westm. Gaz., 16 Sept., 4/2. This property … was bought by the Government in 1864 as a dwelling for Viceroyalty.
2. A province or dependency commonly administered by a viceroy.
1715. Lond. Gaz., No. 5323/2. The … Ship … which is to carry the Prince to his Viceroyalty of Peru.
1777. Robertson, Hist. Amer., VII. (1778), II. 332. Costa Rica and Veragua … belong to the vice-royalty of New Spain.
1816. Tuckey, Narr. Exped. R. Zaire, iv. (1818), 159. The opposite sides of the river form two vice royalties.
1844. Regul. & Ord. Army, 37. The Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland shall be entitled to receive from the forts and batteries within His Vice-Royalty a Royal Salute.
1876. Bancroft, Hist. U.S., VI. lvi. 441. The seeds of rebellion were already [in 1782] sown in the vice-royalties of Buenos Ayres and Peru.
3. The period during which a particular viceroy holds office.
1849. Ht. Martineau, Hist. Peace, V. ii. (1877), III. 207. Ireland had never been so well governed as during the viceroyalty of Lord Mulgrave.
1865. Maffei, Brigand Life, II. 21. During the vice-royalty of the Count of Castrillo.
1883. B. Smith, Life Ld. Lawrence, xxviii. II. 534. There had been a deficit in more than one year of his Viceroyalty.
