Modernizing the European monarchies was simultaneously a top-down process and a bottom-up development. Theories of state and statehood can both blur and clarify this mutual relationship between monarchy and modernity. The concept of the state has not yet been deconstructed in the same sweeping way as ‘modernity’. Based on a pluralist understanding of states, the concluding chapter argues for subdividing and differentiating statehood and ‘sovereignty’ by applying it to different policy fields. Through analyzing each policy fields individually, historical commonalities on a European scale become obvious. Different state and non-state actors, institutions and constellations played roles in military policy compared to issues of schooling or welfare. In the process, the continuous transformation of the state, its muddling path between modernity and the unmodern, becomes apparent under a magnifying glass.