monarchy government essay

82 Monarchy Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best monarchy topic ideas & essay examples, 📌 simple & easy monarchy essay titles, 👍 good essay topics on monarchy, ❓ questions about monarchy.

• Queen Elizabeth I as the Greatest Monarch in England Queen Elizabeth, I was a pragmatic leader and she knew that if she married a foreigner she would put England’s future in jeopardy by relinquishing her power to her husband.
• Deuteronomistic History: The Rise and Fall of Israelite Monarchy A monarch can fix it by always having the copy of God’s law on him to “read it all the days of his life” and follow God’s word. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• In a Democratic Britain, the Monarchy Is an Anachronism The presence of the queen as the head of state instils a sense of responsibility and ethics among the political leaders.
• Critique of Thomas Hobbes’ Views on Monarchy According to him, man is naturally violent, and thus, there is a need for the establishment of an authoritative government in the form of a monarchy to check and contain the violent nature of man.
• Editorial on British Monarchy Abolishment The editorial by Alaeddini takes the view that before taking the radical decision of abolishing the system, there is a need to change it to ensure that it reflects the current socio-political and economic environment […]
• Elizabeth I of England as a Very Successful Monarch The achievements of her rule are very important for solving a row of difficult problems existing in the country those days and for leading the country on a new level of the world supremacy both […]
• The History of Queen Lydia Liliuokalani: The Last Monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii Queen Lydia Liliuokalani was the last monarch to rule the Kingdom of Hawaii before it was annexed to the United States of America.
• Absolute and Constitutional Monarchy A constitutional monarchy, as the name shows, is a regime based on the division of powers between the king and the legislative body like the Parliament with the supreme power of the Constitution.
• Absolute Monarchy: Pro- and Counterarguments in the 17th Century The ideas of absolute monarchy in the 17th century were reinforced by the belief that rulers’ right to govern was given by the power of God.
• George III and the Role of Monarchy Though the role of monarchy in the society is often underrated, monarchy, in fact, defines a range of features of the society in question, including its economic and financial status; it defines the national identity […]
• The Downfall of Pentheus: The Clash of a Monarch and a God Although it is traditionally considered that the key reason behind Pentheus’s death was his denial of Dionysos as a god, it can also be argued that Pentheus’s non-acceptance of Dionysos was only the factor, while […]
• Monarchy in Canada The first reason why the monarchy in Canada should not be abolished is that it creates stability and continuity in the country.
• The Origin of the Disagreements Between the Spanish Monarchy and the Castilian Cortes
• The Crisis of the Absolute Monarchy: France From Old Regime to Revolution
• The Development of a Limited Monarchy in England
• What Characteristics of Monarchy Emerge From A Study of the English History Plays of William Shakespeare
• The English Parliament and the French Monarchy
• The American Revolution: Monarchy to Democracy
• The Monarchy of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile
• The Idea of Monarchy in Common Sense, a Book by Thomas Paine
• Stature and Nutrition in the Habsburg Monarchy: The Standard of Living and Economic Development
• The Development of Italian Monarchy from 1861 up to 1870
• The Concept of Absolute Monarchy in King Lear by William Shakespeare
• King Lear’s Self-Awareness Riding High Upon the Wave of Power Associated With the Monarchy
• Turbulence in Politics and Government: Absolute Monarchy
• Princess Diana’s Effect on the United Kingdom and the Monarchy
• William Shakespeares View on Monarchy Expressed Through His Play Macbeth
• The Monarchy Challenged the Papal’s Authority by the End of the Middle Ages
• The Issues within the Monarchy That Sparked the French Revolution
• The Loss and Restoration of French Monarchy
• To What Degree Did the Battle of Actium Mark the Establishment of a Monarchy
• The Absolute Monarchy of Austria During the 17th and 18th Centuries
• The Democracy Monarchy Cycle, An Essay on the Theories of Hobbes
• The Articles of Confederation and the British Monarchy During the Coloni
• Monarchy vs. Self : Government, the Morality of the Monarchy
• Religious Interests and Political Interests in the Spanish Monarchy
• The Irresponsibility of European Monarchy
• The Benefits of the UK Having a Constitutional Monarchy
• The Benefits and Consequences of the Past and Present Monarchy Government
• The Abolition of the Monarchy Affect New Zealand’s
• The Failure of Monarchy in King Lear, a Play by William Shakespeare
• The Constitutional Monarchy: The Beginning of Liberalism
• The Development of Constitutional Monarchy in England
• The Impact of Spanish American Revolutions on the Spanish Monarchy
• The Responsibility of the Monarchy for Their Own Downfall in 1793
• The Coevolution of Economic and Political Development From Monarchy to Democracy
• The Life and Times of Victoria Ka’iulani, Member of Hawaiian Monarchy
• To What Extent Did The Valois-Habsburg Conflict Weaken the French Monarchy During the Period of 1519-1529
• The Relationship of the American Colonists and the British Monarchy
• Roles of the British Monarchy: Existent, Relevant, and Important
• The Greeks and Non-Greeks Under the Ptolomeic Monarchy
• Terminating Hyperinflation in the Dismembered Habsburg Monarchy
• Valois-Habsburg Wars and Its Contribution to the Weakening of the French Monarchy During the 1519-1529
• The Best Form of Government Between Monarchy, Dictatorship, and Democracy
• The English Bill of Rights: The Role Change for the Monarchy
• The Key Points of the Concept, Role and Challenges of a Constitutional Monarchy
• Why Did The Restored Bourbon Monarchy Fail in France
• What Is a Monarchy in Government?
• What Country Is a Monarchy Today?
• Is the UK a Monarchy?
• How Does a Monarchy Take Power?
• Which Countries Use Monarchy?
• How Many Countries Have a Monarchy?
• Who Is the Most Famous Monarch in the World?
• What Are the Benefits of Monarchy?
• What Is the Best Example of Monarchy?
• What Are the Laws of Monarchy?
• What Countries No Longer Have a Monarchy?
• Is Japan a Monarchy Country?
• Which Country Abolished Monarchy?
• Who Is the Longest Monarchy in the World?
• Who Is the Oldest Monarchy in the World?
• Is Monarchy Good for a Country?
• Who Started Monarchy?
• How Does Monarchy Treat the Citizens?
• Why Does Monarchy Fail?
• Why Is a Monarchy Weak?
• How Does a Monarchy Gain Power?
• Do People Have Rights in a Monarchy?
• Will England Ever Get Rid of the Monarchy?
• What Is It Called When You Go Against the Monarchy?
• Is North Korea a Monarchy?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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The Constitution Unit

What is the role of the monarchy?

The monarch is head of state 

The King reigns, but he does not rule. Ruling is done by his government, and as head of state in the UK the King is constitutionally obliged to follow the government’s advice. His  main functions as head of state are to appoint the Prime Minister, and all the other ministers; to open new sessions of parliament; and to give royal assent to bills passed by parliament, signifying that they have become law. 

The King also chairs monthly meetings of the Privy Council, to approve Orders in Council; he receives incoming and outgoing ambassadors; he makes a host of other appointments, such as the senior judges, but in all this he acts on the advice of the government. He has a weekly audience with the Prime Minister, and receives daily boxes of state papers for his signature, and for information. He also has regular meetings with senior officials of all kinds. 

The monarch is also head of the nation 

To the public the King is more visible in his wider role as head of the nation. In this representative role the Sovereign acts as a focus for national identity, unity and pride; gives a sense of stability and continuity; officially recognises success and excellence; and supports the ideal of voluntary service. This role has been fulfilled through speeches such as the Queen's address to the nation at the start of the Covid pandemic, and annual broadcast on Christmas day; through giving honours to recognise public and voluntary service; and through visits to the armed forces, schools, hospitals, charities and local organisations. 

The Queen carried out just under 300 public engagements in 2019, and Prince Charles 520; but in total 15 members of the royal family carried out 3,567 such engagements. These include national occasions such as attending the Cenotaph for Remembrance Day, or the Trooping The Colour; but the majority are visits to all parts of the UK, to recognise and support the work of local public services and voluntary organisations. The King and other members of the royal family are patrons of over 1000 charities and organisations in the UK and the Commonwealth. 

The Commonwealth and the Realms 

The King is also head of state of 14 other countries around the world, known as the realms: they include Australia, Canada, Jamaica and New Zealand. And the King is Head of the Commonwealth, a voluntary association of 54 states, mainly former British colonies and dependencies.

Related explainers:

• What is the royal prerogative? 

Further reading:

• The Constitution Unit's project on  Monarchy, Church and State
• Our British Monarchy FAQs
• Our Accession and Coronation FAQs
• Reforming the Prerogative (PDF)
• Swearing in the New King: Accession and Coronation Oaths (PDF)
• The Coronation of Charles III (PDF)
• The Role of Monarchy in Modern Democracy  by Robert Hazell and RM Morris, Hart 2020 
• Reforming the Prerogative  by Robert Hazell and Tim Foot, Bloomsbury 2022
• The Queen  by Ben Pimlott, HarperPress 2012 
• The official website of the Royal Family

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7.1 Common Sense: From Monarchy to an American Republic

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Compare and contrast monarchy and republican government
• Describe the tenets of republicanism

While monarchies dominated eighteenth-century Europe, American revolutionaries were determined to find an alternative to this method of government. Radical pamphleteer Thomas Paine, whose enormously popular essay Common Sense was first published in January 1776, advocated a republic: a state without a king. Six months later, Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence affirmed the break with England but did not suggest what form of government should replace monarchy, the only system most English colonists had ever known. In the late eighteenth century, republics were few and far between. Genoa, Venice, and the Dutch Republic provided examples of states without monarchs, but many European Enlightenment thinkers questioned the stability of a republic. Nonetheless, after their break from Great Britain, Americans turned to republicanism for their new government.

REPUBLICANISM AS A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Monarchy rests on the practice of dynastic succession, in which the monarch’s child or other relative inherits the throne. Contested dynastic succession produced chronic conflict and warfare in Europe. In the eighteenth century, well-established monarchs ruled most of Europe and, according to tradition, were obligated to protect and guide their subjects. However, by the mid-1770s, many American colonists believed that George III, the king of Great Britain, had failed to do so. Patriots believed the British monarchy under George III had been corrupted and the king turned into a tyrant who cared nothing for the traditional liberties afforded to members of the British Empire. The disaffection from monarchy explains why a republic appeared a better alternative to the revolutionaries.

American revolutionaries looked to the past for inspiration for their break with the British monarchy and their adoption of a republican form of government. The Roman Republic provided guidance. Much like the Americans in their struggle against Britain, Romans had thrown off monarchy and created a republic in which Roman citizens would appoint or select the leaders who would represent them.

Click and Explore

Visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see a Roman-style bust of George Washington, complete with toga. In 1791, Italian sculptor Giuseppe Ceracchi visited Philadelphia, hoping the government might commission a monument of his creation. He did not succeed, but the bust of Washington, one of the ones he produced to demonstrate his skill, illustrates the connection between the American and Roman republics that revolutionaries made.

While republicanism offered an alternative to monarchy, it was also an alternative to democracy , a system of government characterized by majority rule , where the majority of citizens have the power to make decisions binding upon the whole. To many revolutionaries, especially wealthy landowners, merchants, and planters, democracy did not offer a good replacement for monarchy. Indeed, conservative Whigs defined themselves in opposition to democracy, which they equated with anarchy. In the tenth in a series of essays later known as The Federalist Papers , Virginian James Madison wrote: “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” Many shared this perspective and worked hard to keep democratic tendencies in check. It is easy to understand why democracy seemed threatening: majority rule can easily overpower minority rights, and the wealthy few had reason to fear that a hostile and envious majority could seize and redistribute their wealth.

While many now assume the United States was founded as a democracy, history, as always, is more complicated. Conservative Whigs believed in government by a patrician class, a ruling group composed of a small number of privileged families. Radical Whigs favored broadening the popular participation in political life and pushed for democracy. The great debate after independence was secured centered on this question: Who should rule in the new American republic?

REPUBLICANISM AS A SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY

According to political theory, a republic requires its citizens to cultivate virtuous behavior; if the people are virtuous, the republic will survive. If the people become corrupt, the republic will fall. Whether republicanism succeeded or failed in the United States would depend on civic virtue and an educated citizenry. Revolutionary leaders agreed that the ownership of property provided one way to measure an individual’s virtue, arguing that property holders had the greatest stake in society and therefore could be trusted to make decisions for it. By the same token, non-property holders, they believed, should have very little to do with government. In other words, unlike a democracy, in which the mass of non-property holders could exercise the political right to vote, a republic would limit political rights to property holders. In this way, republicanism exhibited a bias toward the elite, a preference that is understandable given the colonial legacy. During colonial times, wealthy planters and merchants in the American colonies had looked to the British ruling class, whose social order demanded deference from those of lower rank, as a model of behavior. Old habits died hard.

Defining American

Benjamin franklin’s thirteen virtues for character development.

In the 1780s, Benjamin Franklin carefully defined thirteen virtues to help guide his countrymen in maintaining a virtuous republic. His choice of thirteen is telling since he wrote for the citizens of the thirteen new American republics. These virtues were:

1. Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. 2. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. 3. Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. 4. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. 5. Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing. 6. Industry. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. 7. Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly. 8. Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty. 9. Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. 10. Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation. 11. Tranquillity. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable. 12. Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation. 13. Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Franklin’s thirteen virtues suggest that hard work and good behavior will bring success. What factors does Franklin ignore? How would he likely address a situation in which children inherit great wealth rather than working for it? How do Franklin’s values help to define the notion of republican virtue?

Check how well you are demonstrating all thirteen of Franklin’s virtues on thirteenvirtues.com, where you can register to track your progress.

George Washington served as a role model par excellence for the new republic, embodying the exceptional talent and public virtue prized under the political and social philosophy of republicanism. He did not seek to become the new king of America; instead he retired as commander in chief of the Continental Army and returned to his Virginia estate at Mount Vernon to resume his life among the planter elite. Washington modeled his behavior on that of the Roman aristocrat Cincinnatus, a representative of the patrician or ruling class, who had also retired from public service in the Roman Republic and returned to his estate to pursue agricultural life.

The aristocratic side of republicanism—and the belief that the true custodians of public virtue were those who had served in the military—found expression in the Society of the Cincinnati, of which Washington was the first president general ( Figure 7.3 ). Founded in 1783, the society admitted only officers of the Continental Army and the French forces, not militia members or minutemen. Following the rule of primogeniture, the eldest sons of members inherited their fathers’ memberships. The society still exists today and retains the motto Omnia relinquit servare rempublicam (“He relinquished everything to save the Republic”).

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Power-sharing negotiation and commitment in monarchies

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A Correction to this article was published on 30 August 2021

This article has been updated

While military and civilian dictators tend to rule through fear, absolute monarchies do not depend exclusively on it and can also derive legitimacy from the historical, cultural and religious roles they play. That opportunity provides absolute monarchs with an option (constitutional monarchy) that is unavailable to other types of dictators. On the one hand, the institutional flexibility of that option might facilitate negotiations between an absolute monarch and the regime’s elites. On the other hand, it might complicate power-sharing, as the monarch may fail to commit to the principle of non-interference, while the regime’s elites may attempt to disempower the monarch. By formalizing a power-sharing game between a monarch and the regime’s elites, this paper argues that the threat of civil disobedience contributes to the resolution of commitment problems and also explains the reasons some constitutional monarchs hold and on occasion exercise substantive political powers despite the fact that their ability to survive presumably depends on their commitment to non-interference.

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Constitutional monarchy as power sharing

Power-Sharing in Colombia: Bipartisanship, Leftist Insurgencies, and Beyond

Power-Sharing in Austria: Consociationalism, Corporatism, and Federalism

Change history, 30 august 2021.

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-021-00924-8

The classification depends on the definition of constitutional monarchy as “a system of government in which a monarch is guided by a constitution whereby his/her rights, duties, and responsibilities are spelled out in written law or by custom” and of parliamentary monarchy as “a state headed by a monarch who is not actively involved in policy formation or implementation (i.e., the exercise of sovereign powers by a monarch in a ceremonial capacity); true governmental leadership is carried out by a cabinet and its head—a prime minister, premier, or chancellor—who are drawn from a legislature (parliament)” (CIA World Factbook 2018 ). This paper calls such regimes constitutional monarchies, as they are substantively similar.

For example, Bjørnskov and Kurrild-Klitgaard ( 2014 ) demonstrate empirically that large-scale reforms facilitate medium-run growth in monarchies while inducing a sizable reduction in growth in republics; they infer that the difference can be associated with monarchs’ longer time horizons, backed by their secure political positions.

Brunei, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Eswatini and the United Arab Emirates.

I refer to M as “he” and E as “she” since most monarchs that have been in the situation described in the model have been male.

In this model, the term “Regime elite” means the non-royal elite, because the model’s focus is not on conflict related to succession.

Some studies of autocracy allow for several types of elites (Bjørnskov 2019 ; Tullock 1987 ).

For example, in Saudi Arabia, Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrested at least 20 senior figures in 2017, including ministers, prominent businessmen and senior princes (Kirkpatrick 2019 ).

The assumption is consistent with the literature arguing that most threats to autocrats come from within their own ruling coalitions (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003 ; Przeworski 1991 ; Svolik 2009 , 2012 ).

The monarch and a parliament usually share policymaking power. Power-sharing is common and is seen in democratic and autocratic monarchies (Congleton 2001 , 2006 ). While constitutional monarchs in Great Britain, Sweden, Norway and Japan are not granted substantial political powers today, some constitutional monarchs possess and occasionally possess powers to set agendas and veto executive decisions, as shown in Table  1 .

When \( p \) is intermediate, \( x = 1 - p \) in Fig.  3 intersects with \( x = \beta \) in the range of \( c < \beta < 1 - c \) or \( 1 - c < \beta < c \) . When that occurs, neither side will renege in the other range of \( \beta \) .

Boix and Svolik ( 2013 ) and Svolik ( 2009 ) argue that the probability of successful power-sharing is decreasing in the dictator’s power. Albin and Druckman ( 2012 ) contend that rough power symmetries motivate the relevant parties to act more justly and search for a balanced solution that they can accept voluntarily.

The result is consistent with the fact that several European states transformed from monarchies to republics after their defeat in World War II.

King Mohammed V not only served as the supreme commander, but also appointed ultra-royalist Ahmed Reda Guedira as the first minister of defense, and his eldest son, Hassan, as the military’s chief of staff (Willis 2014 , pp. 82–83). To ensure loyalty, the King also paid considerable attention to the composition of the armed forces in a bid to transfer more professional and apolitical values to the new force, leaving the troops vulnerable to accusations of involvement in colonial oppression from the nationalist movement (Willis 2014 , p. 83). Owing to its military supremacy, the monarchy survived two coup attempts in the early 1970s.

A public opinion survey in 2017 showed that King Mohammed VI enjoyed the greatest religious authority among Morocco’s Islamic leaders and that 70% of the respondents “trust” or “completely trust” the King on religious matters (Sheline 2019 , p. 2).

In the 1970s, the rise in the cost of living and unemployment problems caused by the economic slowdown led to a series of sectoral strikes (Badimon 2013 ; Lust-Okar 2005 , pp. 129–131). In February 2011, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to call for better economic performance and political institutions (Molina 2011 ).

The following episodes illustrate the king’s favorable attitudes toward reforms in the initial stage. Written documents reveal that the king told the queen’s circle of friends, who opposed the Third Estate, that “it is not clear that the Third Estate are wrong. Different forms have been observed each time the Estates have been held. So why reject verification in common? I am for it” (Hardman 1981 p. 93). The king also made several promises after the storming of the Bastille, such as refraining from imposing new taxes without the approval of representatives, granting no privileges in the imposition and collection of taxes, allocating a fixed budget to each governmental department, and guaranteeing freedom of the press (Padover 1965 , pp. 167–169).

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Dominik Duell, Gina Yannitell Reinhardt, Jonathan Slapin, Shuhei Kurizaki, Kubo Keiichi, and participants at the 2019 JSQPS summer workshop for their excellent feedback. I also thank the editors and the three anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments.

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Proof of Proposition 1

Solving backwards yields the subgame perfect equilibrium. When M wins, P revolts if and only if \( 1 - c > 1 - \beta \) , that is, \( \beta > c \) , and does not do so otherwise. Conversely, when E wins, P revolts if and only if \( 1 - c > \beta \) and does not do so otherwise.

Next, without knowing E’s decision about whether to renege, M decides his action. Given that E reneges, M is indifferent between reneging and not reneging because he is expected to receive \( - p\beta \) when P revolts against M (i.e., \( \beta > c \) ) and to receive \( - p \) when P does not revolt (i.e., \( \beta \le c), \) respectively, regardless of E’s choice. Given that E abides by the negotiation’s outcome and P revolts against M, M also prefers abiding by the negotiation over reneging on it if and only if \( 1 - x \ge - p\beta \) . The last always holds, by definition, so M strictly prefers not to renege when P’s revolution is expected. Given that E abides by the negotiation’s outcome and P does not revolt, M abides by the negotiated agreement if and only if \( 1 - x \ge p \) and otherwise reneges.

E also determines whether to adhere to or renege on the negotiation’s outcome without knowing M’s choice. Similarly, given that M reneges, E is indifferent between reneging and not reneging because she receives \( - \left( {1 - p} \right)\left( {1 - \beta } \right) \) when P revolts against E (i.e., \( 1 - c > \beta \) ), and \( - \left( {1 - p} \right) \) when P does not revolt, respectively, regardless of M’s choice. In contrast, suppose that M does not renege and P revolts against E. In that case, E abides by the negotiation’s outcome if and only if \( x \ge - \left( {1 - p} \right)\left( {1 - \beta } \right) \) , which, by definition, never holds. That is, E strictly prefers not to renege when M also opts not to renege and P revolts. Meanwhile, when P does not revolt against E, E abides by the negotiation’s outcome if and only if \( x \ge 1 - p \) . Overall, both M and E always abide by the negotiation outcome only when both are exposed to the threat of public revolution (i.e., \( c > \frac{1}{2} \) and \( c < \beta < 1 - c \) ). In all other cases, either one or both may renege, and the negotiation could then collapse.

Then, M decides whether to accept E’s offer. When M knows that the negotiation’s outcome prevails, M accepts E’s offer if and only if \( 1 - x \ge 1 - \beta \Leftrightarrow x \le \beta \) ; M rejects it otherwise. Meanwhile, when M knows that the negotiation’s outcome is reneged on, M accepts E’s offer if and only if \( - p\beta \ge 1 - \beta \Leftrightarrow \beta \ge \frac{1}{1 - p} \) . However, by definition, \( \frac{1}{1 - p} \) always is equal to or exceeds 1 (i.e., \( p \in \left[ {0, 1} \right] \) ). Thus, M accepts E’s offer if and only if \( \beta = \frac{1}{1 - p} = 1 \Leftrightarrow p = 0 \) ; otherwise, M rejects E’s offer.

Finally, E chooses whether to initiate a negotiation and, if so, the extent to which M’s power should be constrained. When the negotiation’s outcome is preserved, E offers \( \beta \) unless \( \beta = 0 \) . When \( \beta = 0 \) , she is indifferent between initiating a negotiation and obeying the monarchy; by definition, she chooses the latter. When the negotiation’s outcome is reneged on (i.e., \( c \ge \frac{1}{2} \) or \( c < \frac{1}{2} \) and \( 0 \le \beta \le c \) or \( c < \frac{1}{2} \) and \( 1 - c \le \beta \le 1 \) ) and, moreover, M accepts E’s offer (i.e., \( \beta \ge \frac{1}{1 - p} \) ), E offers 1 when \( \beta = \frac{1}{1 - p} = 1 \) because M’s choice does not depend on \( x \) . When the negotiation’s outcome is reneged on and M rejects E’s offer, E offers \( 0 \) . In that case, she is indifferent between initiating bargaining and obeying the monarchy, so she chooses not to challenge M.

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Inata, K. Power-sharing negotiation and commitment in monarchies. Public Choice 187 , 501–518 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-020-00792-8

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Received : 19 August 2019

Accepted : 02 March 2020

Published : 12 March 2020

Issue Date : June 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-020-00792-8

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13 The Monarchy

Andrzej Olechnowicz is Assistant Professor of Modern British History at Durham University.

• Published: 08 May 2018
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This chapter starts from the premise that royal history is not yet properly a part of political history, but ought to be. It first examines who has written about monarchy and how they have done so, suggesting that this work has been distinctive and defective in several respects. It next evaluates how much of the research agenda outlined first by David Cannadine in 2004 has been addressed. The chapter then identifies the area—the study of monarchists and ‘monarchism’—which political (alongside social) historians might most urgently examine. It concludes by presenting preliminary research which indicates how the inclusion of monarchists and monarchism might alter thinking about both the monarchy and its subjects.

Academic study of the monarchy has largely existed on the margins of modern British political history. David Craig’s discipline-summarizing and agenda-defining article on political history made no mention of the institution, for example. 1 Various reasons for this are considered in this chapter, but the most fundamental and iterated is that political history is about the study of power (in some way), 2 and the modern monarchy is an institution which reigns but does not rule. Even now, for all the exhortatory pronunciamentos about the converging of ‘high politics’ and the more expansive ‘new political history’, more often than not publications are characterized at the coalface by the thin gruel of limited horizons and restricted archival preoccupations in understanding the political system. Latterly we are told that ‘everything’ should be of interest to the political historian, but it decidedly is not.

The contemporary academic study of the British monarchy by historians can be traced to two influential publications of the 1980s: Professor Sir David Cannadine’s 1983 study of the monarchy and the ‘invention of tradition’, 3 and Tom Nairn’s 1988 study of how the Crown has shaped the strange national identity of ‘Ukania’—his term for the Anglo-British state. 4 Both, however, are principally works of social history, with the objective of understanding persistent royal popularity and its connection to national identity (though Nairn is much else besides). 5 It is no accident that both were produced under Thatcherism. Cannadine accorded particular importance to developments in the media from the 1880s, and observed a shift from a provincial, rational Liberal press to ‘London-based, increasingly Conservative, strident, vulgar, and working-class in their appeal’ national dailies in which the monarchy was ‘virtually sacrosanct’. 6 For Nairn, ‘popular Royalism is visibly no t passive and mindless’, is the peculiar form that nationalism takes in Great Britain, and is essential to the ‘Ukanian’ state in two respects: first, it is the only way of maintaining ‘the informal authority of an elite inside the more formal and bureaucratic constraints of a quasi-industrial society’; second, it is the only way of holding ‘populism permanently at bay. Egalitarianism in the democratic sense was partly absorbed and partly (the more important part) broken’. 7

Moreover, both look to the category of ‘the irrational’ in order to account for royal success, as have current explanations seeking to account for the success of Thatcherism. 8 Eric Hobsbawm, co-editor of The Invention of Tradition , wrote that with mass politics in the later nineteenth century, ‘rulers and middle-class observers rediscovered the importance of “irrational” elements in the maintenance of the social fabric and the social order’. 9 The success of elaborate political rituals which looked to ‘both old and tried evokers of emotion such as crown and military glory and … new ones such as empire and colonial conquest’ reflected ‘a mixture of planting from above and growth—or at any rate readiness for planting—from below’. 10 Not only did Nairn employ the notion of ‘enchantment’, but he also considered its old Scottish version, ‘glamour’—‘the spell cast upon humans by fairies, or witches’, and therefore denoting ‘persons and symbols ordinary in appearance but quite super-ordinary in significance’—and argued that through George IV’s visit to Scotland in 1822, ‘Glamour had won a new lease of life, in both language and the State. It had become part of modernity’. 11

Although political historians are concerned with, say, the popular effects of party rhetoric, they do not typically look to ‘the irrational’ to understand those effects. By contrast, most academic historians of the monarchy and certainly nearly all popular writers on the topic do (at some level). Thus, Vernon Bogdanor, drawing on Bagehot, argued that in addition to political parties and the like, voters need ‘the reassurance of a visible presence’ in their political world. 12 Ross McKibbin too, while in general assuming ‘working-class intellectuality’, 13 characterized the inter-war monarchy as ‘partly magical’ and ‘quasi-magical’, thereby in accordance with ‘people’s mentality’ which accepted ‘belief in semi-religions’. 14 Neither of these instances is defensible. Bogdanor simply asserts (as did Bagehot) what needs to be proved. McKibbin cites evidence, but it can be reinterpreted to tell a rather different story, of a kind more familiar to political historians. 15 Moreover, one need only think of Nairn’s withering attack on newspapers’ monitoring of the ‘mystic significance of a small bald patch’ as Prince Charles’s hair thinned in the 1970s to recall how common this sort of nonsense is in the press. 16 This penchant for the irrational reflects the neglect of what by any measure should be regarded as a foundational text for academics: the social psychologist Michael Billig’s Talking of the Royal Family (1992) . Billig recorded 63 unprompted discussions, mostly lasting one to two hours, among members of ‘ordinary’ families in the East Midlands in order to ‘reconstruct patterns of common-sense thinking’ about royalty. 17 These discursive patterns ‘revealed barely a trace of religious sentiment when discussing monarchy’, and:

Over and again, respondents uttered the common-place that royals were ordinary human beings. The common-place can be used to justify royal lapses, to claim similarity with royals and to bring royalty down to earth, should they start believing in their special destiny too ardently. A supermarket cashier commented that ‘basically they’re just ordinary people like everybody else’ (interview 55). 18

Consequently, royals were evaluated in down-to-earth, instrumental terms. Like the rest of us, they had a clearly defined job to do:

The Queen and her family might be praised for doing an excellent job, but the praise would turn to criticism, should the job not be done. This much was made clear, again and again. The royal job was to set standards, or to give the image of setting standards. As such, said one father, it was ‘part of the job’ that ‘they have to behave themselves’ (interview 3). It was like a contract of employment. 19

Billig’s work is unique in terms of its originality and persuasiveness. Of course, it cannot demonstrate that this ‘disenchanted’, instrumental orientation towards the monarchy is of recent or older origin, but, alongside the ‘knowingness’ that has long characterized lower-class life, 20 it suggests the likelihood that for some time most ordinary people have seen the monarchy as nothing special—an institution like any other.

This chapter therefore starts from the premise that royal history is not yet properly a part of political history, but ought to be. It will first examine who has written about monarchy and how they have done so, suggesting that this work has been distinctive and defective in several respects. It will next evaluate how much of the research agenda outlined by Cannadine in his inaugural lecture as Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Professor of British History, University of London, in 2004 has been addressed. The chapter will then identify the area which political (alongside social) historians might most urgently examine. The absence of study of monarchists and ‘monarchism’ is a remarkable omission in the light of much recent interest in republicans and ‘republicanism’. The chapter will conclude by presenting preliminary research which indicates how the inclusion of monarchists and monarchism might alter thinking about both the monarchy and its subjects.

The official royal biography enables the monarchy to write its own history. The official biographies of George V by Harold Nicolson in 1952 (KCVO 21 in 1953), George VI by Sir John Wheeler-Bennett in 1958 (KCVO in 1959, and historical adviser to the Royal Archives), Queen Mary by James Pope-Hennessy in 1959 (CVO in 1960), King Edward VIII by Philip Ziegler in 1990, and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother by William Shawcross in 2009 (CVO in 2011) follow the principle of selection outlined to Nicolson by Sir Alan Lascelles, George VI’s private secretary: the book is

‘not meant to be an ordinary biography … You will be writing a book on the subject of a myth and will have to be mythological’ … He said that I should not be expected to say one word that was not true … All that I should be expected to do was to omit things and incidents which were discreditable. 22

All also endorse that most fundamental tenet of royal ideology—that the British monarchy is, in the words of Sir Ernest Barker in 1945, ‘far—very far—from being a merely conservative institution’. Instead, it is ‘a changing and moving monarchy—changing and moving with the times, and actively helping the times to change and move … That is the secret of its survival and that is the source of its strength’. 23 Official biographies are difficult to contradict, partly because their imprimatur (and often their length) convey authority, partly because the access to the papers of a reign that is granted to official biographers is denied to others. One historian has described the Royal Archives as ‘a hermetic private body, imposing stringent controls on access and frustrating legitimate historical research. They constitute a royal pocket borough at the heart of our supposed democracy’. 24 Direct access is only granted ‘to certain research academics’, and requests must be in writing and sent by letter. Since the monarchy is not a ‘public authority’, and its archives are not ‘public records’, it is exempt from Freedom of Information legislation. 25 So far, campaigns to make national records available to the nation have been resisted or ignored by the monarchy and the government. 26 The irony is that if royal papers became more easily available, the type of historian attracted to this subject would probably often be the kind who might safely have been chosen as an official biographer. 27 For some commentators, at any rate, this points to a wider cultural fact about British scholars and, presumably, the British in general: there is always ‘a certain obsequiousness’ when it comes to the monarchy. 28

Most writing about the monarchy takes the form of popular, or commercial, history. The claim of this type of biography is that it alone has uncovered what its royal subject is ‘really like’ because it has been granted privileged information or access. 29 In the previous century this genre was, overwhelmingly, more reverential and toadying than the official lives, and this largely continues to be the case in the present century. Nonetheless, Andrew Morton’s Diana: Her True Story in 1992 marked a watershed, and gave credibility to this genre: a revised edition of his book in 1997 finally confirmed what had long been suspected—that ‘the story contained in its pages would never have appeared had it not been for the wholehearted co-operation of Diana, Princess of Wales’. 30 From now on, even what was strenuously denied or seemingly unbelievable might, after all, be true. In any case, the mundanity of revelations by former royal servants increasingly emboldened to cash in on their status undermines any hope of continuing to accord royals ‘mythological’ stature. 31 There is little here of value for the political historian, however. Popular writers and ex-royal employees or insiders have neither the pecuniary incentive nor the knowledge nor, often, the competence to illuminate the political role of royalty. All more or less do no more than briefly assert in passing that monarchy is valuable because it embodies (somehow) national identity.

In 2004, Cannadine offered a route map of how the subject might move ‘from biography to history’, and become ‘a history of society as reflected in the changing experience of the British royal family’. He first praised Walter Arnstein’s 2003 biography of Queen Victoria as ‘an outstanding and pioneering example’ of a ‘historically-informed’ biography by a professional historian. 32 A principal objective for Arnstein was to examine how Victoria’s self-image as a daughter of a soldier and ‘warrior queen’ shaped her understanding of her political role, and what room existed in the political system to allow her to initiate political action. 33 Cannadine might also have mentioned Ben Pimlott’s The Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth II (1996), which demonstrated how the ‘choice of occupation and acquired habits of mind’ of courtiers reinforced the Queen’s personality—punctilious, conscientious, conservative, reassured by routine, and hating the unexpected—to fashion a monarchy which is politically and culturally ‘deeply cautious’. 34 Cannadine then advocated conceptualizing the monarchy as ‘a successfully self-perpetuating elite institution’ and exploring this success in terms of its political, philanthropic, military, and ecclesiastical roles, which further entails understanding royal finance, education, and marriage, royal gender roles, media representations, and the relationship between the monarchy and social classes, the nation, and the empire. 35

Much of this agenda has been met. William Kuhn’s Henry and Mary Ponsonby: Life at the Court of Queen Victoria (2002) had already demonstrated the value of Cannadine’s suggestion that the political history of the monarchy was best approached as ‘the history of successive private secretaries to successive sovereigns’ than as that of monarchs themselves. 36 The publication of some courtiers’ diaries has proved valuable. 37 Nonetheless, the political history of monarchy often remains too tied to constitutional history and the approach of constitutional lawyers. One of the most impressive articles by the professor of constitutional law Rodney Brazier (MVO 2013) examines how a British republic could be legally enacted. However, there is hardly any consideration of where, within the (party) political system, the pressure for an elected presidency might come from. The arguments for and against a monarchy are presented as abstract standpoints, virtually unembodied in any political actors. 38 The problem comes when a political historian such as Vernon Bogdanor (CBE 1998) approaches royal history in broadly similar fashion. 39 A sharp exchange between Bogdanor and Philip Williamson over King George V’s role in the formation of the National Government highlighted the shortcoming of the ‘constitutional’ approach. Bogdanor insisted that the king’s role had been much greater than generally thought, because he had been ‘not merely the facilitator of the National Government, but the instigator of it’, above all by refusing three times to accept Ramsay MacDonald’s resignation. 40 Williamson retorted that ‘most historians would assume that the place to begin is with the Prime Minister and party leaders’ when considering governments, and charged Bogdanor’s ‘constitutional’ interpretation with producing ‘manifest distortions, by wrenching material out of complex political contexts’. Williamson’s masterly recreation of those multiple, changing contexts demonstrates that the King operated in the slipstream of the party politicians. 41 The study of the monarchy is the study of (after Victoria) a reluctant, tentative, often unskilful second-order political actor in a political system dominated by party political players.

Indeed, Cannadine’s agenda was a missed opportunity to call explicitly for a liberation from the cult of Walter Bagehot, or rather a very skewed reading of his work, regarding the monarchy. We have already questioned Bagehot’s assertion that the (uneducated and ill-informed) people needed the monarchy to satisfy their ‘emotional longing for splendour and serenity’, in Frank Prochaska’s redolent phrase. 42 But we need to go much further and reclaim Bagehot from the misinterpretation of The English Constitution (1867) by academic and non-academic monarchists. David Craig has pointed to the irony of George VI, Elizabeth II, and Prince Charles all being tutored in royal statecraft by being obliged to read a republican tome. What royal appropriators have failed to see, or chosen to hide, is that Bagehot actually argued that cabinet government could work perfectly ‘efficiently’ without a monarchy, and ought to do so when the people were sufficiently politically educated to realize this. 43 The broader ‘political’ functions performed by the monarchy which Bagehot identified (making government intelligible, reinforcing the impact of religion, and being the head of society) no longer hold. 44 Above all, Bagehot was clear that hereditary succession was more or less guaranteed to produce indulged, petulant, and self-aggrandizing heirs and monarchs: ‘a constitutional prince is the man who is most tempted to pleasure, and the least forced to business.’ 45 Countless constitutional historians opining on the constitutional function of the monarchy, habitually starting with Bagehot’s celebrated ‘three rights’ of a constitutional monarch (‘the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn’ 46 ), overlook these other observations by Bagehot. Excellent work has, of course, been produced by historians documenting (without much help from the Royal Archives) how Queen Victoria and Edward VII actually behaved in relation to their prime ministers, and how they sought to shape policy. 47 The fault has come when constitutional experts have danced on the head of a pin either to prove that all, or virtually all, of these royal interventions were ‘constitutional’ and ‘efficient’, or to establish precedents about the constitutionally proper way for monarchs to behave in the future.

By no means has all work genuflected to Bagehot. Prochaska’s Royal Bounty (1995) has documented the royals’ charitable activities, and observed how these activities contained republican and socialist criticism by demonstrating that the royal family performed a necessary and socially valued job exceptionally well. The politics of being ‘Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England’, the impact of ‘civil religion’, and the significance of central orders for local church services have been explored by Norman Bonney, John Wolffe, and Philip Williamson. 48 Phillip Hall’s Royal Fortune: Tax, Money and the Monarchy (1992) has probably gone as far in uncovering royal finances as the relentless stonewalling of courtiers allows, 49 while Peter Gordon and Dennis Lawton’s Royal Education (1999) showed how misguided are those who identify royals as having superior talent. The political and cultural consequences of ‘the feminization of the monarchy’ have been most strikingly (and also controversially) conceptualized by Margaret Homans and Adrienne Munich. 50

The relationship between the monarchy and national identity is still perhaps incompletely presented. That royals (in some way) embody national identity is not in doubt. 51 However, following Cannadine’s initial lead in 1983, most of the emphasis has been on the impact of grand royal ceremonial 52 and, more recently, provincial royal visits, and their displays of ‘popular constitutionalism’. 53 Although popular provincial visits have been explained as displays of ‘popular constitutionalism’, 54 national ceremonies are by and large simplistically still presented in terms such as ‘everyone loves a parade … from the glitter of a golden coach to the glamour of carnival’. 55 What is also still missing is an emphasis on the ubiquitous presence of royalty in everyday life—the royal equivalent of Billig’s ‘banal nationalism’ , the recognition that royal nationalism, ‘far from being an intermittent mood in established nations, is the endemic condition’. 56

This will involve investigating royal memorabilia, for example, but above all media—print, audio-visual, and now digital—representations of royalty. Excellent work has been done here. Thus, Richard Williams thoroughly examined the nineteenth-century press, but his principal concern was to understand controversy surrounding the political power of the monarchy. 57 John Plunkett pursued the broader agenda of showing that ‘the growth of a material culture and a popular publishing industry were primarily responsible for Victoria’s almost limitless plasticity, her diffuse proliferation’. 58 The death of Princess Diana in 1997 produced a literature examining the culpability of the press in blighting her life and in producing the extraordinary displays of public mourning after her death. 59 However, none of this work is principally focused on exploring banal royal nationalism. Finally, any investigation of the contemporary monarchy must acknowledge how decisively newspaper reporting above all has moved from (near-perpetual near-) reverence to what might be termed ‘amnesic royalism’—abrupt shifts from censure to commendation, from over-familiarity to decorous respect of individual royals from day to day, sometimes from page to page. The internet allows instant recall, countless bricolages, and instant transmission of elevating or enervating royal stories. 60 However carefully the royals attempt to manage the media, 61 the brand is very likely to become an unstable signifier.

The most glaring scholarly—and popular—omission is the absence of ‘monarchists’ and ‘monarchism’ from the political history of the monarchy. 62 Rectifying this should be the first task of the new political historian. There is no equivalent of Antony Taylor’s ‘Down with the Crown’: British Anti-Monarchism and Debates about Royalty since 1790 (1999) for monarchism. 63 At most, a very few historians have explored certain limited themes across brief periods. 64 The default position seems to be that monarchism is simply a synonym for grand royal ceremonial. 65 Prochaska alone has hinted at the potential role of ‘pure monarchists’ in circumstances where an unpopular move to abolish the monarchy were to be made: ‘Compared to republican clubs, the Constitutional Monarchy Association and the Monarchist League are long lived. And if history is any guide, pure monarchists are, if anything, more inflexible and belligerent than pure republicans, and they might not go quietly.’ 66

The consequence of failing to identify a distinct group of political actors as ‘monarchists’ is to let the royal assumption that virtually everyone is a monarchist, and that the political culture is unproblematically monarchical, stand unchallenged. This seems to be the position of Jon Parry for the nineteenth and Williamson for the twentieth century. Parry’s ‘Whig interpretation’ asserts that it is ‘the political context, much more than royal behaviour itself’ which is critical, and that the monarchy’s public standing is primarily the result of the ‘general acquiescence in the political order, and patriotic identification with the nation-state and its symbols’ by the people. 67 Through upholding the ‘identifying characteristics of the regime, not least its liberalism’ and its shared public values, and through tolerating irreverence as well as adulation, the monarchy has, since the 1870s, successfully ‘symbolised a representative, constitutional political culture’ almost wholly satisfactory to its people. Consequently, at the same time, the monarchy ‘has not been that important’, and, Parry supposes, ‘most people have not thought very much about it’. 68 Williamson likewise argues that by the inter-war period the chief function of the monarchy had become ‘to express and symbolize public values’. As a result, royal speeches and statements were products of the collective endeavour of courtiers, politicians, civil servants, church leaders, and others. Moreover, philanthropic, commercial, media, military, and political bodies identified with the monarchy because doing so could advance their interests, not because they were ‘deferential or dazzled’. 69

This approach would probably regard a focus on ‘monarchism’ in isolation or outside the context of government and public life as contributing little to understanding the political and social role of the monarchy. But this perspective comes at a price—an asymmetry in how republicanism and monarchism are regarded. The former is abnormal and requires a special history of its own, which more often than not confirms its alien character; 70 the latter is normal, and straightforwardly what the British people believe. Whereas disheartened republicans often see themselves as ‘outside the political mainstream’ and ‘unrespectable’, even as ‘cranks’, 71 ‘pure monarchists’ are heartened by believing that their views enjoy strength of numbers. This, however, is doubtful.

Space allows only for consideration of the varieties of monarchism ‘from below’, arising autonomously among the population, without official sanction or encouragement from the royal establishment. Three broad forms can be observed: the ‘eccentric’ monarchists, the ‘real royalists’, and the monarchist organizations. At one end are the eccentric and bizarre individuals who gain temporary prominence through the press, and whom the press not only tolerate but even present as devoted, dutiful, admirable, and (half-jokingly) exemplary monarchists. The eccentric monarchists are most evident in the press during major royal celebrations. 72 A few have achieved national prominence: for example, Lieutenant Commander Bill Boaks (1904–86) found fame as a tenacious parliamentary candidate, first standing in 1951 for the Association of Democratic Monarchists Representing All Women, and after 1970 for Public Safety Democratic Monarchist White Residents. 73

Eccentrics often express their monarchism in a moment or through a single act. By contrast, monarchism is a way of life for the ‘real royalists’, described by the anthropologist Anne Rowbottom as ‘people who regularly travel the United Kingdom, to stand for hours, in all weathers, to greet members of the Royal Family during royal visits’. It is impossible to estimate the total number of such royalists since not all join groups, and those who do form informal groups which rely on letters and telephone calls and keep no records. Rowbottom’s findings are based on her experience as a participant observer with one group of 60 royalists in Manchester in 1989 and 1990, and a series of interviews over the years 1988 to 1997. In the year and a half of participant observation, members of the group attended at least 30 royal visits, Trooping the Colour, the Garter Procession, Royal Ascot, and the State Opening of Parliament, and made three- or four-day trips to London, Windsor, Edinburgh, and Balmoral. In this group there were almost as many men as women; ages ranged from mid-teens to late sixties; most of the women were married with older children, and most of the men single; most were Conservatives and Anglicans; and most were lower middle-class with jobs which enabled them to follow the royals in such an intensive way. Their claim that ‘there is no such thing as a typical royalist, we are a very mixed bunch’ is therefore inaccurate in several respects. 74

Real royalists fervently believe that monarchism is ‘about being British’, and ask: ‘If we lose the royal family what is there? We are just an island with some people on it, with nothing to say we are British.’ They insist that their pursuit is therefore completely different from celebrity-watching since ‘celebrities don’t come from history, they are here today and gone tomorrow’. They value the ‘marvellous atmosphere’ of the royal crowd, in which class differences appear to be suspended and a ‘sense of good will and unity’ is generated. But the walkabout is the key feature of a royal visit for the royalists, as their most compelling motivation seems to be to meet and speak to a royal and to be recognized: ‘When I speak to a royal I feel happy, exhilarated. It is a very emotional experience and I am often on the verge of tears.’ Rowbottom doubts that this should be seen as deference, since the royalists ‘speak to and about the royal family as “ordinary” human beings with whom they can laugh and joke’, and admire the royals’ ‘personal qualities of warmth, charm and devotion to duty’. Rather, it is a reciprocal gift-giving relationship. Royals receive gifts of photographs, of flowers—symbols of luxury—and of adulation. The royalists receive the ‘gifts’ of royal service, and the satisfaction of becoming ‘special people themselves’. The royalists’ extraordinariness is confirmed by the attention paid to them by the royal visitor (Prince Charles, for example, saying, ‘Ah, here’s a familiar face’, or Princess Diana remembering many of their first names), by other people in the crowd, and by the media, which accepts their ‘expertise’ about the royals and consequently their ‘special status’.

The very strength of the real royalists’ attachment to a dutiful monarchy meant that any royal’s failure to conform to these standards was troubling. Consequently, the royalists developed stratagems to interpret the rejection of a gift, for example, as a kindly, thoughtful act, or a brusqueness of manner (in the case of Princess Anne) as untypical or an admirable refusal to dissimulate or compensated by philanthropic work. Press stories of the disregarding of royal ideals (Princess Anne’s divorce) became opportunities to express sympathy for the Queen, both as a mother and as a monarch whose behaviour had been peerless. Thus transgressions ‘provided the royalists with a symbolic inversion against which the ideal of the monarchy could be constructed and maintained’. 75

Rowbottom’s royalists were used to being abused as ‘cranks, crackpots, or fanatics’. They dismissed such estimations by arguing that they were no different from myriads of others, such as ‘football fans who travel the country to support their team, or fishermen who sit at the side of a river all day’. Moreover, they believed that they were only the most activist end of a more passive mass of monarchists: ‘Plenty of people feel like we do, but they wouldn’t do what we do. We are not the curious passersby who only turn out when the royals come to visit their area.’ 76 They are probably right to believe that they are ‘important’ for the monarchy, and the royals are sensible to indulge them. Most of the time the royals undertake ‘routine’ royal engagements and visits (3,820 engagements in 1997, of which around 1,000 were visits). Though even the most routine or fleeting visits will have been meticulously planned, they may sometimes struggle to attract a sufficiently sizeable and enthusiastic crowd to look impressive in the local press and on regional television, especially if a walkabout is involved. Unsurprisingly, royalists are often given advice by a Lord Lieutenant’s office on when to congregate and where to stand. 77

The ‘real royalists’ are primarily seen, and sometimes heard; monarchist associations seem to be little seen or heard, but they do exist. Like most insignificant republican pressure groups, many monarchist pressure groups appear to be the hobby horses of one or a very few individuals, and to be subject to the sort of dissipation to which dedicated, self-important cliques with more generals than troops are prone. Three might briefly be surveyed.

The British Monarchist League, for example, was founded in April 2010 in order to counter ‘the many unjustified attacks that the Crown is subjected to on a daily basis’ from an ‘ever more aggressive and active republican agenda’, and to ‘rediscover what it is to have pride in being uniquely British’ since ‘our monarch is the one who exemplifies who we are as a people, what we believe in, and what we feel’. Many of the other totems of right-wing nationalism are also cited by the BML: a global model of good government; an imperial nation, which has been ‘known to never have the sun set on our empire’; a nation which ‘stood alone in our darkest days’; a nation ‘identified with Big Ben, red phone boxes, and black taxis’; the land of Shakespeare and tradition; and a nation threatened by ‘the rising power of the European Union’. 78 In 2012 the British Monarchist Society was created to defend ‘the very ideals and theology of British identity’ against ‘the moving anarchist’s tide of a republican minority’. It asserts two cardinal claims: first, that ‘under political parties we will never be one people’, whereas a ‘non-political Head of State’ is ‘bound to always act in the interest of their people, regardless of the political party in power’; second, that ‘it is almost impossible to imagine Britain without its Crown’, since it is the monarch who ‘exemplifies who we are as a people, what we believe in, and what we feel’. These claims are to be advanced through education, the media, political lobbying, and developing ties with Commonwealth monarchist organizations.

Although the chairman of the BMS believes that there is a ‘higher power to be, one that is above the pettiness of politics’, he nonetheless contributes to the Conservative Blog. 79 The Royalist Party is much more obviously a part of the Eurosceptic right wing of the Conservative party, and came into being in October 2010 out of the Conservative Royalist Party, offering ‘a disillusioned public, betrayed by false promises’ a ‘patriotic approach to politics’ as a real alternative to ‘the old beleaguered parties’. It asserts that MPs ‘have betrayed this country’ whereas ‘our Monarch has been the ever strong backbone for our British society and national identity’, and has ‘the nation and its people at heart’. Consequently, two far-reaching changes are required. First, the monarch’s ‘constitutional rights’ should be enforced, and because the monarch has ‘no political allegiance’, she should not be ‘restricted from acting against the injustices in politics, for example the MPs’ expenses scandal’ (although the appropriate action is not specified). Second, ‘a proper Constitutional Monarchy’ requires ‘a representative of the Crown to sit in cabinet meetings’, who would be ‘personally chosen’ by the monarch to ‘act as a correspondent between the day to day workings of government, and the Monarch’. This would ensure that politics could ‘stay under the watchful eye of the Head of State who could hence forth prevent any potential political crises’ (although how exactly this could be done is not specified). For the Royalist Party the danger comes not from ‘the very few republicans’ but from a variety of foreigners, as well as from social disorder and religious and moral decline. Hence there should be ‘an immediate national referendum with a yes or no vote’ on membership of the European Union; illegal immigrants should be arrested, detained, and deported; and lax procedures should be changed to ensure there are ‘more suitable people gaining citizenship’. Unlike the BML and BMS, the Royalist Party’s agenda is to be advanced by candidates standing in local and national elections (though to date no candidate appears to have stood). Membership figures for these organizations are not made public. However, the results of surveys among members of the Royalist Party indicate the kind of people it attracts: 87 per cent believed the government was not doing enough to stand up for British values, and 79 per cent supported capital punishment. 80

The three organizations considered so far were very recently founded, and are of uncertain durability. 81 Pre-eminent among organizations which have lasted several generations is the Royal Society of St George, which was founded in 1894 to promote the English way of life, 82 and which currently designates itself ‘the premier patriotic society of England’ and ‘still the standard bearer of traditional English values, both at home and abroad’. In 2001 the Society’s website included Enoch Powell’s definition of ‘English’ as denoting ‘a particular people or not to be mealy mouthed, a particular race’ and his paean to monarchy in his ‘stirring speech’ to a Society dinner in 1961:

Symbol, yet source of power; person of flesh and blood, yet incarnation of an idea; the kingship would have seemed to them, as it seems to us, to express the qualities that are peculiarly England’s: the unity of England, effortless and unconstrained, which accepts the unlimited supremacy of Crown in Parliament so naturally as not to be aware of it; the homogeneity of England, so profound and embracing that the counties and the regions make it a hobby to discover their differences and assert their peculiarities; the continuity of England, which has brought this unity and this homogeneity about by the slow alchemy of centuries.

The monarchy is clearly at the heart of Englishness for its members, with ‘Respect for the Monarchy, Duty to our Sovereign and Country’ placed first among its stated aims; their fantasy is of themselves as G.K. Chesterton’s ‘Secret People’ who ‘have not spoken yet’. Its first royal patron was Queen Victoria; Edward VII gave permission for it to use the prefix ‘Royal’; and it has been patronized by every succeeding monarch. In 1963 the Queen granted the society a Royal Charter. Its presidents and vice-presidents have been a roll call of aristocrats, military commanders. and leading Conservative politicians. Nonetheless the Society describes itself as unsectarian and independent of party politics, and in December 2011 the chairman reminded members to ‘remember that we are not a political society’ when lobbying politicians. Its bibliography is largely drawn from the right, including Baldwin, Dean Inge, Kipling, Nicolson, and volumes from the Right Book Club. The Society attaches particular importance to sending flowers to the Queen on her birthday and ensuring that St George’s Day is ‘properly celebrated’ in England and the Commonwealth, which involves holding a Service of Thanksgiving in Westminster Abbey on the nearest Saturday and campaigning for the day to be made a public holiday. It also marks the Battles of Trafalgar, Waterloo, and Britain with an annual luncheon or dinner. Its staple role, however, is educating the younger generations of ‘English and kindred people’ about the nation’s history and customs. Its website gives no indication of its membership or effectiveness: the most that can be gleaned is that it has 55 branches, spread throughout the country except for the north-east and parts of the Midlands, and that its sales of regalia are ‘continually falling’. The Society’s letter to Prime Minister David Cameron in November 2011 asking whether he would honour his pre-election pledge for England to have its own minister claimed that the group had ‘many thousands of members’, and that its journal and website ‘should exceed fifty thousand viewers this year’. 83

The Constitutional Monarchy Association has also existed for some time, having been founded in the late 1990s. It describes itself as ‘non-political and very broadly based’, with thousands of subscribers; however, its patrons are largely aristocrats, holders of royal honours, and Conservative MPs. It states that it has ‘no formal links’ to Buckingham Palace, and aims to educate ‘the man-and-woman-in-the street supporters and defenders of our monarchy’, who, ‘beyond the emotional feelings, important as these are … if pressed can only come up with a few probably not very well-expressed reasons’ in support of the monarchy. The Association therefore lists 12 benefits, principally that constitutional monarchy provides ‘an impartial symbolic Head of State above politics, commercial and factional interests’ and ‘a focus for national unity’. Its main adversary is the media, which needs to be constantly monitored in order to challenge the people in the media ‘just waiting for opportunities to cause trouble for members of the Royal Family’ and avoid ‘the massive advantages of monarchy’ being ‘easily swept away by any tide of scurrilous media attention to less positive aspects of the monarchy’. Moreover, the Association fears that young people are indifferent or opposed to the monarchy because they do not spend sufficient time learning about it in schools, but ‘receive the constant bombardment of the disparaging and undermining aspects of media coverage’. Subscription fees and donations are therefore spent on youth awareness, and on education packs for citizenship ceremonies, schools, and universities. 84

Many of these groups derive encouragement from seeing themselves as part of an international monarchist movement, which includes Australians for Constitutional Monarchy (founded in 1992), the Australian Monarchist Alliance, the Australian Monarchist League (founded in 1993), the International Monarchist League in Australia (founded in 2006), the Australian Orange Order, the Monarchist League of New Zealand (founded in 1995), and the Monarchist League of Canada (founded in 1970). Moreover, many claim an international membership themselves: for example, the Royal Society of St George claims its national tally of 55 branches rises to 130 when overseas branches are included. The Constitutional Monarchy Association is an offshoot of the International Monarchist League (originally founded in 1943), out of whose offices in London it operates.

Even allowing for this international dimension, these monarchist organizations amount to very little. The monarchy has a number of prominent propagandists in its service, and a huge number of others at its service in political parties, churches, voluntary organizations, the universities, the arts, and the media. It therefore hardly needs these monarchists, some of whom it would certainly regard as embarrassing nuisances. 85 Indeed, one might agree with R.W. Johnson’s stronger contention that mainstream royalists ‘do not make a cause out of royalism and would be embarrassed by anyone who did’ because ‘even the greatest devotees of the Family Windsor are aware that a theoretical discussion of monarchism will be bound to lead many to discover that they are republicans at heart’. 86 It is therefore evident that ‘pure monarchists’ are no more representative of the British people than republicans; nor is the concoction of right-wing nationalism, xenophobia, and fantasy that constitutes their ‘monarchism’ widely shared. 87 So much is clear from opinion polls: since 1953, support for a British republic has hardly ever fallen below 10 per cent, and it peaked at 38 per cent in 2003. For most people, monarchy is ‘ordinary’ and rational, and their support for it is conditional, as Billig’s pivotal book demonstrated. He pointed to the ever-present ‘potential for anger’ with the royals if they did not do their clearly delineated and obviously useful job properly. 88 The political history of the modern monarchy ought to start from this perspective. But it ought to do something else too: liberate itself from Bagehot, or rather a monarchist misinterpretation of Bagehot that says the monarchy is essential to the government of the United Kingdom. It is not.

Further Reading

V. Bogdanor , The Monarchy and the Constitution (Oxford, 1995 ).

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D. Cannadine , ‘The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual: The British Monarchy and the “Invention of Tradition”, c. 1820–1977’, in E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger , eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983 ), pp. 101–64.

D. Cannadine , ‘ From Biography to History: Writing the Modern British Monarchy ’, Historical Research , 77 ( 2004 ), 298–311.

T. Nairn , The Enchanted Glass: Britain and Its Monarchy (London, 1988 ).

A. Olechnowicz , ed., The Monarchy and the British Nation, 1780 to the Present (Cambridge, 2007 ).

F. Prochaska , The Republic of Britain 1760–2000 (London, 2000 ).

A. Taylor , ‘Down with the Crown’: British Anti-Monarchism and Debates about Royalty since 1790 (London, 1999 ).

D. Craig , ‘“High Politics” and the “New Political History”’, Historical Journal , 53 (2010), 453–75 .

For example, the several definitions offered in T.P. Wiseman , G.R. Elton , C. Russell , R. Hutton , R. Foster , J. Turner , K.O. Morgan, and P. Clarke , ‘What is Political History?’, History Today , 35:1 (1985), 10–18 .

D. Cannadine , ‘The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual: The British Monarchy and the “Invention of Tradition”, c. 1820–1977’, in E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger , eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 101–64 .

T. Nairn , The Enchanted Glass: Britain and Its Monarchy (London, 1988) .

Historians have, of course, noted that there have been fluctuations in royal popularity (e.g., P. Ziegler , Crown and People (1978) , passim ) and attempted to account for these fluctuations (e.g., A. Olechnowicz , ‘“A jealous hatred”: Royal Popularity and Social Inequality’, in A. Olechnowicz , ed., The Monarchy and the British Nation, 1780 to the Present (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 280–314 ); however, as a general proposition, persistent royal popularity holds true.

D. Cannadine, ‘The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual’ , p. 122.

Nairn, The Enchanted Glass , pp. 53, 10, 185.

E.g., S. Hall , ‘The Great Moving Right Show’, Marxism Today , (Jan. 1979), 14–20 . Hall explicitly argued that ‘authoritarian populism’ had a ‘rational and material core’ (p. 20), but the concept was often misunderstood by others as not having such a core.

E. Hobsbawm , ‘Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe, 1870–1914’, in Hobsbawm and Ranger , eds., The Invention of Tradition , p. 268 .

E. Hobsbawm , The Age of Empire, 1875–1914 (London, 1989), p. 105 .

Nairn, The Enchanted Glass , pp. 27, 214.

V. Bogdanor , The Monarchy and the Constitution (Oxford, 1995), p. 303 .

P. Ghosh , ‘The Guv’nor: The Place of Ross McKibbin in the Writing of British History’, in C.V.J. Griffiths , J.J. Nott , and W. Whyte , eds., Classes, Cultures, and Politics (Oxford, 2001), p. 19 .

R. McKibbin , Classes and Cultures: England, 1918–1951 (Oxford, 1998), pp. 3, 14, 15, 522 . McKibbin, like many people, was perhaps over-impressed by the quasi-religious view of Diana in the days after she died: R. McKibbin , ‘Mass-Observation in the Mall’, in M. Merck , ed., After Diana: Irreverent Elegies (London, 1998), p. 19 .

A. Olechnowicz , ‘Britain’s “Quasi-Magical” Monarchy in the Mid-Twentieth Century?’, in Griffiths , Nott , and Whyte , eds., Classes, Cultures, and Politics , pp. 70–81 .

Nairn, The Enchanted Glass , pp. 25–6. Prince William too must contend with columnists declaring that his baldness no longer makes him ‘the Prince of our dreams’ (e.g. Daily Mail Online , 16 Jan. 2016).

M. Billig, Talking of the Royal Family (1992) , pp. 16–18.

Ibid. , pp. 61, 69.

Ibid. , p. 111.

P. Bailey , ‘Conspiracies of Meaning: Music-Hall and the Knowingness of Popular Culture’, Past and Present , 144 (1994), 138–70 .

Knight Commander (KCVO) and Commander (CVO) of the Royal Victorian Order, established by Queen Victoria in 1896 to recognize personal service to the monarch. The honour remains in the gift of the Sovereign.

H. Nicolson , Diaries and Letters, 1930–64 , ed. S. Olson (Harmondsworth, 1984), p. 334, 8 June 1948.

E. Barker , Essays on Government (Oxford, 1945), pp. 1, 22 .

‘Glaring Anomaly of the Royal Archives: Letter from Dr. Piers Brendon’, The Guardian , 22 June 2015.

< http://www.royal.gov.uk/The Royal Collection and other collections/TheRoyalArchives >, 24 February 2016.

For example, ‘The Guardian View on the Royal Archives: Open Them Up’, The Guardian , 20 July 2015.

For example, K. Rose , King George V (1983) .

‘Are British Academics Too Obsequious to Write Good Royal History?’, Times Higher Education , 19 June 1998 (comment by Robert Baldock, history editor at Yale University Press).

Two striking examples are C. Hutchins and D. Midgley’ , Diana on the Edge: Inside the Mind of the Princess of Wales (London, 1996) , which claimed to be ‘the first book to delve into the mind of the Princess of Wales, one of the most controversial women alive today … Drawing on high-level sources close to the Princess of Wales—some of whom have never spoken before—and the expert views of a team of distinguished specialists, this book examines her growing instability and what lies behind it’; and N. Davie , William: The Rebel Prince. The True Story of Why He Never Wants to Be King (London, 2001) .

A. Morton , Diana: Her True Story—In Her Own Words. Completely Revised Edition (London, 1997), p. 7 ; ‘Field Day for the Windsor Pundits. Diana Has Created a Media Growth Industry’, The Guardian , 2 Mar. 1996.

For example, S.P. Barry , Royal Service: My Twelve Years As Valet to Prince Charles (1986) ; D. McGrady , Eating Royally: Recipes And Remembrances from a Palace Kitchen (Nashville, TN, 2007) ; ‘Ex-Royal Head Housekeeper at Sandringham for a Decade Reveals her Secrets to Running a Household’, Daily Mail Online , 14 Dec. 2015.

D. Cannadine , ‘From Biography to History: Writing the Modern British Monarchy’, Historical Research , 77 (2004), 292, 303 .

W.L. Arnstein , ‘The Warrior Queen: Reflections on Victoria and Her World’, Albion , 30 (1998), 1–28 ; W.L. Arnstein , Queen Victoria (Basingstoke, 2003), esp. pp. 200–1 .

B. Pimlott , The Queen (London, 1996), pp. 244–5 .

D. Cannadine , ‘From Biography to History: Writing the Modern British Monarchy’, Historical Research , 77 (2004), 298–311 .

Ibid. , 301.

For example, King’s Counsellor: Abdication and War. The Diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles , ed. D. Hart-Davis (London, 2006) .

R. Brazier , ‘A British Republic’, Cambridge Law Journal , 61 (2002), 351–85 .

Bogdanor, The Monarchy and the Constitution, passim .

V. Bogdanor , ‘1931 Revisited: The Constitutional Aspects’, Twentieth Century British History , 2 (1991), 10–16, 25 ; Bogdanor, The Monarchy and the Constitution , pp. 104–12.

P. Williamson , ‘1931 Revisited: The Political Realities’, Twentieth Century British History , 2 (1991), 328–38 .

F. Prochaska , Royal Bounty: The Making of a Welfare Monarchy (New Haven and London, 1996), p. 101 .

D. Craig , ‘Bagehot’s Republicanism’, in Olechnowicz , ed., The Monarchy and the British Nation , pp. 139, 162 . Craig concedes that continuing reverence for the monarchy is an obstacle to the people realizing that it is politically quite unnecessary.

A. Tomkins , ‘The Republican Monarchy Revisited’, Constitutional Commentary , 19 (2002), 751 .

W. Bagehot , The English Constitution , ed. Miles Taylor (Oxford, 2001), p. 65 . In other words, Prince Charles is the norm, not the exception.

Bagehot, The English Constitution , p. 60.

For example, F. Hardie , The Political Influence of the British Monarchy, 1868–1952 (London, 1970) ; R.R. McLean , Royalty and Diplomacy in Europe, 1890–1914 (Cambridge, 2001) . See also A. Olechnowicz , ‘Historians and the Modern British Monarchy’, in Olechnowicz , ed., The Monarchy and the British Nation , pp. 12–20 .

For example, N. Bonney , ‘Some Constitutional Issues Concerning the Installation of the Monarch’, British Politics , 7 (2012), 163–82 ; N. Bonney , Monarchy, Religion and the State (Manchester, 2013) ; J. Wolffe , God and Greater Britain (London, 1994) ; J. Wolffe , Great Deaths: Grieving, Religion and Nationhood in Victorian and Edwardian Britain (Oxford, 2000) ; P. Williamson , ‘State Prayers, Fasts and Thanksgivings: Public Worship in Britain 1830–1897’, Past and Present , 200 (2008), 121–74 ; P. Williamson , ‘National Days of Prayer: The Churches, the State and Public Worship in Britain 1899–1957’, English Historical Review , 128 (2013), 323–66 .

See H. Brooke , Your Right to Know (2005), pp. 68–71 .

M. Homans , ‘“To the Queen’s Private Apartments”: Royal Family Portraiture and the Construction of Victoria’s Sovereign Obedience’, Victorian Studies , 37 (1993), 1–45 ; A. Munich , Queen Victoria’s Secrets (New York, 1996) ; M. Homans , Royal Representations (Chicago, 1998) .

M. Billig , Talking of the Royal Family (London, 1992), pp. 33, 38–9 .

For example, W.M. Kuhn , ‘Ceremony and Politics: The British Monarchy, 1871–1872’, Journal of British Studies , 26 (1987), 133–62 ; W.M. Kuhn , Democratic Royalism (New York, 1996) ; H. Örnebring , ‘Revisiting the Coronation: A Critical Perspective on the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953’, Nordicom Review , 25 (2004), 175–95 .

E.g., A. Tyrrell and Y. Ward , ‘“God Bless Her Little Majesty”: The Popularising of Monarchy in the 1840s’, National Identities , 2 (2000), 109–25 .

J. Plunkett , Queen Victoria: First Media Monarch (Oxford, 2003) .

The Guardian , 5 June 2002 (Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee).

M. Billig , Banal Nationalism (London, 1995), p. 6 .

R. Williams , The Contentious Crown (Aldershot, 1997) .

Plunkett, Queen Victoria: First Media , ch. 1.

For example, Merck, ed., After Diana ; J. Richards , S. Wilson, and L. Woodhead , eds., Diana, the Making of a Media Saint (London, 1999) ; T. Walter , ed., The Mourning for Diana (Oxford, 1999) .

For examples and elaboration, see A. Olechnowicz , ‘“For the Many May be Better than the Few”: Republicans and Anti-Monarchism in Contemporary Britain’, in A. Pankratz and C.Ul. Viol , eds., Un(Making) the Monarchy (Heidelberg, 2017), pp. 201–26 .

‘Prince Charles’s Efforts to Control the Media Slammed by Republicans’, The Independent , 2 Dec. 2015.

The semi-official Royal Encyclopedia , edited by R. Allison and S. Riddell (1991), has no entry on ‘monarchism’. The myriad studies of British political ideologies by political scientists and theorists consider ‘monarchism’ neither as an ideology in its own right nor as a major component of British conservatism, liberalism, or, in Tom Nairn’s memorable phrase, ‘Royal-distributive Socialism’.

At most, there are scattered references and meagre insights in older texts, e.g., Sir C. Petrie , Monarchy (London, 1933) . Petrie’s   The Modern British Monarchy (London, 1961) merely regrets that ‘international monarchist solidarity’ was ‘in abeyance’.

E.g., F. Harcourt , ‘Gladstone, Monarchism and the “New” Imperialism, 1868–74’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History , 14 (1985), 20–51 ; P.A. Pickering , ‘“The Hearts of the Millions”: Chartism and Popular Monarchism in the 1840s’, History , 88 (2003), 227–9 .

A. Taylor and L. Trainor , ‘Monarchism and Anti-Monarchism: Anglo-Australian Comparisons c. 1870-1901’, Social History , 24 (1999), 158–9 .

F. Prochaska , The Republic of Britain 1760–2000 (London, 2000), p. 226 .

J.P. Parry , ‘Whig Monarchy, Whig Nation: Crown, Politics and Representativeness 1800–2000’, in Olechnowicz , ed., The Monarchy and the British Nation , pp. 65, 73 .

J. Parry , ‘Family History’, in T. Bentley and J. Wilsdon , eds., Monarchies: What Are Kings and Queens For? (London, 2002), pp. 67–8 .

P. Williamson , ‘The Monarchy and Public Values 1910–53’, in Olechnowicz , ed., The Monarchy and the British Nation , pp. 226–8, 231, 232–55 ; and for the five public values exemplified by the monarchy, p. 230.

E.g., Prochaska, The Republic of Britain 1760–2000 .

A. Taylor , ‘ Down with the Crown’: British Anti-Monarchism and Debates about Royalty since 1790 (London, 1999), pp. 14, 99, 101 ; also ch. 3.

The most prominent eccentric during the Diamond Jubilee of 2012 was probably the ‘patriotic’ Mrs. Atkinson, Deputy Lord Lieutenant of the County of Durham, who turned her café into ‘a shrine to the Queen’, with a cardboard cut-out of the monarch and 5,000 pieces of royal memorabilia on display, and insisted that all customers should stand for the National Anthem, played at 3pm every day: ‘Spat over Majes-Tea’s Anthem’, The Sun , 22 May 2012; ‘Given a Right Royal Marching Order’, Daily Mirror , 21 May 2012; Daily Mail , 21 May 2012; Daily Telegraph , 21 May 2012.

R. Ingham , ‘Boaks, William George’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, online edn, September 2004 .

A. Rowbottom , ‘“The Real Royalists”: Folk Performance and Civil Religion at Royal Visits’, Folklore , 109 (1998), 77–8 .

A. Rowbottom, ‘Royal Symbolism and Social Integration’ (PhD thesis, University of Manchester, 1994), pp. 240–2, 346, chs 8–9; A. Rowbottom , ‘Following the Queen: The Place of the Royal Family in the Context of Royal Visits and Civil Religion’, Sociological Research Online , 7:2 (2002)’, para. 5.1–5.8 ; Rowbottom, ‘The Real Royalists’ , 80–5.

Rowbottom, ‘The Real Royalists’ , 86, 81.

Ibid. , 79, 80.

< www.monarchist.org.uk >; < www.facebook.com/BritishMonarchistLeague >.

< http://www.britishmonarchistsociety.org.uk/ >.

< http://www.royalistparty.co.uk/ >.

There are, in addition, monarchist university dining clubs such as the Strafford Club at St Andrews, which has 200 members and a number of prominent alumni: < http://www.strafforclub.org.uk >; < http://www.monarchy.net/ >.

On its origins, the views expressed in its journal The English Race , and disagreements over Empire Day, see G. Davies, ‘Threat to “Englishness”: The Royal Society of St. George during the Edwardian era’ (MA dissertation, Durham University, 2001), chs 1 and 2.

< http://www.royalsocietyofstgeorge.com/ >.

< http://www.monarchy.net/ >; < http://www.facebook.com/pages/Constitutional-Monarchy-Association-the-Monarchist-League/ >.

Nairn speculated in the foreword to the 2011 edition of The Enchanted Glass (p. xiv) that even the Royal Society of St George could prove an irritant if the monarchy ever emerged as the symbol of ‘federal’ identity in the United Kingdom.

R.W. Johnson, ‘Review of The Enchanted Glass: Britain and Its Monarchy by Tom Nairn’, London Review of Books , 7 July 1988.

This chapter was written before the outcome of the Brexit referendum.

Billig, Talking of the Royal Family , pp. 111–13.

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Essay: Monarchy

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Monarchy is a form of government in which the supreme partially or wholly owned by one person – the monarch (king, emperor, prince, duke, archduke, Sultan, Emir Khan, to Pharaoh), who has the power to rule his or her land or state and its citizens freely. They rule for life and then pass the responsibilities and power of the position to their child (or another member of their family) when they die – the king’s eldest son is first in the line of succession. Monarchy is a supreme, moral (not legal) authority, based on the ‘theory’, that monarch doing the will of God ‘ he received that power from God. On this basis we can distinguish monarchy from the republic, where the power is given to a person as a result of elections; and aristocracy, where the supreme power is vested in a minority of the most illustrious members of the public. The monarchy comprises the reigning monarch, his or her family, and the royal household organization. There are several types of monarchy. An absolute one is when the monarch has an absolute power. The will of the people can be expressed formally through a deliberative body and monarch has the right to rule by decree, promulgate laws, and impose punishments. Good example can be the Tsars of Russia Peter the Great, who reduced the power of the nobility and strengthened the central power of the Tsar, establishing a bureaucracy and a police state. Case, when the power of the monarch is limited by the Constitution is a constitutional monarchy. Constitutional monarchy exists in two forms: a parliamentary monarchy and the dual monarchy. Current existing constitutional monarchies are mostly associated with Western European countries such as the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Spain, Luxembourg, Monaco, Liechtenstein, and Sweden Constitutional monarchies Dual monarchy is a form of a constitutional monarchy, in which the power of the monarch is limited by the constitution and the parliament ‘ he (a monarch) has a freedom of decision-making limited by constitution. Currently exist in Morocco, Kuwait, and Jordan, where the king holds wide executive and legislative powers. Parliamentary monarchy is a kind of constitutional monarchy in which the monarch has no power and performs only a representative function. In a parliamentary monarchy government is accountable to the Parliament, which is more powerful than the other organs of the state. As it is known, in parliamentary monarchy true governmental leadership is carried out by a cabinet and its head – a prime minister, premier, or chancellor – who are drawn from a legislature (parliament). Government is formed a majority in parliament and is responsible to him. The monarch has very little real power, and he plays mostly representational or ceremonial role. None of its desire can be executed if it not approved by the parliament. Sometimes parliaments even restrict the freedom of the monarchs in their private affairs. However, it would be wrong to say that in such countries the active role of the monarch is reduced to zero. Legally, for a monarch often retain functions that are important in the field of foreign policy, as well as in times of crises and conflicts in the area of domestic policy: the final approval of the laws, a declaration of war, conclusion of peace. But it can do all this only in agreement with the will of the people, expressed by Parliament. Examples of such form of government in our days can be: Australia, Andorra, Belgium, Canada, Dania, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom. Commonwealth Realm A Commonwealth realm is a sovereign state that is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The monarch of the United Kingdom is the head of state of each of the Commonwealth realms, charged with issuing executive orders, commanding the military forces, and creating and administering laws. There are sixteen Commonwealth realms: Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and the United Kingdom. Fourteen Kingdoms – the former British colonies, gained independence. Three of the 14 kingdoms (Australia, Canada and New Zealand) gained independence as a result of the Balfour Declaration in 1926 at the Imperial Conference and the Statute of Westminster in 1931. Canada, the Union of South Africa, and Ireland gained independence from the legislative branch of the United Kingdom immediately; Australia in 1942, and New Zealand in 1947. The Statute also affected Newfoundland, but there it was not ratified, and dominion was annexed to Canada in 1949. Ireland formally became a republic in 1949, and South Africa – in 1961. Other kingdoms gained independence as a result of the end of British rule in India. The last were Saint Kitts and Nevis. They gained independence in 1983. Within the Commonwealth there is no difference in status between the Kingdom and other members, given the fact, that there are either republics or kingdoms with their own monarchs. The Queen appoints the Governor-General as its representative in her absence. She also represented by the governor in each state of Australia and by the Lieutenant Governor in each of the provinces of Canada. These officers have almost all the power of the constitutional monarch, mostly performing, however, purely ceremonial functions, and have the so-called royal prerogative. Queen Elizabeth II and the royal family have ceremonial roles but do not make up the laws that govern the people. But such people have not only the representative role, but also the religious one. And it differs from country to country. If we take Elizabeth II as an example, we can see that in most of realms she is sovereign “By the Grace of God” (a phrase that forms a part of her official title within those states). In Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand, “Defender of the Faith” is included as a part of the title. It is solely in the United Kingdom that the Queen actually plays a role in organised religion. In England, she acts as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and appoints its bishops and archbishops who thereafter act as her Lords Spiritual. In Scotland, she swears an oath to uphold and protect the Church of Scotland and sends to meetings of the church’s General Assembly a Lord High Commissioner as her representative, when she is not personally in attendance. When the Queen visits, for example, Australia, she speaks and acts as Queen of Australia, and not as Queen of the United Kingdom and acts entirely on the advice of Australian Government Ministers who are responsible to Parliament. The Queen supports public service through her patronage of a large number of organisations: The Royal Humane Society of Australasia, the Royal Children’s Hospital, and The Mothers’ Union in Australia. During her visits to realms, one of the most important roles is to visit as many areas of society as possible. In Australia monarch has no religious role. The Queen aims to recognise the achievements of the country’s different cultures and communities. The king of Spain appoints the prime minister after consultation with the Cortes and names the other ministers, upon the recommendation of the prime minister. He also signs decrees made by ministers and ratifies civil and military appointments. The king does not have the power to direct foreign affairs because of his vital role as the chief representative of Spain in international relations. In the Netherlands, Denmark and in Belgium the monarch formally appoints a representative to preside over the creation of a coalition government following a parliamentary election, while in Norway the King chairs special meetings of the cabinet. The king or the queen serve as mere figures of state and many people see them as symbol of unity and culture of their country. The King’s functions in Norway are mainly ceremonial too – he receives and sends envoys to foreign countries and hosts state visits. The King is a High Protector of the church, and Supreme Commander of the Norwegian armed forces. However, the Monarch in this country does retain some royal prerogatives, such as, he may issue pardons for prisoners. The Council of Ministers (the prime minister, the deputy prime minister, and the other ministers) has both policy-making and administrative functions. They are responsible for the implementation of government policy, national security, and control military affairs. In the exercise of all of its functions, it is ultimately accountable to the Cortes. As we can see, monarch has not actual power ‘ only the representative, symbolic, and cultural. The monarch does not participate in the legislative process; he is the symbol of national unity. All the issues are under prime minister’s control.

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Forms of Government: Monarchy

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Monarchy is defined as "a country that is ruled by a monarch (such as a king or queen)" or "a form of government in which a country is ruled by a monarch" (Merriam-Webster). Some countries have monarchies is part of the larger system of government. For example, The United Kingdom has a monarchy and an elected parliament.

Countries with monarchies include: United Kingdom, Tonga, Bhutan, Japan, Solomon Islands, United Arab Emirates, and Jamaica.  

Internet Resources

• The Role of the Monarchy: Great Britian Monarchy is the oldest form of government in the United Kingdom. In a monarchy, a king or queen is Head of State. The British Monarchy is known as a constitutional monarchy. This means that, while The Sovereign is Head of State, the ability to make and pass legislation resides with an elected Parliament.
• Monarchy and Modern Politics in Southeast Asia Monarchy has thrived in five countries of Southeast Asia, blending traditions of kingship from the pre-colonial era with modern forms of constitutional rule.

Research & Reference

• Constitutional Monarchy: ScienceDirect A ScienceDirect landing page covering constitutional monarchy.
• Feudal Monarchy: ScienceDirect A ScienceDirect landing page covering the concept of feudal monarchy.
• Monarchy: Credo Reference A Credo Reference landing page on monarchy. This page includes links to reference works, journal articles, and a mind map.
• Monarchy: ScienceDirect A ScienceDirect landing page covering the monarchy.

The World's Monarchies

Buchholz, K. (March 10, 2021). The World's Monarchies [Digital image]. Retrieved October 07, 2021, from https://www.statista.com/chart/24383/monarchies/

Perspectives

British Politics: a Very Short Introduction

Tony Wright's Very Short Introduction to British Politics is an interpretative essay on the British political system, rather than merely an abbreviated textbook on how it currently works. He identifies key characteristics and ideas of the British tradition, and investigates what makes Britishpolitics distinctive, while emphasizing throughout the book how these characteristics are reflected in the way the political system actually functions. Each chapter is organized around a key theme, such as the constitution or political accountability, which is first established and then exploredwith examples and illustrations. This in turn provides a perspective for a discussion of how the system is changing, looking in particular at devolution and Britain's place in Europe.

Constitutional Monarchy

Queen Elizabeth’s position is Head of State, the highest public representative of the country. Historians and leaders discuss why this form of government is favored in England. Distributed by PBS Distribution.

Source: Films on Demand

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What Is a Monarchy?

WPA Pool / Pool / Getty Images 

• M.A., Medieval Studies, Sheffield University
• B.A., Medieval Studies, Sheffield University

A monarchy is a form of government in which total sovereignty is invested in one person, a head of state called a monarch, who holds the position until death or abdication. Monarchs usually both hold and achieve their position through the right of hereditary succession (e.g., they were related, often the son or daughter, of the previous monarch), although there have been elective monarchies, where the monarch holds the position after being elected: the papacy is sometimes called an elective monarchy.

There have also been hereditary rulers who weren’t considered monarchs, such as the stadtholders of Holland . Many monarchs have invoked religious reasons, such as being chosen by God, as a justification for their rule. Courts are often considered a key aspect of monarchies. These occur around the monarchs and provide a social meeting place for monarch and nobility.

Titles of a Monarchy

Male monarchs are often called kings, and females queens, but principalities, where princes and princesses rule by hereditary right, are sometimes referred to as monarchies, as are empires led by emperors and empresses.

Levels of Power

The amount of power a monarch wields has varied across time and situation, with a good deal of European national history comprising a power struggle between the monarch and either their nobility and subjects. On the one hand, you have the absolute monarchies of the early modern period, the best example being French King Louis XIV , where the monarch (in theory at least) had total power over everything they wished.

On the other, you have constitutional monarchies where the monarch is now little more than a figurehead, and the majority of power rests with other forms of government. There is traditionally only one monarch per monarchy at a time, although in Britain King William and Queen Mary ruled simultaneously between 1689 and 1694. When a monarch is either considered too young or too ill to take full control of their office or is absent (perhaps on crusade), a regent (or group of regents) rules in their place.

Monarchies in Europe

For the Western world, our perception of monarchy is mostly colored by the history of European monarchies. These governments were often born out of unified military leadership, where successful commanders transformed their power into something hereditary. The Germanic tribes of the first few centuries CE are believed to have unified in this way, as peoples grouped under charismatic and successful war leaders, who solidified their power, possibly at first taking on Roman titles and then emerging as kings.

Monarchies were the dominant form of government among European nations from the end of the Roman era until around the eighteenth century (although some people class the Roman emperors as monarchs). A distinction is often made between the older monarchies of Europe and the ‘New Monarchies’ of the sixteenth centuries and later (rulers such as King Henry VIII of England ), where the organization of standing armies and overseas empires necessitated large bureaucracies for better tax collection and control, enabling projections of power much above those of the old monarchs.

Absolutism was at its height in this era, with monarchs often able to govern mostly unchecked and unquestioned. Many monarchies subscribed to the concept of the "divine right of kings," which tied religion and politics together. The idea of "divine right" stated that a monarch's authority derived from God, not from the people they govern; from that, these governments could conclude that rebellion or treason was the ultimate crime, as a sin against God's own authority.

The Modern Age

After the absolute era, a period of republicanism took place, as secular and enlightenment thinking, including the concepts of individual rights and self-determination , undermined the claims of the monarchs. A new form of “nationalist monarchy” also emerged in the eighteenth century, whereby a single powerful and hereditary monarch ruled on behalf of the people to secure their independence, as opposed to expanding the power and possessions of the monarch themselves (the kingdom belonging to the monarch).

In contrast was the development of the constitutional monarchy, where the powers of the monarch were slowly passed down to other, more democratic, bodies of government. More common was the replacement of monarchy by a republican government within the state, such as the French Revolution of 1789 in France. In general (though not exclusively), many of the monarchies that survived this era intact did so by giving up a large part of their power to elected governments and retainin mostly ceremonial and symbolic roles.

Remaining Monarchies of the World

Today, some monarchies still remain around the world, although there are far fewer absolute monarchs than there once were and far more variations on power-sharing between monarchs and elected goverments. The following list comprises the world's monarchies as of 2021:

• Andorra (principality)
• Liechtenstein (principality)
• Luxembourg (grand duchy)
• Monaco (principality)
• The Netherlands
• The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
• Vatican City (elected ruler)
• Brunei (sultanate)
• Oman (sultanate)
• Saudi Arabia
• United Arab Emirates
• What Is Absolutism?
• What Is an Absolute Monarchy? Definition and Examples
• What Is a Constitutional Monarchy? Definition and Examples
• What Is Lèse-Majesté?
• What Is Aristocracy? Definition and Examples
• Understanding Types of Government
• 7 Points to Know About Ancient Greek Government
• The New Monarchies
• Major Parliamentary Governments and How They Work
• Key Events in French History
• Key Events in Portuguese History
• Early Rome and the Issue of the 'King'
• Glorious Revolution: Definition, History, and Significance
• The Spartan Government
• Periods of History in Ancient Rome
• Influential Leaders in European History

• Lesson Plans
• Teacher's Guides
• Media Resources

Background on the Patriot Attitude Toward the Monarchy

"Pulling Down the Statue of King George III in New York City" by Johannes Adam Simon Oertel (1859).

Wikimedia Commons

"… the executive authority, with few exceptions, is to be vested in a single magistrate. This will scarcely, however, be considered as a point upon which any comparison can be grounded; for if, in this particular, there be a resemblance to the king of Great Britain, there is not less a resemblance to the … khan of Tartary, to the Man of the Seven Mountains...." —Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist Papers #69

"If you adopt this government, you will incline to an arbitrary and odious aristocracy or monarchy…" —Anti-Federalist Paper Cato #5 on Executive Power

Guiding Questions

Why did colonists revolt?

How was the role of "President" defined by the founding fathers in order to distinguish the position from that of a monarch?

Learning Objectives

Examine the role and abuses of the English monarch as perceived by the colonists.

Analyze the extent to which the role of the president was distinguished from that of a monarch.

Evaluate how the office and powers of Presidents and Monarchs have changed over time.

Lesson Plan Details

At the time the Founders were shaping the future of a new country, John Adams suggested the President should be addressed as “His Excellency.” Happily, others recognized that such a title was inappropriate. Understanding the Patriot attitude toward the British monarchy is helpful in understanding the Founders' reluctance to have a strong executive under the Articles of Confederation as well as their desire to build in checks of executive power under the Constitution.

By 1776, Britain's government had been a limited monarchy for almost a century. According to the Official Web Site of the British Monarchy , the result of 1689's

"… so-called 'Glorious Revolution' … was a permanent shift in power; although the monarchy remained of central importance, Parliament had become a permanent feature of political life. "The Sovereign was forbidden from suspending or dispensing with laws passed by Parliament, or imposing taxes without Parliamentary consent. The Sovereign was not allowed to interfere with elections or freedom of speech, and proceedings in Parliament were not to be questioned in the courts or in any body outside Parliament itself. "Finally the King was forbidden to maintain a standing army in time of peace without Parliament's consent."

The Bill of Rights (Britain, 1689) —full text available on the Colonial Williamsburg website—added further defenses of individual rights. The King was forbidden to establish his own courts or to act as a judge himself, and the courts were forbidden to impose excessive bail or fines, or cruel and unusual punishments. However, the Sovereign could still summon and dissolve Parliament, appoint and dismiss Ministers, veto legislation and declare war. Later, the Act of Settlement of 1701

"…further restricted the powers and prerogatives of the Crown." "…Under the Act, parliamentary consent had to be given for the Sovereign to engage in war or leave the country…"

NCSS.D2.Civ.3.6-8. Examine the origins, purposes, and impact of constitutions, laws, treaties, and international agreements.

NCSS.D2.Civ.4.6-8. Explain the powers and limits of the three branches of government, public officials, and bureaucracies at different levels in the United States and in other countries.

NCSS.D2.Civ.5.6-8. Explain the origins, functions, and structure of government with reference to the U.S. Constitution, state constitutions, and selected other systems of government.

NCSS. D2.His.1.6-8. Analyze connections among events and developments in broader historical contexts.

NCSS. D2.His.2.6-8. Classify series of historical events and developments as examples of change and/or continuity.

NCSS. D2.His.3.6-8. Use questions generated about individuals and groups to analyze why they, and the developments they shaped, are seen as historically significant.

NCSS. D2.His.4.6-8. Analyze multiple factors that influenced the perspectives of people during different historical eras.

Review the lesson plans in this unit. Locate and bookmark suggested materials and other useful websites. Download and print out documents you will use and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing.

• Download the Master PDF . Print out and make an appropriate number of copies of any handouts you plan to use in class.
• Unless otherwise specified, historic documents referred to in the lesson plan are available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website Avalon Project at the Yale Law School .
• The EDSITEment resource Digital Classroom offers The Declaration of Independence: A History and The Constitution: A History for background on those fundamental documents.

"…the Federalist Papers , is a series of 85 essays written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison between October 1787 and May 1788. The essays were published anonymously, under the pen name “Publius,” in various New York state newspapers of the time. "The Federalist Papers were written and published to urge New Yorkers to ratify the proposed United States Constitution, which was drafted in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. In lobbying for adoption of the Constitution over the existing Articles of Confederation, the essays explain particular provisions of the Constitution in detail. For this reason, and because Hamilton and Madison were each members of the Constitutional Convention, the Federalist Papers are often used today to help interpret the intentions of those drafting the Constitution."

• Jefferson vs. Franklin: Revolutionary Philosophers
• Lesson: The Federalist Debates: Balancing Power Between State and Federal Governments
• The Constitutional Convention: Four Founding Fathers You May Never Have Met
• The Constitutional Convention: What the Founding Fathers Said
• The unit uses very brief excerpts from Alexander Hamilton's The Real Character of the Executive ( Federalist Paper #69 ), provided in the handout The Real Character of the Executive on pages 1-2 of the PDF (see download instructions, above). Hamilton's essential statements about the Executive have been grouped together. Definitions for a few difficult terms are provided in parentheses and some spelling has been modernized, but all of the text is Hamilton's. In many classes, students should be able to work with the passages in small groups. Classes can also work through the document together.
• For further reading, consult the Recommended Reading List provided here as a PDF.

Activity 1. Patriot Attitude Toward the Monarchy

Have students review the "complaints" section of The Declaration of Independence , available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website Avalon Project at the Yale Law School.

Guided Discussion Questions:

What word is repeated often? ( He )

To whom was Jefferson referring? ( King George III of England ) Why? ( As the King of England, he was deemed responsible for the problems the colonists had with British policy in the Colonies .)

Which of the complaints refer to some action that would have to come from the British Parliament, such as complaints about taxes or standing armies?

For a long time, the colonists did blame Parliament. Even as late as July 1775, three months after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Continental Congress sent the so-called Olive Branch Petition —complete text available on the EDSITEment resource Learner.org —to the King. Share the last two sentences of the petition with the class:

"For by such arrangements as your Majesty's wisdom can form for collecting the united sense of your American people, we are convinced, your Majesty would receive such satisfactory proofs of the disposition of the colonists towards their sovereign and the parent state, that the wished for opportunity would soon be restored to them, of evincing the sincerity of their professions by every testimony of devotion becoming the most dutiful subjects and the most affectionate colonists. "That your Majesty may enjoy a long and prosperous reign, and that your descendants may govern your dominions with honor to themselves and happiness to their subjects is our sincere and fervent prayer."

How would students characterize the tone of the petition?

What does it seem to indicate about the attitude of at least some colonists toward the King (John Adams, for one, disagreed with the petition; however, the majority in Congress agreed)?

What was the King's response? According to Learner.org :

"King George refused to read the petition and on August 23 proclaimed that the colonists had “proceeded to open and avowed rebellion.” —From The Olive Branch Petition "The colonists' statements of loyalty, the King told Parliament, were meant “only to amuse” while they schemed to found an independent country." —From The Coming of Independence: Transcript, Page 3

The King's refusal to read the petition (and perhaps his remarks about it) became known in America, according to the Journals of the Continental Congress: November 9, 1775 :

"By authentic intelligence from London by the last vessel, we learn that on the 21st of August a copy of the petition to the King, which was sent from the Congress by Mr. R. Penn, was sent to the Secretary of State for America, and on the first of September, the first moment that was permitted, the original was presented to him, which his Lordship promised to deliver to his Majesty. "His Lordship was pressed to obtain an answer, but those who presented it were told "THAT AS HIS MAJESTY DID NOT RECEIVE IT ON THE THRONE, NO ANSWER WOULD BE GIVEN.'"

On that same day, 87 members of the Congress signed the following agreement:

"That every member of this Congress considers himself under the ties of virtue, honor and love of his Country not to divulge directly or indirectly any matter or thing agitated or debated in Congress before the same shall have been determined, without leave of the Congress; nor any matter or thing determined in Congress which a majority of the Congress shall order to be kept secret and that if any member shall violate this agreement he shall be expelled this Congress and deemed an enemy to the liberties of America and liable to be treated as such and that every member signify his consent to this agreement by signing the same."

If desired, share with the class the Journals of the Continental Congress: November 10, 1775 . What was the thrust of the resolutions of November 10? (The Congress continued and appeared to accelerate its military planning.)

Patriot sentiments about the monarchy were largely cemented with the wide circulation of Tom Paine's Common Sense (available on From Revolution to Reconstruction ), which sold thousands of copies immediately after it was published on February 14, 1776. Share the following excerpt with the class.

"… if we will suffer ourselves to examine the English constitution, we shall find them to be the base remains of two ancient tyrannies, compounded with some new republican materials. "First. The remains of monarchical tyranny in the person of the king. "Secondly. The remains of aristocratical tyranny in the persons of the peers (NOTE: The House of Lords, the house of Parliament in which seats were inherited, a system abolished in 1999). "Thirdly. The new republican materials, in the persons of the commons (NOTE: The House of Commons, the house of Parliament to which members are elected), on whose virtue depends the freedom of England. "… But as the same constitution which gives the commons a power to check the king by withholding the supplies, gives afterwards the king a power to check the commons, by empowering him to reject their other bills; … the will of the king is as much the law of the land in Britain as in France, with this difference, that instead of proceeding directly from his mouth, it is handed to the people under the most formidable shape of an act of parliament."

A brief biography of Thomas Paine is available on U.S. History.org y . American Treasures from the Library of Congress , a link from the EDSITEment resource American Memory , offers a brief overview About Common Sense with links to digitized images of the first six pages of the original publication.

How did Paine characterize the British system of limited monarchy?

Did he feel the monarchy was sufficiently checked?

After independence and especially after the failure of the Articles of Confederation, the Founders worked hard to devise a system without the defects they saw in Britain's limited monarchy. The Federalists, including James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, believed the experience of the country with the Articles of Confederation proved that, among other things, a strong executive was required. The Anti-Federalists feared this strong executive. The Anti-Federalist Paper Cato #5 Executive Power-full text available on the Constitution Society website, a link from the EDSITEment resource Internet Public Library-states:

"… the president cannot represent you because he is not of your own immediate choice, that if you adopt this government, you will incline to an arbitrary and odious aristocracy or monarchy that the president possessed of the power, given him by this frame of government differs but very immaterially from the establishment of monarchy in Great Britain …"

As late as 1823, Thomas Jefferson, an Anti-Federalist, recalled that, "The original objects of the Federalists were, 1st, to warp our government more to the form and principles of monarchy …" However, in the Federalist Papers: No. 69, available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website Avalon Project at the Yale Law School, Hamilton answered accusations that the Federalist design for President of the United States was creating a virtual monarchy.

Share with the class Hamilton's summary of his arguments:

The President of the United States would be an officer elected by the people for FOUR years; the king of Great Britain is a perpetual and HEREDITARY prince. The one would be amenable to personal punishment and disgrace; the person of the other is sacred and inviolable. The one would have a QUALIFIED negative upon the acts of the legislative body; the other has an ABSOLUTE negative. The one would have a right to command the military and naval forces of the nation; the other, in addition to this right, possesses that of DECLARING war, and of RAISING and REGULATING fleets and armies by his own authority. The one would have a concurrent power with a branch of the legislature in the formation of treaties; the other is the SOLE POSSESSOR of the power of making treaties.

How did Hamilton distinguish between the role of the English monarch and that of the President of the United States under the Constitution? Have students fill out the last two columns of the The Chief Executive chart , the last page in the pdf files provided here.

Students should be able to state some of the colonist's objections to establishing the country's leader in a position similar to that of a monarch, using Paine's description, and both the Federalists and Anti-Federalists arguments.

Selected EDSITEment Websites

• About the Federalist Papers
• Articles of Confederation
• Federalist Papers
• The Constitution of the United States
• The Declaration of Independence
• The Constitution: A History
• The Declaration of Independence: A History
• Constitution Society
• Bill of Rights (Britain, 1689)
• Cato #5 Executive Power
• Official Website of the British Monarchy
• William III and Mary II
• Olive Branch Petition
• The Coming of Independence: Transcript, Page 3

Materials & Media

Background on the patriot attitude: worksheet 1, background on the patriot attitude: worksheet 2, related on edsitement, revolutionary tea parties and the reasons for revolution, native americans and the american revolution: choosing sides, voices of the american revolution, not only paul revere: other riders of the american revolution.

• Study Guides
• Homework Questions

Monarchy vs. Democracy - A Comparative Analysis of Governance Models

• Political Science

11 Advantages and Disadvantages of Monarchy

A monarchy is a form of government where the individual or group of people in power are determined through bloodlines. Specific rules are in place that dictate who can be named the ruler of the state in a monarchy. Most are ruled by kings or queens, but some allow for a group of nobles to be the head of the government as well.

The advantage of a monarchy is that there is predictability in the government. Secession goes through the family who leads the government, so there are no situations where people must vote “for the lesser of two evils.” There are specific rules and laws in place that would determine who would be the ruler and when they would ascend to that leadership position.

The disadvantage of a monarchy is that the people being ruled rarely have a say in who gets to be their leader. Because everything is pre-determined, a society could become stuck with an abusive individual in power for multiple decades and have little recourse to save themselves.

Here are the additional advantages and disadvantages of a monarchy to consider when compared to other forms of government.

What Are the Advantages of a Monarchy?

1. Balance is still provided in the government. The modern monarchy is typically a figurehead in the government instead of being the all-ruling overseer of everything. The government structure of the United Kingdom is a good example of this. The primary duties of ruling are given to a Prime Minister, who then reports directly to the king or queen. Smaller monarchies may still offer direct rule, but for most governments, they are structured to give the people balance.

2. It can be cheaper to run a monarchy. Rulers in a monarchy are often treated to exorbitant wealth. From the lavish estates where they live to the massive amount of wealth they can provide themselves, the ruling class separates itself from the other classes in terms of wealth. From the government’s perspective, however, the wealth of a monarchy can be more cost-effective than the recurring charges of frequent elections. CBS News reports that the total cost of the 2016 election cycle in the United States was $6.8 billion. In comparison, Bloomberg estimates the Queen’s net worth at $425 million.

3. The transfer of power tends to be smoother. The transfer of power between Barack Obama and Donald Trump created protests, counter-protests, and moments of societal violence. During the transfer of power in a monarchy, there are fewer complications. Even when the ruler decides to abdicate their position, a successor has already been named and can immediately assume their duties. This creates fewer gaps in the power structure of the government and its predictability reduces societal uncertainty.

4. A monarchy typically maintains a stronger defense. Throughout world history, monarchies usually have the strongest armies and defensive protocols. This is required because the power of the throne rests in the lands and people being governed. Without lands and productive individuals, there is no government to form. The United States is one of the few exceptions to this rule.

5. It can be a more efficient form of government. Because decisions run through the ruling class, and often through a specific individual, a monarchy is more efficient than most other forms of government. Instead of a massive bureaucracy and lots of red tape to navigate to get laws passed or benefits authorized, one decision can be made that decrees everything that needs to be done for the society.

What Are the Disadvantages of a Monarchy?

1. It is difficult to change the direction of a country under a monarchy. Because only one family or one “noble” group is allowed into the ruling class under the structure of a monarchy, it becomes difficult for the people to direct a change in what happens in their society. Unless the ruler or group of rulers agrees, there is no way for the average person to create change. The public has no voice, which means a selfish or power-hungry monarch could create instant and long-term oppression.

2. Monarchies are supported by local tax policies. Taxpayers are forced to furnish the costs that a monarch incurs over the course of governing in virtually every instance of this government structure. It is no different than paying a President or Prime Minister a salary, but other costs are government-funded as well. In the US, taxpayers would pay for the upkeep of the White House, but not the upkeep of a President’s personal home. In a monarchy, both would be expected.

3. Tyranny is easier to form in the structure of a monarchy. Although tyranny can form under any structure of government, it is easier to form within the structure of a monarchy. Many governments attempt to balance the powers of a monarchy between multiple groups, but a ruler that is determined to be cruel and unreasonable can dictate that all powers funnel through them. Sometimes referred to as a dictatorship, autocracy, or despotism, great harm can occur when it is present. Mao Zedong, in power for 34 years in China, is responsible for up to 75 million deaths.

4. Secession within a monarchy does not guarantee competency. Just because the lines of succession are outlined before they are needed does not guarantee the next ruler will be competent. Some rulers may not even wish to take over their assigned responsibilities. Being born into a specific position is very different than being specifically educated and pursuing a career that can lead an individual into a leadership position.

5. Independent justice is not present unless it is specifically built into the government. The wisdom of Solomon is often used as a metaphor for finding justice in difficult circumstances. Solomon was a monarch who, in Biblical times, attempted to be fair and just with everyone. He was an exception to the rule. Independent justice is difficult to find in a monarchy because the ruling class has the final judicial say in matters unless a separate structure has been built into the government. If the ruler doesn’t like you, then you might find yourself in prison, even if you did nothing wrong.

6. Class discrimination is more prominent. Every society has socioeconomic classes. In a monarchy, they tend to be more pronounced. Wealth is directly associated with power. If one has no wealth, then there is no chance to provide influence. In other government structures, those who have no wealth would still have the opportunity to vote and have their vote be equal to any other vote.

The advantages and disadvantages of a monarchy show that it can be a simplistic and beneficial form of government. They also show that someone with nefarious intent can cause an immense amount of harm on their nation and the world. It is simply one form of government that can meet the needs of the people amongst many.

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Guest Essay

Government Surveillance Keeps Us Safe

By Matthew Waxman and Adam Klein

Mr. Waxman served in senior national security roles in the George W. Bush administration. Mr. Klein served as the chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board from 2018 to 2021.

This is an extraordinarily dangerous time for the United States and our allies. Israel’s unpreparedness on Oct. 7 shows that even powerful nations can be surprised in catastrophic ways. Fortunately, Congress, in a rare bipartisan act, voted early Saturday to reauthorize a key intelligence power that provides critical information on hostile states and threats ranging from terrorism to fentanyl trafficking.

Civil libertarians argued that the surveillance bill erodes Americans’ privacy rights and pointed to examples when American citizens got entangled in investigations. Importantly, the latest version of the bill adds dozens of legal safeguards around the surveillance in question — the most expansive privacy reform to the legislation in its history. The result preserves critical intelligence powers while protecting Americans’ privacy rights in our complex digital age.

At the center of the debate is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Originally passed in 1978, it demanded that investigators gain an order from a special court to surveil foreign agents inside the United States. Collecting the communications of foreigners abroad did not require court approval.

That line blurred in the digital age. Many foreign nationals rely on American providers such as Google and Meta, which route or store data in the United States, raising questions as to whether the rules apply to where the targets are or where their data is collected. In 2008, Congress addressed that conundrum with Section 702. Instead of requiring the government to seek court orders for each foreign target, that provision requires yearly judicial approval of the rules that govern the program as a whole. That way, the government can efficiently obtain from communication providers the calls and messages of large numbers of foreign targets — 246,073 in 2022 alone.

Since then, Section 702 has supplied extraordinary insight into foreign dangers, including military threats, theft of American trade secrets, terrorism, hacking and fentanyl trafficking. In 2022 intelligence from 702 helped the government find and kill the Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri, one of the terrorists responsible for Sept. 11. Almost 60 percent of the articles in the president’s daily intelligence briefing include information from Section 702.

Although Section 702 can be used only to target foreigners abroad, it does include Americans when they interact with foreign targets. Not only is such incidental collection inevitable in today’s globalized world; it can be vital to U.S. security. If a terrorist or spy abroad is communicating with someone here, our government must find out why.

Some of what is found via Section 702 is therefore sent from the National Security Agency to the F.B.I. The F.B.I., which investigates threats to national security in the United States, can then check that database for Americans under investigation for national security reasons.

We agree that those queries raise legitimate privacy concerns. And those concerns are especially acute for public officials and journalists whose communications with foreign officials and other potential intelligence targets may be sensitive for political or professional reasons.

It is also true that the F.B.I. has broken the rules around these 702 database checks repeatedly in recent years. Agents ran improper queries related to elected officials and political protests. The wiretaps of Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser, also involved numerous violations of FISA rules. The Page wiretaps involved traditional FISA orders, not Section 702, but the bureau’s many errors there raised understandable doubts about whether it can be trusted to comply with other FISA rules.

Fortunately, there are ways to prevent abuses of Section 702 without compromising its critical national security value. The bill passed by Congress contains numerous reforms that will dramatically improve compliance. It sharply limits the number and ranks of F.B.I. agents who can run 702 queries, imposes strict penalties for misconduct and expands oversight by Congress and the courts.

Some of the bill’s critics argued that the F.B.I. should be required to obtain a warrant from a special FISA court before using the information collected under 702 when investigating Americans who may be involved in terrorism, espionage or other national security threats. But requiring such a warrant would have been unnecessary and unwise.

Getting a FISA court order is bureaucratically cumbersome and would slow down investigations — especially fast-moving cybercases, in which queries have proved especially useful. It would cause agents to miss important connections to national security threats. And because this information has already been lawfully collected and stored, its use in investigation doesn’t require a warrant under the Constitution.

Another problem is that the probable cause needed for a warrant is rarely available early in an investigation. But that’s precisely when these queries are most useful. Database checks allow an agent to quickly see whether there is a previously unnoticed connection to a foreign terrorist, spy or other adversary.

Balances struck between security and privacy need continual refinement. Recent years have shown Section 702’s great value for national security. But they have also revealed lax compliance at the F.B.I. The latest reauthorization boosts privacy without blinding our country to threats in today’s dangerous world.

Matthew Waxman is a Columbia University law professor who served in senior national security roles in the George W. Bush administration. Adam Klein is the director of the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas, Austin, and served as the chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board from 2018 to 2021.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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Difference between Democracy and Monarchy

Difference between Democracy and Monarchy is explained here in detail. Democracy is a form of government in which the people can choose their governing legislation. A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch, is the head of state for life or until abdication. This topic is important from the perspective of understanding the clear distinctions between Democracy vs Monarchy.

Aspirants would find this article very helpful while preparing for the IAS Exam .

Difference between Democracy and Monarchy: UPSC Notes – Download PDF Here

The major differences between Democracy and Monarchy are:

These are the main differences between Democracy and Monarchy. The differences given in the above table can help the UPSC Civil Service Exam aspirants to answer any questions easily on topics related to Democracy Vs Monarchy.

After learning about Democracy and Monarchy differences, it is better to know the details of the Presidential and Parliamentary forms of Government, Role of Civil Services in a Democracy, differences between Indian Government and US Government thoroughly. Also, check the History Syllabus for UPSC Prelims exam and, most importantly, study the Indian Polity Notes.

Visit the below-given links to learn about Role of civil services in a democracy, differences between Indian Government and US Government, Presidential and Parliamentary form of Government, Indian Polity Notes and History Syllabus for UPSC prelims exam.

• Role of Civil Services in a Democracy – Functions
• Differences between the Indian Government and the US Government 
• Presidential and Parliamentary Form of Government
• Download for Free – Indian Polity Notes
• History Syllabus for UPSC Prelims – Important Topics
• Difference between Democracy and Republic
• Difference between Articles – Complete List (History, Geography, Polity and More)

Frequently Asked Questions about Democracy and Monarchy

What are the three types of monarchy, what is a constitutional monarchy.

The above details would help candidates prepare for UPSC 2023 .

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