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Dołączył: 16 Lis 2010
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Wysłany: Czw 11:36, 25 Lis 2010 |
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They bore magnificent titles and were commanders of the armed forces, supreme governors of the Church of England, and emperors of India, yet they exercised no real power in any of these capacities.
Magnificence without Substance
The Survival of British Monarchy
Together with another loser in the War, the Ottoman Turkish sultan, Abdul Mejid II, Kaiser Wilhelm and the Austrian emperor were forced into exile. Tsar Nicholas and his family were murdered.
Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the Austrian Hapsburg Emperor Karl I, and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia were all dethroned by popular uprisings. In particular, the Kaiser and the Tsar failed to read the warning signals of popular unrest and the activities of radicals who sought to exploit it.
For example, the King imposed a spartan regime on the royal household. Luxury foods like lamb were banned from the royal dining table. Their place was taken by fowl and mutton. The Royal Family had to reuse their table napkins instead of receiving a new one with every meal. Although the Family were not exactly depriving themselves,
The Effects of Constitutional Monarchy
Read on
A Brief Introduction to Monarchy
The Children of King Edward VII of Great Britain
Queen Victoria's Crowned Descendants
The Price of Autocracy
However, what they did not realize was that this seemingly watered-down version of monarchy did not demean [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], but actually preserved the monarch. It raised him above embarrassing disputes and separated him from the most common sources of friction - political rivalries, faction fighting, taxation and the sufferings and privations of war.
Putting King Edward in his Constitutional Place
Meanwhile, in Britain, the monarchy not only survived intact but did so with increased prestige. This did not mean that republicans and other agitators were dormant. In 1921, for example, there was a wave of hissing when King George V’s name was mentioned at a Communist rally in London.
King Edward VII was given a sharp lesson in where the parameters lay after he came to the throne in 1901. Edward was anxious to be an active monarch, concerning himself with government business and the workings of Parliament. No chance. The King was politely but firmly told to keep his hands off concerns that were beyond his purview.
The autocrats, who believed they ruled by the Divine Right, regarded British monarchy as a paltry shadow of the world’s most prestigious form of government. From this viewpoint, British monarchs were tantamount to puppets.
They were upstaged by prime ministers and their cabinets. Parliament exercised a will of its own which, by law, could supervene that of any king or queen regnant. In other words, British monarchs reigned, but did not rule.
When he learned of it, the King feared that Britain was on the brink of bloody revolution. He need not have worried [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], for once constitutional monarchy had put aside royal involvement in politics, members of the Royal Family became concerned with social issues affecting the lives of their subjects. This earned them great personal popularity and commended them to the people by identifying the monarchy with Britain at war.
European autocrats, on the other hand, were directly in the line of fire on all these counts, for they were personally linked to the fate of their realms. As a result, a fearful lesson was brought home to three absolute monarchies in Europe after the First World War ended in 1918.
The autocrats, who ruled by the Divine Right of Kings and imposed their will upon their realms were astounded at the way the British monarch could be told what he could and could not do by his own subjects.
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