GlobalNav (your #8480) and
Fareastdriver (your #8476),
... we took great pains free ourselves from the rule of a monarch...
So did we (in 1649), when King Charles I was parted from his head, and the Supremacy of Parliament thereby put beyond further argument.
The trouble was when King and Parliament were of like mind, and that combined mind was unsound.
It was so in the late 18th Century. It has always intrigued me that American history of that era is taught as a straight fight between the villainous British and their brutal Redcoats, and the noble American colonists. In fact, of course, it was a civil war, with one lot of Brits fighting another lot of Brits who happened to have colonised the eastern states of the present US.
Why had we not introduced an idea like the later French one, who treated their colonies as "
Départements d'outre mer" of Metropolitan France, and had their representatives in the French Assembly ? The cry of "No taxation without representation" would never have arisen, much bad blood would not have been spilt and (who knows ?) we might now have a huge English-speaking North American Dominion from Alaska to Mexico. But it was not to be.
Wiki has a comprehensive account of the relations between "mad" George III and his ministers, I tried to wade through it until I lost the will to live.
In my limited experience, the best way to explain our Royal Family to our transatlantic cousins is to say that it means to us what Old Glory means to you.
Fareastdriver,
...No screaming and shouting every four years...
Five in our case.
...We also know who is going to be the next one...
Charles is 67 now, the Queen is 90 and going strong - and
her mother made 101 !
There is a body of opinion which suggests, that as Charles may be well into his 70s when he inherits, he should then immediately abdicate in favour of William. It is possible (Edward VIII did it). I would support such a move, and think it would be popular.
Danny42C.