Queen Elizabeth II (Update: the Queen has passed)
Yeah I thought the Sun King comparisons were daft to be honest but I do truly wonder why people not only tolerate but willingly support a system which subjugates them to the role of second class behind an elite of unelected aristocrats....
As my dear mother used to say.....son, never believe you're superior to the next person.....and never believe you are inferior either.
Well, this is a relatively short summation of an extremely long, socio-political, economic, and historical multidisciplinary, academic series of studies but its been more then obvious since the end of WWI, and arguably in some respects, even before then, the idea of European monarchs having and maintaining large influence on large, multi-ethnic, multi-national empires was becoming too difficult, intractible, massively over-expansive and complex for an unelected monarch, even a good, highly intelligent one, to be knowledgable, possess the savviness, depth and dexterity to run effectively. Queen Victoria, essentially understood and recognized this in the last 40 years of her reign/life after Albert's death in 1861. She mostly stayed above party politics, with some notable exceptions like in 1885-86 with Gladstone, but allowed her PM's(Disraeli, Gladstone, Lord Russell(Bertrand Russell's father, and Salisbury) to do their jobs, unencumbered.
German Kaiser Wilhelm II, during his "personal rule" phase from 1897-1908, effectively upended Bismark's carefully-crafted diplomatic shell game of keeping an revenge-minded France alone and friendless, as they signed a long-lasting treaty with brutal, autocratic Czarist Russia in 1894, and Wilhelm's controversial naval programme to rival British maritime/naval supremacy was a powerful factor to influence UK to abandon centuries of "splendid isolation"-non-interference in European power politics and centuries-long mistrust and hostility with France to sign the Entente Cordiale in 1904. After 1908, lets just say that Wilhelm II's influence on policy declined significantly and its been argued that in the last few years before WWI began, the power, influence and strength of German SPD, a former Marxist, working-class party which was also the most effective, organized, structured political party in Europe, became the largest political party in Reichstag, in 1912. Some German historians have alleged that if WWI doesn't break out, there's a strong chance Germany's SPD-dominated Reichstag wouldve minimized or dissolved the Hohenzollern dynasty.
Geldo, by the time we get to the late 19th century, the amount, size, and capacity of what makes up, and constitutes, an entire nation's bureaucracy, much less what bulks up in a powerful, superpower nation, had grown to gargantuan levels, kings and queens alone couldn't handle it. It's even more beyond the pale today in the 21st century. Thats why you elect parliamentarians, Senators, or Congressman to service these agencies, Departments, ministries inside a government to make it halfway workable or effective.
By the late 19th century, monarchs, kings were on the verge of making their break with history and after WWI, the pre-war three European/ME dynasties (Austrian Habsburgs, Romonov dynasty, and Turkish Ottomans) were overthrown, or voted out of existence like in Turkey in 1921 by Attaturk himself.