Queen Elizabeth II (Update: the Queen has passed) (1 Viewer)

[guidomerkinsrules]

 

[Madmarsha]

Yep.

 

[Buickman]

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

This means Meghan and Harry better get busy making Rey
(And maybe Prince Louis is Kylo?)

 

[Madmarsha]

He just looks like an old guy sitting in his pajamas.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

He just looks like an old guy sitting in his pajamas.

Um no - I look nothing like that

 

[Madmarsha]

Um no - I look nothing like that

Well, neither are you 75 years old ... NOR the King of England.

Anybody else wondering if Camilla has polished the King's scepter he just got yesterday? Just me then. Okay.

 

[DaveXA]

Well, neither are you 75 years old ... NOR the King of England.

Anybody else wondering if Camilla has polished the King's scepter he just got yesterday? Just me then. Okay.

Speaking of polishing scepters...well lol.

 

[Geldo]

Speaking of polishing scepters...well lol.

They have an army of flunkies to do that for them.
The Queen used to have a servant turn the pages of her newspaper for her.
Charles used to have four royal aides following him around doing such menial tasks as picking his dirty underpants off the floor, while another held a specimen bottle for him while he had a pee....

Pampered prince puts sun king in shade

His lifestyle would seem extravagant to Louis XIV: a team of four valets so that one is always available to lay out and pick up his clothes; a servant to squeeze his toothpaste on to his brush, and another who once held the specimen bottle while he gave a urine sample.

www.theguardian.com

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

They have an army of flunkies to do that for them.
The Queen used to have a servant turn the pages of her newspaper for her.
Charles used to have four royal aides following him around doing such menial tasks as picking his dirty underpants off the floor, while another held a specimen bottle for him while he had a pee....

Pampered prince puts sun king in shade

His lifestyle would seem extravagant to Louis XIV: a team of four valets so that one is always available to lay out and pick up his clothes; a servant to squeeze his toothpaste on to his brush, and another who once held the specimen bottle while he gave a urine sample.

www.theguardian.com

They haven’t invented floating specimen bottles yet, how else is it going to work?

 

[Saintman2884]

They have an army of flunkies to do that for them.
The Queen used to have a servant turn the pages of her newspaper for her.
Charles used to have four royal aides following him around doing such menial tasks as picking his dirty underpants off the floor, while another held a specimen bottle for him while he had a pee....

Pampered prince puts sun king in shade

His lifestyle would seem extravagant to Louis XIV: a team of four valets so that one is always available to lay out and pick up his clothes; a servant to squeeze his toothpaste on to his brush, and another who once held the specimen bottle while he gave a urine sample.

www.theguardian.com

Sorry, Geldo, but as much extravagant, pompous, and personal flourishes Charles III or Elizabeth II have enjoyed during their reigns, their power, prestige, and ability to govern or affect nation's socio-political, economic affairs is nothing compared to the royal absolutism enjoyed by the "Sun King" Louis XIV, his ancien French Bourbon ancestors or his two royal decscendants, his great-grandson, Louis XV, who was only a mere 5-6 years old when he took power and turned Versailles into his personal multi-story royal harem, in a palatial area courtiers nicknamed, "The Deer Park". Louis XIV, when he said, he was the state, he meant it in no clear exaggeration. He turned what had been a modest royal hunting lodge owned by his father, Louis XIII, into the most glamorous, haughty, expensive, lush Royal palaces of Europe, a den of decadence, hedonism, sex and debauchery that hadn't been seen or recorded by historians since Tiberius ancient pleasure/torture palace on Capri 1,600 years earlier (Geldo, where a young royal prisoner/niece of Tiberius named Caligula learned and mastered his later, infamous deviancies, if you've read Gibbons, or Tacitus, Suetonius, Geldo, then I don't need to repeat too terribly much of what we both know likely occured on Capri, some of its so shocking and sickening, it can't be repeated on a family forum like SR.com).

Ancient Roman social-class conflict or structure is like Candy Land for Marxist historians, writers, or academics, Geldo.

Essentially, any last chance or hope for any real royal absolutism in England was settled, violently by the English Civil War from 1642-49, the defeat of Charles I's Royalists, his conviction, sentencing and execution in January 1649 even though Oliver Cromwell tried hard to give Charles I an out and save himself from being executed, Charles still stubbornly refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of his loss of power, privileges and recognize Cromwell's Protectorate, i.e. military dictatorship. I realize most of the Stuart monarchs had a poor, working relationship with Parliament, even the more effective ones like James I, and Charles II disbanded Parliament and ruled alone for periods of time. But they could never fully get rid of or eliminate the existence or legitimacy of Parliament and how it served as a check to royal despotism and abuse.Ive always felt the Levelers faction was sort of English Civil War's version of the Jacobins, an interesting proto-Marxist socio-political faction. Soberly though, the English Civil War is still the costliest conflict in English/British history in terms of the losses of life of men, women, children and civilians in England, Wales, Scotland, and even parts of Ireland, later on.

King Louis XIV.and his ancestral Bourbon monarchs didnt have to worry about such issues, except from the street fronde factions in the early 17th century. Versailles was actually built to round up, bring in and monitor all of the major French notables, or nobility who might pose political problems for the French kings. And it wasnt the threat of dangerous nobles that later on brought the French Revolution, it was centuries of unpaid debts on wars, expenditures, costs begun during Louis XIV's reign and rising inflation creeping into French economy, combined with an unequal tax structure where nobles and clergy paid little-to-no taxes and you have events like the Tennis Court Oath, Storming of the Bastille, and finally, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette being forced by a Parisian working-class mob led by mostly illiterate, female "fish-mongers" to live under armed-guard at the Twilliers Palace.

 

[Geldo]

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.

 

[Saintman2884]

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.

 

[Optimus Prime]

The coronation of King Charles in May 2023 cost taxpayers at least £72m, official figures have revealed.

The cost of policing the ceremony was £21.7m, with a further £50.3m in costs racked up by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

About 20 million people in Britain watched Charles crowned at Westminster Abbey on TV, substantially fewer than the 29 million Britons who had watched the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022.


The coronation ceremony was attended by dignitaries from around the world, and a star-studded concert took place at Windsor Castle the following night.

The annual report and accounts of DCMS, the lead department in Rishi Sunak’s government that worked with the royal household on the coronation, stated that the department “successfully delivered on the central weekend of His Majesty King Charles III’s coronation, enjoyed by many millions both in the UK and across the globe”.

It described the coronation as a “once-in-a-generation moment” that enabled the “entire country to come together in celebration”, as well as offering “a unique opportunity to celebrate and strengthen our national identity and showcase the UK to the world”.

Republic, which campaigns to replace the monarchy with an elected head of state and more democratic political system, described the coronation as an “obscene” waste of taxpayers’ money.

“I would be very surprised if £72m was the whole cost,” the Republic CEO, Graham Smith, told the Guardian.

As well as the Home Office policing and DCMS costs included in the figures, he said the Ministry of Defence, Transport for London, fire brigades and local councils also incurred costs related to the coronation, with other estimates putting the totalspend at between £100m and £250m.


“But even that kind of money – £72m – is incredible,” Smith added. “It’s a huge amount of money to spend on one person’s parade when there was no obligation whatsoever in the constitution or in law to have a coronation, and when we were facing cuts to essential services.…….

‘Obscene’: Anger after cost of King Charles’s coronation revealed

Official figures put price of event at £72m but anti-monarchy group Republic says real cost is likely much more

www.theguardian.com

 

[Sailorsaint]

Let them eat cake....