Naturally, one knows that royal Britons usually are deemed so as a result of birth and that males are considered far more important than females. The reason for this is not lack of modernity, but because the Royals of England are a religious institution. They believe that they are chosen by some omniscient being to rule over the people.
The monarch is the head of the Church of England, leader of protestants and all worldwide Anglicans, messenger of Jesus. For this reason you lose all of your Royal standing if you do things the church doesn't approve of. Converting to another faith ensures that you and your offspring cannot become monarchs. You and your children also lose your ordained "right" to be superior to your neighbours should your marry a Catholic or Jew. This is a permanent exclusion. Any child born out of wedlock is a non-royal for ascension purposes, even if his or her parents marry afterward. Adoption is also a no-no for succession purposes. After all, these are God's chosen people. Why? Because Henry the 8th said so after getting tired of that pesky Pope telling him what to do.
Admission into the House of Lords does not involve democratic vote despite the fact that they have the right to decide legislation. Membership is gained through birth, appointment, or standing within the Church. The reason for the Church/State distinction in the United States is because, at the time of confederation, the Church of England was State. And to a degree higher than would make most westerners comfortable, it still is to this day. Religious dominion was used to justify slavery, racism, and hostile takeovers of nations like India. After all, the English Anglicans are the messengers of God.
So, how do you become Royal? It's simple, really. All you have to do is take an established religion or political ideology, rewrite it, and convince others that your message is the greatest of all. Follow it with massive information campaigns and kill off a bunch of people and your chunk of the world will belong to you and your heirs. After all, your power is divinely ordained. God has chosen you as his messenger and everyone best learn to bow at your feet. It worked for Gilgamesh, Mohammed, the Zhou Dynasty and every King and Queen of Europe. All one has to do is look at the global attention paid to Wills and Kate to recognize that claims of Divine Right not only exist, but are celebrated.
Just coz I'm an atomic killjoy myself, a few points -
ReplyDelete- An heir presumptive to the crown of the United Kingdom and Dominions only has to be CoE upon coronation. They could quite legally convert to Judaism or Mormonism once on the throne. There are no rules pertaining to the spouse of the regent, but one - they, and the heir presumptive, must not be Roman Catholic. The English have had a few issues with RC's over the years ;) This is notwithstanding that one must gain permission of the current monarch to legally wed, thus if Kate was a Scientologist, ERII could decline permission for the nuptials, which would make the marriage invalid should Will go ahead with it, meaning Kate & her children have no royal status.
- What year are you using for the US confederation? There has been an increasing divide between Church/State in the UK since the civil war of the 1640's.
- The House of Lords is a house of Elders (the title Earl comes from the old English word for "Elder"). We don't begrudge indigenous people from having elders make decisions do we? Nonetheless, since 1911, the House of Lords has had little power, and since Blair's "reforms" they have pretty much no power at all and are used simply as a debating chamber. They cannot veto any legislation - they can debate and request changes, sending legislation back to the House of Commons, but they have no authority to deny or repeal law.
- Whilst England has, over the years, done some diabolic acts in the name of G-d and making "the world England" it is no worse or better than any other world power at any given time in history. Indeed, whilst the US were still selling blacks on auction blocks the UK were sending out naval ships stopping the transfer of slaves, deeming the practice illegal and unethical.
One must remember that Europe as a whole is still just a bunch of tribes - who bicker a fair bit, and a lot of them still have and celebrate their ancient chieftains. I for one, prefer to have ERII as a head of state, as she's been mentored by the likes of Churchill etc and has more experience in world politics than any of her political contemporaries. But, the UK is a constitutional monarchy, so the monarch has very very little power at all - except in the eyes of those who idolise them.