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The Queen’s death raises questions not just about a republic, but where sovereignty really lies in a country that calls itself a democracy.
When England was last conquered, by the Dutch in 1688 (an event subsequently reframed by the English as the “Glorious Revolution”), the country was put on a path to constitutional monarchy, even if it took another 230-odd years to become a democracy.
A Catholic authoritarian in James II was removed and replaced with William of Orange, who agreed to a new and, in European terms, relatively untried concept at a national level (as distinct from city-states). He would rule via a political and religious settlement in which a moderate Anglican elite would run the country, and Protestant dissenters would be tolerated — but not Catholics. Religious and political conservatives — adherents of an older order more linked to divine right and intolerance — were driven from power, despite their support among London mobs. And William III, as he became known, got what he wanted: British military power to use in his wars against Louis XIV.
It wasn’t until the slow extension of suffrage to men in the 19th century and to women in 1918 and then 1928 that the tensions within the idea of constitutional monarchy in a democracy became clear. The long reign of Queen Victoria helped to mask those tensions. But along with the advent of true British democracy and the wars of imperialism that dominated Europe, between Victoria’s death in 1901 and Elizabeth’s accession in 1952, there were four monarchs and a major crisis, in the abdication of the vain, Nazi-loving lightweight Edward VIII.
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