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@AliceOlive and @smilesy 😂Yes, you do have to laugh at the ridiculousness of it.

Probably funded by a wealth tax 🙄Isn't that the answer to everything?

There does seem to be a build up of frustration at the moment.

All those elected and retired HOS would require life long pensions and top level security after leaving office. It’s madness to think a republic would save any money. We would just live in a drabber state. Which I believe is what some people, bizarrely, would prefer.

I'm just trying to imagine the perception of Britain internationally when it's realised that the HOS is pretty much a mid level civil servant with no power, no perks and the entire constitutional system has been upended based on a back of the fag packet utopian wet dream.

The US elected head of state is being mocked in other parts of the world. We keep quiet about it here, though.

Aye, I've seen those drab grey flats in St. Petersburg.

Oh, @MrsDanversGlidesAgain , please don't become like the MPs and deride the back of a fag packet. It's my strong contention that Leonardo da Vinci would have designed many outstanding things on the back of a fag packet if he'd had one. I think aeroplanes and brilliant modifications to machinery have started their lives on the backs of fag packets in fitters' cabins in factories, during night-shift coffee breaks, throughout the entire world.

Probably, but those at least turned out to be useful back of fag packet ideas.

I'm just trying to imagine the perception of Britain internationally when it's realised that the HOS is pretty much a mid level civil servant with no power, no perks....

I've just been reading Robert Hardman's Charles III, about the first year of the King's reign.

He describes how there was due to be a bio-diversity conference in London. Very worthy, but not at all exciting, and participating nations were going to send civil servants or junior ministers. Then someone came up with the notion that the King should host a reception at BP, and suddenly everyone wanted to be here.

Hardman talks about how, while the King can no longer personally push his favourite issues in the way he did as PoW, he can play a really valuable role as a convenor, bringing together people from all over the world to talk about all sorts of issues. He can do this because he has the knowledge and experience built up over decades, because he knows many of the people and their countries personally, and because of the sheer prestige of attending an event at a palace hosted by a King. Someone elected to serve a five or ten year term just wouldn't have the same knowledge or impact.

Similar was said regarding the Queen and the Commonwealth. She had known many of the Commonwealth leaders personally for many years, and sometimes at CHOGM, without ever getting political, she could smooth the way by having a quiet word here and there.

Try to imagine 10 years of Trump as your HOS.

and because of the sheer prestige of attending an event at a palace hosted by a King

People like glamour and glitz, and don't want their HOS to be some 2024 equivalent of Leonid Brezhnev. There's a psychological effect at play as well - the status of the HOS has always been a microcosm of the status of the state. It's why renaissance princes vied to make their courts the most cultured, glamorous and exciting, and why Victoria's retreat into widowhood nearly turned Britain towards republicanism. If the HOS is drab, low ranking and unimportant then national and international perception is that's how the country sees itself.

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain excellent points, especially about the connection to the image of the state 👌

Thanks. You can take the example of a woman ruler as well - for centuries women were on a par socially with children, and the one thing any state wanted was not to be ruled by a child - it was a recipe for faction struggles and general political disorder. No state or kingdom wanted that or the weakness that implied, because it meant that if the HOS was a child or legally a child, what did that say about the people who consented to be ruled by them? weak, faction ridden and open to control (i.e invasion, marriage) by a strong (male) and possibly foreign hand (such as Mary I's deeply unpopular Spanish marriage).

It was only after Elizabeth I that the British grudgingly accepted that women could rule (and they were very pleased to get the men back in 1603).

Yes, Elizabeth was wise not to marry, not to portray herself as a traditional woman. She was then "above" what the role of most women was. So the RF not lowering themselves to the level of H&M has been very positive - the King isn't getting into petty squabbles nor is he responding to their unjust, media- and money- driven criticisms. It does show strength and resolve.

She also very cannily co-opted the role that the Madonna had played in the English consciousness for centuries as support, protection and a subject of adoration and reverence. A lot of her portraits are a reference to that. And of course by not marrying her subject and courts had no other focus for their attention but her.

😃

Did you study QE1 at some time in your life? Last few posts have been interesting, between you and Isolde.
I hadn't thought about her assuming the role of the madonna. ( Sorry, way off thread but my mind just hopped to Mummy Merkel.)

History graduate who's fascinated by Elizabeth and how she did what she did in a society that wasn't set up for her to do what she did, if you follow me.

Re the madonna - when Elizabeth came to the throne it was only 20 years since the Reformation, and the roots of Catholicism were still deep in most people's minds - a millennia old culture and its effects isn't erased overnight. Elizabeth, consciously or not, co-opted that role as virgin, protector of her people (adoration of the Virgin Mary was very strong in medieval England), intercessor and saviour (ironically from Catholicism).

Good article here

https://artuk.org/discover/stories/gloriana-and-the-virgin-queen-portraits-of-elizabeth-i

Agree about Charles . He must be hurting but has shown great dignity in a horrible situation.
As an aside , I have been interested to see the cousins rallying around William recently . Eugenie is very much to the fore - I wonder if she has distanced herself a bit from H and M ?

Major derail but are you a fan of Bess of Hardwick @MrsDanversGlidesAgain ? I find her a fascinating woman who was also, as a contemporary of Elizabeth, able to find her way successfully through a patriarchal system and gained huge wealth and influence. Interesting that she was a friend of the Queen and that history was repeating itself in a way with the Devonshires of Chatsworth being in the carriage with the King at Ascot yesterday

The whole Madonna/whore dichotomy is really interesting- and has always played out in the way women in the RF have been presented and perceived. Elizabeth/ Margaret, Diana/Sarah- the list goes on.

I don't know as much about Bess of Hardwick. I've read one bio of her and she seems from that to have been formidable and accomplished - not in the Elizabeth I way of formal education but in working her way steadily upwards and not accepting that being a woman meant that her role was limited to the feminine; especially when it came to her building projects and advancing her family.

There's an irony with Bess - if you believe some stories she actively schemed for Arbella to be on the throne of England somehow. She failed in that but ultimately she succeeded because the royals are descended from her via QEQM.

The 16c in fascinating for how the role of women changes. There are three queens, matriarchs like Bess and educated women like the Mores and the Cecils. Then we get to the 17c and it all goes backwards.

There's an irony with Bess - if you believe some stories she actively schemed for Arbella to be on the throne of England somehow. She failed in that but ultimately she succeeded because the royals are descended from her via QEQM.

Yes. She may well have succeeded in getting Arbella on to the throne except that she was thwarted by the fact that Elizabeth reigned for so long that Arbella felt she needed to get married before she got too old and Elizabeth didn’t approve of her marriage 😆. Have you ever been to Hardwick Hall? Well worth a visit if you are on to all things Tudor