Empire total war british11/12/2022 ![]() In the meantime, the monarch ruled but required the help and assistance of the Lords and Commoners - especially when it came to raising money.įor argument's sake, this site will start examining monarchs from Queen Elizabeth I. Over time, this 'Lower Chamber' would become the most important of all the organs of state, although this would take a few centuries and a couple of Civil Wars and Coup D'etats to sort out. These were known as the commoners and were not admitted to the 'Upper Chamber' of the Lords and Bishops but still advised the King and expected to be consulted on financial matters. Increasingly, non-nobles, especially from the newly enlarged towns and boroughs, were consulted and asked to give the King their advice. Originally it was envisioned that the parliament was made up of the King's Lords - these were the same Lords that had made King John sign the Magna Carta in the first place - and the clergy. The Magna Carta restricted the ability of the monarch to raise money without the consent of what was referred to as 'parliament' (from the French verb - Parler - to talk or negotiate). His biggest restraint was often financial. Over time as the complexity of running a nation state became more and more obvious the King would come to rely more and more on his appointed officials. He appointed a variety of trusted office holders to help with the day to day running of his kingdom, but he ultimately made all the decisions. Having said all that, at the end of the Medieval period, the monarch was still the prime decision maker in the kingdom. Those who forgot these axioms would have serious difficulties ruling over the English. Unlike most European monarchies, English Kings (and later Queens) understood the concept of limits of power and authority and that compromise and realistic expectations were pre-requisites to being a successful monarch. Although not fully understood or appreciated at the time, it would ultimately lay the foundations for English ideas on liberty and would start what would often be a painful journey to a 'Constitutional Monarchy'. Despite being a Medieval document, the limitations of the Magna Carta would later have a profound effect on the English people's perception of what a monarch could and could not do. The Medieval period had already seen England take an unusual step in limiting and restraining the absolute power of her monarchs with the Magna Carta in 1215. The monarchy of the 21st Century is a very different institution from that of 500 years ago, but the seeds for change and its evolution had already been sowed. The decline in power is related to the rising importance of democracy whilst the rise in prestige may partly be as a result of being increasingly isolated and removed from policy decisions, and therefore mistakes, but also due to improved communications and the ability for monarchs to be more widely known and even to travel to the far corners of the globe by the Twentieth Century. However, even though actual power has declined for monarchs, their status as icons representing the imperial adventure has generally travelled in the opposite direction. Over time, but with some important exceptions, the relative power of monarchs to influence policy steadily diminished. In fact, there is something of an indirect correlation between their power and their prestige. The role of monarchs and their relationship with the British Empire changed over time. The Role of British Monarchs in Imperial History ![]()
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