Power And The Role Of The Monarch example essay topic

How important is the Monarchy in Britain? To answer this question first of all, we have to know how Monarchy was created. The British have been a monarchy now for most of the last thousand years. When the Roman Empire began to crumble, the Roman Church began to establish itself over the same empire in its own right.

Rather than exert direct military power, the way it did this was to endorse the idea of monarchy and to claim that monarchs reigned only with God's permission, this means, that the Church could remove troublesome monarchs by exerting pressure on other monarchs to raise armies for it. Monarchy became a requirement of Catholic Europe and, for the time being, british were stuck with it. Ironically, the first rumblings of dissent came because of the very church that had endorsed it. Crusades: attempts to retain the crumbling assets of Rome's eastern empire, in Britain, the barons and nobles began to demand the right to disapprove of the resultant taxation. This led, via "Magna Carta", to the establishment of Parliament a loose collective of self interested barons trying to keep their money out of the hands of a self interested monarch. The right to refuse money for the Monarch's ventures gave Parliament considerable power and, they started to erode the royal authority still further.

The sixteenth century in England, the head of state became also the head of the church, a role with little actual work, but theoretically with a great deal of influence. Monarchs, after centuries of church endorsed absolutism now believed themselves to be appointed by God. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Parliament was gradually assuming more and more power and the role of the monarch was declining. Anne was the last English monarch to block an act of Parliament, George II was the last English king to fight at the head of his armies and so on. By the reign of Victoria, there was serious discussion about the end of the Monarchy.

Britain was, in effect, a republic but with the expense of a monarchy to retain. The role of the monarchy as an intelligible part of the constitution might on a superficial level at least have some merit. The Monarch's function of signing into law Acts passed by Parliament is an integral part of the legislative process. "The Monarch technically holds the right to veto any measure adopted by Parliament but this is a very rare occurrence and the last time it was used was in the eighteenth century by Queen Anne". The Monarch also receives newly appointed ambassadors to the United Kingdom who are accredited to her court rather than to the state. She is also the commander in chief of the Armed forces and new recruits have to swear allegiance to the Monarch rather than to Parliament or to the State.

In this and many similar functions the Queen acts as a living personification of the British State, a type of shorthand by which people can swear allegiance to the state, which is a social construct, via a living person. Whilst the majority of the Monarch's powers have been transferred to the Head of the Government for the Prime minister to use at her discretion. The role of Head of state is an important and significant role in late twentieth Century Politics both at a domestic and international level. Although there are examples of executive Presidencies where the role is elected and combined with the Head of Government such as in the United States. The symbolic role of the Monarch is perhaps its most effective. The majority of the Queen's workload consists of representing the state at home and the Nation abroad.

On state visits the Queen attracts interest from the foreign public and media who helps raise the profile of the Nation overseas In order to analize the importance of the Monarchy, I'm also writing what some British people think about the Monarchy and the way they look at it. As the Monarchy is now largely ceremonial they appear for parades, greet dignitaries and perform ceremonies such as the opening of Parliament. Although the Queen has powers, these are seldom exercised and, if her role is to stand for the people against Parliament, how would she know what the public wants. People automatically assume that if you don't have a monarch, you have to have a president. The reason that the revolutionary government of Cromwell collapsed was that nobody could see an alternative to a dynastic head of state, British didn't have a Prime Minister then, so surely the solution is staring them in the face. They question their selves: "Why do we have to vote for our head of state separately?

Can't we vote for their representatives and let them choose a leader from amongst them? " The other major reason given for supporting the Monarchy is that they are good for business and, in particular, for tourism. There are a number of problems with this: firstly, for business in general, any company which makes financial decisions about where they place their factories on the basis of monarchy is operating on a limited lifespan. With management that daft and decisions taken that lightly they will be out of business in a couple of years. In the tourism sector and intentions, British history is more important than their present. If the current Monarchy is removed, then people are still going to visit, they don't get to meet the Queen personally, Also, even if the Queen was responsible for tourism, would that merit paying her 15 million a year?

"The Monarchy says that the Queen opens schools and hospitals, in recent years more hospitals have closed than opened". Royalty is also supposed to do a lot for charity. Note that "doing a lot" does not mean donating tens of millions themselves but raising the profile of the charity so that the public pay a few million more than normal. What charity wouldn't benefit from the lb 60 million a year which British people pay for the whole family...

Although imagine a Britain without a Monarch would probably depend on one's own personal bias. There is no doubt however that a Monarchy that costs so much public money is unsustainable when the remainder of State is facing severe financial shortages. There is at present no mechanism for removing an unsatisfactory Monarch. "An intelligent elected Head of State can, as has been proved in Ireland, represent the whole Society and can perform roles such as the signing into law of acts and maintaining good will for the nation abroad". So there are many thoughts, and points of view of the British Monarchy, and some of them may be correct and other not..