Just to add something : despite the well-known reverence of american people for their constitution, a constitution is only a piece of paper. It holds only as long as the population is strongly supportive of the way the political system works. So, it doesn’t matter what Elizabeth II could or could no do “theorically”. What matters is what the social body will deem acceptable or not, and for this purpose, an unwritten tradition is exactly as good as a written constitution.
To take three very different situations, George Bush can’t ignore the constitution that forbids him to do so and make himself emperor of America, Chirac can’t take dictatorial powers despite it being technically possible according to the article 16 of the french constitution, and Elizabeth II can’t resume actual power despite the lack of formal statutes preventing her from doing so.
They can’t, not because it’s written somewhere, but simply because it’s politically unthinkable and (in the current circumstances at least) the population supports the system and would never accept such a situation. The survival of a modern democracy doesn’t rest in documents, but in the people. To take an example close to home, see how easy it has been in France in 1940 to switch from a democracy to a personnal dictatorship overnight, simply by the assent of the political class backed by popular support, statutes, constitution and other technicalities be damned.
Yep, and he’s not a direct ancestor of Elizabeth II. She’s descended from Elizabeth Stuart,* Charles’s sister. So, really, it was Lizzie’s great-great-etc. uncle who got his head cut off. (not sure about the number of “greats”).
*The 1701 Act of Settlement stipulated that the descendants of Elizabeth Stuart–or, more specifically, the descendants of her daughter, the Electress Sophia–were the rightful heirs to the English throne, even though the descendants of Charles I were still alive and had a more direct claim to the throne. In this way, George I, the son of Sophia and thus the great-grandson of James I of England, ascended to the throne as the first Hanoverian king. Poor bastard could barely speak a word of English, but Parliament preferred him to an English-speaking, Roman Catholic Stuart (the Act of Settlement also stipulates that the heir to the throne cannot be, and never can have been, a Roman Catholic). This Act gives Parliament final say in whoever succeeds to the throne, and thus eliminates any vestiges of the monarch’s political power.
What with the legendary interbreeding of European aristocrats, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was one of the Queen’s great-great-…-grandfathers by some other route.
Sorry, I knew it was one of the two.
The Australian GG and PM do meet to discuss issues of significance when necessary but I don’t think that there’s a scheduled weekly meeting as there is in the UK.
The Queen can do whatever she wants, once. If she dissolved parliament and refused to allow new elections she would likely be deposed just as James II/VII was. Only this time the monarchy would likely be abolished for good. Regarding royal assent the Queen doesn’t personally assent to acts of parliament (Victoria was the last to do so). Three to five Lords Commisioner are appoint (the Lord Chancellor is always one) and they assent to legislation in the Queen’s name.
Not at all unlikely, given a close election with no majority and a couple of minor parties thrown into the mix.
One of the things the Monarch does is stop the Prime Minister from becoming a dictator. The monarch can say, “No”, and saying so could provoke a constitutional crisis.
Going back to Bigears being so disliked, beyond what the others have said, I think he reminds a lot of people of Edward VIII.
The ancestry of the royals is pretty well-documented. If he was, someone surely would’ve found out about it by now. Charles I has lots of great[sup]n[/sup]-grandchildren running around, but Elizabeth II isn’t one of them.
Prince William is a descendent of Charles I (through Diana). When/if he becomes king, he’ll be the first monarch descended from Charles II and the first since Queen Anne descended from Charles I. I believe he is actually descended from every English king that has descendents. Incidentally, Winston Churchill was also a descendent of Charles I.
Mary I of Scotland was the last direct ancestor of Elizabeth II to be beheaded. Of course she’d abdicated the Scotish throne several years before.
Her majesty’s a pretty nice girl, but she doesn’t have a lot to say.
Damn, I wish I’d thought of that. Good one!
FINALLY! I thought of that the second I saw the OP, but I get gunshy about making joke-only posts in GQ. Thanks for handling it, Eve. 
And the joke to which you’re all referring is…?
Hah! You sir, are profoundly ignorant of American history. The Constitution has held numerous times when the population was not strongly supportive, a fairly recent obvious example was the Civil Rights struggle. It is incomparable with the British and French examples you cite.
I suspect what clairobscur meant was a huge majority - one in which insurrection is not only possible but highly likely to succeed. Should a huge majority at some point become annoyed by the Constitution, then it would changed or ignored; perhaps a better example might be your civil war.
So are you saying that during the Civil Rights struggle, a majority of the U.S. population, across the United States, not just in the South, was opposed to the decisions of the Supreme Court? If so, how did the Civil Rights Act of 1963 get passed?
I would have thought that a better take on it was that the southern population was badly split on the issue, with the black segment and a minority of the white segment supportive, and possibly a majority of the white segment opposed. But that kind of split doesn’t mean that “the population” as a whole was “not strongly supportive,” and even less so when the non-South population was factored in.
Hmm. . . I think it’s fairly simplistic to term the civil rights movement as the Constitution victorious over the will of masses. First of all, I disagree with the basic premise that the extension of civil rights protections in the fifties and sixties was done in spite of popular sentiment. Certainly there was vocal opposition among a segment of the white population in the south – but let’s remember that the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act passed by overwhelmingly margins in both the House and the Senate.
But more fundamentally, I think the example of civil rights only proves clairobscur’s point that " [a constitution] holds only as long as the population is strongly supportive of the way the political system works." There was a lot of dissent and rage at the Supreme Court’s integration decisions – but remember that Gov. Faubus stepped aside when push came to shove. While many white southerners may have disagreed vehemently with the substance of the decision, there was no repetition of 1861. And the difference is that the southern population, however reluctantly, accepted the fundamentaly validity of the underlying political system that produced the decisions.
Are you certain she never does? I understood she does sometimes, in a ceremonial way for certain very important pieces of legislation. For example, I thought she personally gave assent to the repatriation of the Canadian Constitution.
Yes, a majority of the U.S. Population (i.e. whites), across the United States, not just in the South, was opposed to the decisions of the Supreme Court during this time period. An easy example of this attitude was de facto (typically outside of the South) segregation, where in the South it was de jure, mostly.