>> Oops, you see, Jess had his books handy and I didn’t–is my face red! <<
Actually, while I did have my books handy, I didn’t look inside them – otherwise I’d have remembered the John of Gaunt - Henry VII connection that Akatsukami pointed out. Remember, kids – don’t spout off 'til you do your research!
Jess (who’s a “her” not a “him,” BTW)
Dang you Nick I saw this topic and showed remarkable will power. then it was too late. I gonna ‘punch’ you in the pants. Which is how I learned it.I think punch is funnier word than kick, and the visual is a bit funnier, but thats just my opinion. Seems the easiest way to become king or queen is to make sure one of your ancestors kills who ever is king at the time.
I believe a while back the Queen of England, who was as the time Queen of Fiji, tried to dismiss a government their and Fijians promptly declared themselves a republic. ( Seems the native Fijians are a minority in their own country and the majority Hindus elected democraticaly a government favoring them and the native Fijians overthrew it and the Q of E thought she could restore the proper elected government. She is also Queen of Canada too. And Queen of a bunch of other countries still.
She’s queen of all the countries in the commonwealth. However, some of those countries are perfectly sovereign, such as Canada, which promulgated its own constitution in 1982. Prior to that, Queenie was still Queen of Canada in some political sense: promulgating our own constitution involved getting her to sign it.
Membership in the commonwealth is largely a matter of history and national self-identification. Anyone know which countries are still not independent?
[[I think punch is funnier word than kick, and the visual is a bit funnier, but thats just my opinion. ]] MrJohn
I agree that “punch” is the funnier word, but I think kicking more than holds its own visually and conceptually.
Q of E is still Queen of Canada. Canada is not a republic even with its own constitution. It is a Constituational Monarchy. So is Aussie and New Zealand. Not every country in the Commenwealth is a monarchy though. Some like India and Pakistan are Republics. In fact one of the memebers, Mozambique was never even a British Colony.
I’m on thin ice here without a political science degree (and thus have never studied the official situation in Canada). However, I believe Canada is a federation, not a constitutional monarchy. After getting a constitution in 1982, the Queen has zero legal or political power in Canada. The Governor-General and the Lieuftenant-Governers are purely ceremonial posts. In no case would any sort of deadlock or tie vote be passed to the queen for resolution. If the Governor-General refused to sign a bill into law, he would be fird and replaced.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but in a constitutional monarchy, the constitution limits the power of the monarchy, from which authority derives. In Canada, the authority of the government derives from the constitution itself, just like the U.S.
Scotland. Yet.
Bíonn caora dhubh ar an tréad is gile (there is a black sheep even in the whitest flock).
There’s a lot to comment on in this thread.
There is no Queen of England. The last Queen of England was Queen Anne, who was Queen of England and Queen of Scotland. During her reign, in 1707, the English Parliament and the Scottish Parliament passed the Acts of Union, which created the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Queen Anne then became the Queen of the United Kingdom. A century later, a similar set of laws abolished the Irish Parliament and changed the name of the country to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Elizabeth II is “Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”
The Queen is also the “Head of the Commonwealth.” This is a purely symbolic title, but was the compromise that allowed for republican countries, such as India, to retain a symbolic tie to Britain without giving the British monarch a formal constitutional role. Other countries, such as Canada, are constitutional monarchies, and the Queen is the Queen of those countries. That means she is the head of state, but as someone else notes, not the head of government. The Prime Minister is the head of government.
It was George IV’s brothers that did the urgent boffing, after George’s daughter died in childbirth.
Victoria did not inherit directly from George IV. He was succeeded by his younger brother the Duke of Clarence, who became William IV. Victoria was the daughter of the next brother in line, Edward, Duke of Kent, who died of an “inflammation of the lungs” or some such thing, well before George IV died. Victoria inherited from her uncle Billy.
In those countries where she is the head of state, the Queen (or her Governor-General) does have the power to determine who to call on to form the government, if Parliament or the Legislature cannot reach a conclusion. With the growth of party organizations, it is highly unlikely she will be called on to do so, but you never know. For example, in the Nova Scotia election 18 months ago, the people returned a house with (I think) 19 Liberals, 19 N.D.P., and 12 Progressive Conservatives. In a case like that, there is always the potential for a political deadlock, which could require the intervention of the Lieutenant Governor.
The Queen (or her Governor General) has the power to dismiss a ministry. In the 19th century, before the growth of party organizations, several provincial governments in Canada were dismissed by the Lieutenant Governor. More signficantly in 1975(?), the Australian Governor-General dismissed the Prime Minister of Australia.
I would have put Henry IV in the category of king by conquest - he deposed his cousin, Richard II, which was then ratified by Parliament, and then Richard died, quite by accident of course, and such a young man…
Edward II was also deposed, by a cabal led by his wife and her lover. They put Edward II’s son, Edward III, on the throne, ratfied by the Parliament, and then Edward II also died.
Queen Anne, Mary’s sister, also inherited by a mixture of blood and Act of Parliament.
The Queen (and her Governors-General, Lieutenant Governors, Governors [it’s getting quite Pinafore-esque] also have the power to refuse to give assent to a bill. In Britain, Queen Anne was the last monarch to exercise the power directly. In Canada, some Lieutenant Governors have occasionally refused assent. The last time was in Prince Edward Island, around 1945, when a teetotal Lt. Gov. refused royal assent to a bill repealing prohibition. The courts upheld the refusal of assent. The provincial government had the Lt. Gov. fired as soon as possible thereafter.
The monarch (and her Gov Gen, etc.) may also defer a decision. For example, in 1896, the Conservative government fell in Ottawa. In those cases, the Prime Minister stays in power pending the election. The Prime Minister in question, Tupper, asked the Governor-General to make some appointments to various offices. The GG didn’t refuse to accept that advice, which would have been contrary to convention; he just told PM Tupper that he would not make the appointments until after the election. The Conservaitves were defeated, and of course the incoming Liberal Prime Minister, Laurier, advised the GG not to make those appointments. This established that the GovGen can ensure that the Prime Minister acts simply as a caretaker until the election is decided.
Canada did not get a new Constituion in 1982. The Constitution Act, 1867 is still in force. Rather, the Constitution Act, 1982 came into force, making some major amendments, such as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and a domestic amending formula. The 1982 amendments did not change the constitutional status of the Queen as Queen of Canada.
Canada is a federation, and a constitutional monarchy. The two are not inconsistent. Australia is also a federation and a constitutional monarcy (although they are thinking of going republican), while New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy and a unitary state. In all three countries, the Constitution is the source of legal authority for the Queen.
The most difficult part of the constitutional structure to understand with respect to the Queen is the difference between legal powers and constitutional conventions. The Queen has legal powers, assigned by the constitution (whether written or unwritten). There are also constitutional conventions which limit the way the Queen can use those powers. Thus, those who say in this thread that the Queen has no power are correct in the vast majority of cases, if you mean actual, practical, political power. For the great majority of cases, the Queen (and her Gov-Gen, Lt. Govs, Govs) always act on the advice of the first minister. However, there are rare exceptions, where it is conceiveable the monarch could have to make a decision.
Queen Elizabeth is also queen for Jersey Islands, Channel Islands etc., little tax havens. They are very loosely connected to the UK, so the line runs to the queen. I suppose she might have to appoint a governor if all hell broke loose.
I forgot about the Channel islands; thanks for reminding me.
Interestingly, they are the possessions that have been under the control of the Royal family for the longest time, longer even than England. They are the last remnants of the Duchy of Normandy that are still under the control of the Queen. They’re not part of the U.K., although Parliament can legislate for them. Each of them has their own local system of government, derived from their feudal history.
I read up a little on the Channel Islands and a couple of them actually have their own royalty (eg L’Ecrehous) but those that do are so small and sparsely inhabited that the royalty generally makes up the entire population. Of course I read this in a bunch of travel guides so the info is probably a little suspect. Anyone?
Cave Diem! Carpe Canem!
Actually, Mary II and George I were the legitimate heirs after eliminating from consideration all Roman Catholics. (William III came along for the ride when Mary, a good Protestant wife, refused to be Queen unless her husband got to be King, leading to the one occasion when England [and Scotland] had two joint monarchs.)
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
I’m afraid I don’t agree with this statement, because of the phrase “after eliminatinng all Roman Catholics.” That was the nub of the crisis.
Prior to the accession of William and Mary (“England ruled by an orange”), there was no constitutional requirement that the monarch not be a Roman Catholic. James VII (II of England) was a Roman Catholic when he ascended the throne. After William came over to England and James fled, a convention (not a Parliament, since it had not been summoned by the King) met and offered the throne to William and Mary, on the condition that they would then grant royal assent to the Bill of Rights, which barred Roman Catholics from the throne. They accepted on those terms, became joint monarchs, and promptly gave royal assent. It was only at that point that being a Roman Catholic barred someone from the throne.
Thus, they became monarchs by means of a constitutional amendment (to use a modern term) that altered the terms of succession, not by strict hereditary claim. If heriditary claim had governed, James VII (II) would have been succeeded by his son, James, and then by Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Granted, William and Mary both had a heriditary claim (Mary was the daughter of James VII (II), and William was his nephew, grandson of Charles I, but their heriditary claim ranked them after James’s son James (Seamus Mhic Seamus).
Anybody who can deal with the fact that the thing you do when something is humourous is pronounced laff and spelled laugh can deal with the fact that the head of state of a Canadian province is pronounced leftenant-governor and spelled lieutenant-governor.
Ah. I had forgotten for the moment about baby “James III”.
But you must remember that the warming-pan story, true or false, was believed by many.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
John,
just how big was a warming pan in those days, anyway? I’ve always thought of them as about the size of a large frying pan on a long handle, but that obviously wouldn’t hold even a wee bairn.
In any event, it’s appropriate to comment on this thread that today is the 254th anniversary of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s unfurling of the royal standard at Glenfinnan (August 19, 1745):
O Theàrlaich mhic Sheumais, mhic Sheumais, mhis Theàrlaich,
Leat shiubhlainn gu h-eutrom’n am éighlich bhith màrsal
matt,
hate to quibble with a fellow canuck, but the LtGov is not the head of state of a province; the Queen is. The LtGov acts in her name. For example, the LtGov gives royal assent to a bill, but the enacting clause of the bill usually reads, “Her Majesty, by and with the consent of the Legislative Assembly, enacts…” (Except in Quebec, where it reads “the Parlement of Quebec enacts…”, which is the phrase they use to avoid mentioning HM.)
correction: tomorrow is the anniversary, not today (I really shouldn’t try to post things this early in the morning.)
matt’s comments about the LeftGov. reminded me of a time I gave a tour of our Legislature to a friend from South Carolina. At the end of it, she asked me why we always required our Governor to be left-handed.
I don’t know – newborns are quite small, and they were even smaller then; and I suppose a royal warming pan might also be a bit larger than the norm.
Again, many people at the time believed it, so it must have been at least superficially credible.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
thought I’d bump this, as it’s one of our more detailed discussions on the role of the monarchy, a topic which comes up from time to time.