Speaking of execution:
Suppose Chuck assassinated Elizabeth, a not unheard of way of speeding up the inevitable. Would he still become King, as others have in the past, and would he be put on trial? Assuming he’d be found guilty, what would be the punishment? And then there’s William . . . .
My guess? The UK would remove the monarch and go full republic. There’s a substantial part of the population that has no interest in maintaining a monarchy and such a crazy event might be just the push they need to get rid of the Windsors entirely.
Bah!
The big ceremonies bring in the tourists by the droves, and they spend like crazy buying up coronation souvenirs, in addition to the hotel, meals, etc. that they buy. They will probably need a year’s worth of time just to sell all the tickets, etc. to customers.
Which is why the wedding of the Cambridges was such a low-key affair. Oh, wait a minute . . .
What’s the point of the British monarchy if they don’t throw large shindigs from time to time? They’re in show business, after all, and I think they’re smart enought to realise that.
Not unheard of, but hasn’t happened on England for over 500 years, so not particularly likely.
However, if it were to happen, and he was convicted of murder or treason, the penalty would be life imprisonment.
FWIW Septimus, I thought it was hilarious.
it’s a big party to organise!
Aw, I like your sense of humor, septimus. (Better than mine, anyway.)
A substantial minority, Mr. Finn. We have a working arrangement in the English-speaking world. The Yanks get the republicans and the Brits take the monarchists.
Extra seating inside for all the guests, an annex where processions could form (I think maybe the main people had a small lunch before leaving, and also I believe the abbey itself has no toilets), and stands outside along the route for the public to sit in.
…so he was an ex-king?
He’d be the king; he couldn’t be convicted of murder or treason or anything else without first being deposed, or without first granting his assent to legislation limiting his sovereign immunity to the extent necessary to enable him to be charged and tried. And either of those would be constitutionally revolutionary steps.
Speaking of long waits, the king of Tonga is scheduled to be crowned next July, more than three years after the death of the previous king.
It also wouldn’t be the first time such constitutionally revolutionary steps had been taken.
[QUOTE=Lord Feldon]
Extra seating inside for all the guests, an annex where processions could form (I think maybe the main people had a small lunch before leaving, and also I believe the abbey itself has no toilets), and stands outside along the route for the public to sit in.
[/QUOTE]
This. The galleries inside the Abbey quadrupled the seating capacity. Moreover, those had to be constructed inside a building stuffed full of historic monuments. There was also an issue about sourcing materials, as the government was in the middle of its huge post-war house building programme. A point was therefore made of reusing as much of the materials as possible afterwards. As for the cost, the Ministry of Works recouped what it spent by selling places in the stands in Westminster Square and outside Buckingham Palace.
It has been suggested that next time one option would be not to provide so much extra seating in order to shorten the preparation time. The argument might be that the TV coverage makes a crucial difference. In 1952 the initial preparations were made on the assumption that only parts of the ceremony would be televised live. It could therefore be argued that, as television coverage can be taken for granted, it is now less important for as many people as possible to be inside the Abbey. Except try telling that to the thousands of VIPs who would find themselves deprived of an invitation.
To add a little bit of an excursion, the royal coronations are also historically of relevance in that they provided the landmark cases for the doctrine of frustration of purpose in common law.
Yes, that’s why we thought we had better replace him.
My guess would be that no-one would ever find out that he had done it. Either the official line would be that the Queen had died of something else or someone would be framed for her assassination. Chuck would be made to abdicate in favour of his son, Billy (a move that would be favoured by the British public anyway). Chuck would then disappear from the public view quietly and without fuss. There would then be a VERY big coronation for Billy to make everyone forget that anything had ever happened, and we’d all live happily ever after.
Royal assent for such legislation could, however, also be achieved by other means. The Lords Commissioners, to whom the granting of royal assent is delegated in actual practice (the last monarch to grant assent in person was Victoria), could assent to such legislation in the name of the very monarch to be convicted. Of course this would not be in the interest of the person in whose name the Lords Commissioners are, at least in legal fiction, acting; but if they manage to get it done before the monarch dismisses the Lords Commissioners, the Act of Parliament to which they assented in the monarch’s name would be legally effective. I think this would be a more elegant way of dealing with the problem than disposing of the monarch revolutionarily.
There’s a more constitutionally-sound method available. The regency acts allow three out of (IIRC) the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Lord Chancellor, a few judges, and the monarch’s spouse to declare the monarch unfit and install a regent. It’s only supposed to be done for medical reasons, but the law just requires that they say it’s for medical reasons, not that their declaration be truthful.
Even an involuntary abdication could be handled that way, although it would take two steps as the current law forbids the regent from assenting to a bill changing the line of succession (but not from changing the powers of the regent).