(00:00): Hello and welcome to the Merlin English Afterthought. Throughout this series we'll be looking back at previous audio blogs and discussing them in a bit more detail.

(00:09): Today we'll be looking at episode number 6, the native audio blog, titled Monarchy in the Modern Age. Of course then I'm here at www.merlinenglish.co.uk/members where we have this episode's full webpage along with the transcription and additional resources.

(00:27): The question then of the monarchy in the modern age is something that for many people, they might not even ever think about.

(00:36): However, for us in Britain, this is a question and a conversation that is becoming more and more relevant. It seems like now more than ever people are questioning the need for a monarchy and the legitimacy of a royal family.

(00:54): Here then we're going to look at the evolution, we're going to see that this is not the first time that the monarchy has not had the full support of the public.

(01:03): Here we're going to be looking at, yeah, kings and queens who have been executed, who have been exiled, overthrown and restructured.

(01:13): And we can see that, ah, yeah, monarchies have the potential to, do great things and do very, very good things for a country but also, sometimes if unchecked, their power can be abused slightly.

(01:28): So, we're going to look then at the differences then today between an absolute monarchy and a constitutional monarchy. So just to give some brief bits of history then, for Europe, most countries in the 15th to 18th centuries did in fact have a monarchy and these monarchies were often absolute monarchies

(01:51): And an absolute monarchy is when a monarch holds absolute power. They are the person, holding the influence. They have unchecked power and they can essentially do whatever they please.

(02:07): Now for some they might argue that this is a more stable system if we think for us where we have presidents and prime ministers coming in every four years, sort of switching back and forth.

(02:18): Some may argue that this is not the most efficient system and a structure of governance like an absolute monarchy where you have perhaps one person in charge for, 30 years.

(02:31): Somebody might argue that that does have some more stability to it. However, as is the case with human nature where there is power, there tends to be corruption, and we can see countless examples of where absolute monarchy is have abused that power and used it in a way which is perhaps a bit questionable

(02:54): So some common things that you would see, some common issues that you would see with absolute monarchies is the issue of overplaying their hand.

(03:02): So you will often see that kings and queens would maybe impose additional taxes, maybe they would enforce laws or make certain decisions on foreign policy, and they wouldn't need anybody's authority to do that.

(03:18): They could act by themselves because an absolute monarch holds absolutely all power. Nowadays then, most monarchies that exist are in fact constitutional monarchies.

(03:31): Absolute monarchies are perhaps seen as something of the past. However, there still are some countries which do hold which do have absolute monarchies.

(03:41): The most common, of course, being Saudi Arabia. We can also see this in like Brunei, Oman.

(03:50): We can see, these countries still have absolute monarchies but yeah, as I mentioned, this is something which has changed quite significant over the years.

(04:00): So, a constitutional monarchy, a constitutional monarchy is more where the kings and queens have very limited power and they are more of a symbolic role or they're in a position of a ceremonial position.

(04:17): Constitutional monarchies, of course, do not make any laws, they are held to account by parliament and, politicians which, in most cases, are, democratically elected.

(04:31): Now, constitutional monarchies, of course, have benefits, such as bringing in a lot of tourism, they have things such as, soft power, but, some may also argue, as we saw in the, audio blog, that the cost of, maintaining a constitutional monarchy can sometimes outweigh the benefits that they bring.

(04:55): Now, some notable constitutional monarchies that you can see around the world would probably be, the UK is the most popular, the British royal family, we can also see in Japan they would have a constitutional monarchy, Sweden as well.

(05:11): And here we're going to explore how Britain went from an absolute monarchy into a constitutional monarchy. We're going to explore the evolution of that.

(05:22): So, the, if we look back in history there are, a few key dates which people might point to when, when considering how, when considering how the monarchy evolved.

(05:34): The first year which people would point to would be the year 1215. Now in the year 1215 a very famous and very iconic document was signed and this was the document called the Magna Carta.

(05:48): So if we pull up a little image here we can see that sat at the table, King John. Now King John was not the most popular of kings.

(05:59): During his reign he was seen to impose high taxes. He was seen to abuse his powers and this caused the barons to rise up and protest against the king.

(06:12): So a baron, a baron is a nobleman but really the lowest level of noblemen. These are almost the commoners among the elite.

(06:21): So as King John really pushed the boundaries of his power, we can see that these barons got together and pushed back against that, and this almost caused a civil war within England, and the way that that was avoided was by them coming together and signing this document which we call the Magna Carta.

(06:44): So this document was quite revolutionary for the time. This was the first time that a British monarch had had his authority challenged in such a way, and the Magna Carta essentially laid out the rules that the King was subject to the same laws as the regular people.

(07:06): Now, this was also the first time that private property rights were also given to barons, and this essentially meant that the King or the Queen or the monarch at the time could not just come and take anybody's land this document made sure that there was a process, a due process that people must go through.

(07:26): And they also stopped the monarchy, the kings and queens, from being able to impose taxes as they pleased, it meant this had to go through a government system for the first time.

(07:38): Now, when this document was initially signed, it was not instantly successful. In fact shortly after signing it, King John tried to annul this this agreement and tried to go backwards on a lot of the promises.

(07:53): However, when we look back in history, we really note the Magna Carta as the first foundation for transitioning from a absolute monarchy into a constitutional monarchy and thus a democracy within England.

(08:12): The next day then, the next day then that we might mention in the evolution of the English monarchy from absolute to constitutional would be in the 17th century.

(08:23): So the 17th century was really a time of chaos and a time of great change for the monarchy and this was because in 1642 they had the English Civil War.

(08:39): Now the English Civil War was fought between parliamentarians and the royalists. So you had people who supported the idea of a parliament and you had people who supported the idea of the monarchy, the royal family.

(08:56): Now at the time the king in charge was King Charles I and King Charles I was the first and last king to ever be tried and executed for treason. Now it's worth noting that at the time a king or a monarch was seen as divine.

(09:16): Kings and queens were before seen as the messenger between God and the people. So you imagine that these people were had a great power and were thought of as, you know, gods almost. So to see a king get tried and then executed was really a monumental event happened.

(09:38): So we can see then the English Civil War lasted throughout the 1640s so there were actually two civil wars that were fought and we can see just how much the map changed.

(09:49): So by 1646 the parliamentarians had taken over England led by Oliver Cromwell and then by 1649, 1659 we had established what was called the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Wales.

(10:07): Now, once King Charles I was executed, the leader of the parliamentarians, Oliver Cromwell, then became the leader of the Commonwealth,

(10:19): the English, Scottish, Commonwealth. However, as is the case with many figures in history, it wasn't long until Oliver Cromwell soon started to become the authoritarian ruler which he so desperately fought against in King Charles I and essentially while Oliver Cromwell ruled for a while, by 1660,

(10:48): the monarchy returned, with King Charles II, who was in exile in France at the time, and he came back and people were very happy for the monarchy to come back. Som people saw this as a form of stability for the country and people did welcome back King Charles II along with some reforms to how, to the power of the monarchy.

(11:14): So again this was another critical decade, so you had the english civil war, the first one and the second one. And by the time the monarchy was reinstated, it was again one step closer to being a constitutional monarchy.

(11:29): The next key date then was also in the 17th century. And this was in the year 1688. And 1688 was the year of the glorious revolution and this was a time when, obviously religion was huge in England in the past, the most common sectors being for Catholics and Protestants and in, towards the end of the 1600s, we saw people were concerned by the influence of the Catholic church had in the monarchy and in the royal family.

(12:10): And essentially the king at the time, King James II was essentially exiled from England and instead a Dutch king, King William of Orange, was brought in from the Netherlands to become the ruler of England.

(12:28): Now he was a Protestant and this was known as the Glorious Revolution. Because it was a revolution that actually didn't spill much blood.

(12:36): It was a very peaceful transition of power. Now, as King William of Orange came into power, he passed what we now know as the Bill of Rights, and this was a year later in 1689, and this was a bill which essentially echoed the ideas of a constitutional monarchy.

(12:58): So again, puts King and Queen and the monarch accountable to parliament. They had to answer to parliament, really, and again, gave people the rights to a fair trial.

(13:11): So it's all about the power transitioning from one person, a monarch, with absolute power to having a system in place, a legal system, with appointed officials, and again, this was a bill, a huge bill, which also showed the movement of the monarchy transitioning from absolute monarchy into constitutional monarchy.

(13:38): So as you can see, this is a process which happens over a very long time. We have the Magna Carta in the 1200s, the Bill of Rights in the 1600s. We see over these 400 years that slow slowly the changes happening, but of course this takes a lot of time.

(13:56): The next key date we might look at then, would be in the 1700s, the early 1700s, in 1714. And this was when we had the death of Queen Anne, so this symbolised the end of the steward period of time and during this time there was nobody to take the throne, Queen Anne was the last queen of succession.

(14:22): So, a new monarch had to be brought in and this monarch was actually from Germany and this was George I and he belonged to what was known as the House of Hanover.

(14:32): Now the House of Hanover, they operated in Germany under a constitutional monarchy. So this is something which they were ahead of the English royal family.

(14:43): This is something that they were already doing in Germany. So when the transition went from the royal family into the House of Hanover, we saw again more changes and a shift more towards this constitutional style of governance.

(15:02): Now, additionally, this royal family were, of course, German and they spent a lot of time in Germany, they were a bit more removed from the English royal family, and this again limited the amount of power and the amount of influence that the monarchy and that that royal family had at the time.

(15:22): By the 19th century then we had the Reforms Act and this was an act which essentially solidified the position of the monarchy as wholly symbolical.

(15:35): They had very limited political power and, really, they were just a symbol of culture more than anything. So from the Magna Carta 1215 to the Reform Acts in the 1800s, 600 years of change, 600 years of evolution, and we can see how the monarchy monarch's power has already been removed and has instead been replaced by a democracy and a parliament.

(16:03): Now I'm going to pull up a quick graph here and this shows how popular the royal family is with young people, old people, and the population of Britain as a whole.

(16:17): So the question here then is do you think Britain should continue to have a monarchy in the future or should it be replaced with an elected head of state?

(16:27): So we can see quite dramatic changes here in opinion between young people and old people. We can see that in the 18 to 24 range, we can see that only 37% of people do support the royal family.

(16:41): We can then see that 40% of people would prefer to have an elected head of state, 24% unsure. If we compare that to people who are over 65, we can see that the vast majority, 80% of them, do support the monarchy.

(16:58): Only 15% would support an elected head and 4% do not know. So we can see that then a vast variety and range of opinion towards the monarchy.

(17:11): The question is, as the you younger generation get older, will their minds change? Will they become more supportive of the monarchy?

(17:20): Or will they force a change from monarchy to elected head of state? So an elected would be similar to what they would have in places like Germany, where they would have an elected official, somebody who has done great things for a country,

(17:36): somebody who is held in high regard and is respected, and this person of course would be elected by either the public or by the politicians who of course would have been appointed there by the local population.

(17:53): So as we've seen today then, the monarchy and the royal family, these are institutions that have had their power questioned a lot over the years.

(18:06): So far they have managed to remain, so far they have managed to hold their position. The question is that in the future will this continue?

(18:13): As, you know, we are moving more towards the idea of democracy and people's rights and freedoms. I think that it's going to be interesting to see just how people continue to view a system which is so undemocratic.

(18:30): Let me know what you think. Leave a comment below. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for watching until the end and I will hopefully see you in the next one.