On Tue, 8 May 2007, David Lodge wrote: > On Mon, 07 May 2007 19:34:39 +0100, Brian Loe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > In it, the > > queen is The Queen even though she was only a Spanish princess before > > marrying The King of England (good ol' Henry VIII). Also, this Henry > > was a Tudor and wasn't he the one that formed the Church of England? > > I wonder whether that's due to simplification, so as not to get the > audience confused.. > > Henry VIII was responsible for forming the Church of England 'cos he was > wanting an annullment (not divorce) for his marriage to Catherine. The > Pope denied this right, forcing ole Hank to make his own church; which is > confusing as it is probably closer to Catholic than Protestant, even > though Catholics are not allowed to be a reigning monarch in the UK. Note > this is one of the reasons why Hank didn't have 5 wives - as the marriage > was annulled, it technically didn't happen. > > > Does this perhaps go back to the original "royal families" of Europe > > (King of England being a cousin of the Kind of France and all that) - > > you would need to come from one of those families to marry and become > > Queen as opposed to being born of a "made" Lord or whatever? > > There were many reasons for the mixing up of the different European royal > families, including good breeding lines, tactical reasons, cementing an > alliance, forging an alliance and last and least, 'cos they liked each > other. Oh course, for most of the middle ages (really up until the start > of the 20th century) the majority of Europe was composed of tiny kingdoms > all over the shop. The large country concept it really a modern thing. > > > Going to have to go read up on him after all - the tv show is just > > entertainment...Anne Boleyn (sp?) is even attractive where as I > > thought she was supposed to be quite ugly (but perhaps that was > > because the English People loved Catherine so much?). > > I doubt the latter - at those times there was a very strong class divide > and the nobility didn't care about the peasants or what they thought... > Cue one civil war later and it was realised that what the English vox > populi really wanted was a monarch to behave like a monarch and not a > puritanical dictator (like Cromwell). No - the Civil War estabished the sovereignty of Parliament. In other words, that we wanted the monarch to behave like a ceremonial figurehead, opening supermarkets and suchlike, while the real power resided in the elected parliament. We call this system "Parliamentary democracy", and it's worked well for us, we haven't had a civil war for over 360 years.
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