Hyperbole mine. Actually, a couple of not-widely-divergent Tabloids have, in the past three weeks, published headlines, one that “Dying Charles names Prince Harry as heir” and then “Dying Queen names Prince William” to the throne. Since this is my day to Piss Off The Brits, I’ll add in that the only ones who wouldn’t be happy if the Entire Royal Family fell over suddenly dead… would be the worms. “Oh, MAN, we gotta eat THIS?”
There could, you know, be a Wonderful for All Mankind palace intrigue like in Hamlet, final scene, where the only people left alive were the servants.
I’d go to the State Mass Funeral… bid fare-thee-Hell to the largest and most destructive Hereditary Dictatorship in history.
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There’s a bit of legal stuff I should mention, in all fairness to their Royal Lownesses… Neither the Queen nor the Heir Apparent (in this case Charles the Last) can actually name the successor to the throne.
There were civil wars fought in England over the issue. The last King Charles lost his head thinking himself above all Civil Authority and Law. Kind of like Richard the Chickenheart Cheney does, he used the legal definition that Rex est Lex, meaning “the king, in his own person, IS the Law”.
He failed to press his case in court with that. BUT that wasn’t what got his royal neck carved. Nay, what happened to cause that was a rumor that he was a Closet Catholic. Thus, not Legally The King.
Since the only people who knew the truth of that matter have been dead for nearly 350 years, and the only written records of it were compiled and in the custody of the people who had him killed in the first place, that part might be in doubt.
It IS, however, the publicly stated reason.
In order for somebody to ascend to the throne now, it would take acts of Parliament, Commons first, then Lords, and iirc, Commons again.
The ritualistic bullshit involved has a few qualifiers, that the candidate for succession not be a Catholic and that (s)he is actually a member of the Royal family.
That combination is why Bess the Second is queen today, because her Probably-Not-Really ancestor George Hanover became king even though he wasn’t British and didn’t speak English. He’s probably not her or anybody else’s ancestor because he was openly gay. (not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just that he probably wasn’t George the Seconds actual father)
What it boils down to, neither Elizabeth nor Charles could ever name who will be the next monarch. The next monarch will, however, have the family estates, taken by force from the People of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland etc etc etc etc etc (see my upcoming post about the Great Muslim Isle of Mann Conspiracy) and their Royal Treasures, also taken either from British and Irish Labor or BY the commoners who had to do the fighting for their Noble Masters, from other nations.
And at least a Nominal Dictatorship. Inherited from a family tradition of Spectacularly Successful Organized Crime.