Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Can someone explain to me how the monarchies of England and Great Britain work


Can someone explain to me how the monarchies of England and Great Britain work?
For example, the relation between the two separate monarchies? If they're even separate to begin with? I've been trying to do research on it, but I'm a little confused. Different websites have been giving me different answers. If you can explain this to me, thanks in advance :)
Royalty - 6 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
England is PART of Great Britain, which is an island, and Great Britain is part of the United Kingdom, which includes Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom is part (the superior part, monarchically) of the Commonwealth of Nations which used to be called the British Commonwealth, and essentially began (but the countries and reasons why they belong have changed dramatically) as the British Empire. Is that what you need?
2 :
Yes they were both Scotland and England were made up of petty Kingdoms which eventually unified into there own nations. For centuries the two crowns were completely separate. Elizabeth I was the last of the Tudors her closest relation was James VI, King of Scotland. He was the great grandson of her aunt Margaret Tudor and through a secret agreement she named him heir. Elizabeth was Queen of two independent countries England and Ireland. James I then became King of England, Scotland and Ireland. They however remained separate kingdoms with there own parliaments and none were too keen on unification. It would be over a century before Great Britain would emerge. James II and VII was James I grandson. He was a catholic while the Scottish and English people were mostly protestant. The highly protestant parliament dislike James because as a Catholic he though he was unaccountable to them. This lead to his disposition and his protestant daughter and her husband were invited by the parliaments to have the thrones. She was succeeded by her sister Anne (who was childless) the last Protestant Stuart. England decided it would not tolerate another catholic King and so ruled that a distant but protestant relative from Germany would succeed to the throne. Scotland however was more inclined to accept the Catholic Stuarts. England did not want to risk having a catholic nation in her backyard. Scotland was also bankrupt from failed attempts at trying to establish colonies. To stop any chance of a Catholic neighbour England offered Scotland a choice union and England would give Scotland the same money they lost in their colonial ventures taking it out of poverty and in exchange they would become one Kingdom. After debate in both Parliaments the bill got through and the English and Scottish Parliaments merged to form a new British Parliament and the Kingdom of Great Britain was created in 1707. It was not until a 1800 that Ireland joined the union and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was formed. in 1922 The Irish free state succeeded from the union but 6 counties in the north remained in the union and hence the UK is now the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
3 :
There is only one, the monarchy of the United Kingdom. I'm British and I know our country can be confusing but it goes like this. If I explain the history in the shortest way I can that'll probably be the most helpful way. Great Britain is the name of the main island, so it means England + Scotland + Wales. It means nothing more than that. They were originally separate countries but in the 1500s England took over Wales, and in 1707 England/Wales united with Scotland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Then it started to take over Ireland and in 1800 Ireland became part of the United Kingdom. Most of the Irish never really liked it and "the Irish problem" has raged ever since (I was nearly killed by Irish terrorists nearly 30 years ago when they exploded a car bomb outside the store I was shopping in) - anyway, in 1922, most of Ireland got its independence apart from a small part in the north where most of the people wanted to stay British because their families were originally from Scotland anyway. The minority there that didn't still complain about it and that's why we had the terrorism and also why political parties in Northern Ireland are totally different from in the rest of the UK. So now the full name of the country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That's a bit of a mouthful so we just call it Britain or the UK for short. You can't make an adjective out of it either so we call UK people British, just as US people are American. (While I'm thinking of it, a mistake Americans often make is to talk about England when they really mean Britain - this really annoys the Scots and the Welsh!) Now for monarchy. England and Scotland used to have separate monarchies because they were separate countries, and Wales was never totally united before England took it over. In 1603, Queen Elizabeth I of England died childless, and because her aunt Margaret married the King of Scotland, it so happened that the nearest relative eligible to be King of England was the King of Scotland - so King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England at the same time. Every king and queen after that was king or queen of both England and Scotland at the same time, until the Union of 1707. And that's the monarchy we have now - the monarchy of the United Kingdom. I hope that cleared it up.
4 :
Thats easy they just suck blood from the peasants, they dont work
5 :
The lower classes are bored with their lives so they need to worship something. They see a queen on the news and they accept to pay the price. They are called commoners and they don't mind.
6 :
There is only one monarchy - the monarchy of the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Great Britain is the island countaining England, Scotland and Wales. King James VI of Scotland inherited the English crown in 1603, creating a single kingdom. That kingdom united politically in 1707 creating a single new country. Queen Elizabeth II is the queen of the entire United Kingdom.