How to make Britain a Republic BESIDES Cromwell?

I would suggest that the current King could be impeached by Parliment (OK, so it has never happened but it is possible under the agreement that Willaim and Mary signed with parliment after the Glorious Revolution) and replaced with the heir apparent.

This might be a problem if the heir apparent is very young. Possibly you could get another Glorious Revolution with another foreign King.

I still feel that a popular uprising NOT supported by the majority of Parliment would fail if for other reason that weapons were not readily available (except farm impliments and whilst these are dangerous they are not designed for street fighting or pitch battles).

It's possible you could get a situation where the Kings and the Lords are on one side, the Commons is split, and the People are angry.

How does the availability of weapons contrast with the French Revolution?
 
I have been playing with the idea of a TL where the Chartist movement was much bigger and more threatening a group of MPs and industrialists seeing what way the wind is blowing and aiming to head off any sort of revolutionary movement throw in their lot with a "Glorious Alliance" of industry, trades, and the moderate wing of Chartism reform parliament and agree that Victoria will be the last monarch.

Mildly ASBish.
 
I would suggest that the current King could be impeached by Parliment (OK, so it has never happened but it is possible under the agreement that Willaim and Mary signed with parliment after the Glorious Revolution) and replaced with the heir apparent.
Really? I've read the English Bill of Rights, and I don't remember its saying that. Which section are you referring to?
 
You guys are getting sidetracked. It was never about using the heir to threaten the king with impeachment and having him replaced. The principle rather is that you use the lobbying weight of the heir to threaten the king with actively opposing the king's policy in public - which was a highly damaging act - coupled with the heir telling his father that when the king us dead he will go out of his way to reverse the recently deceased king's decisions and his public legacy, thus making it pointless for the king to continue. Since the king has no power to disinherit an heir, it essentially made the king's continued resistance an act of stubbornness in the face of inevitable eventual failure of policy, rather than an act of political conscience.

British royals - especially Hanoverian ones - were renowned for lifetime long bickering with their parents and children, making the threat more than just an idle claim. If an heir swore to oppose his father, he rarely backed down later.
 
The last major show down between the Crown and the Commons was over the Peoples Budget in 1909, and that ended with the Crown / House of Lords climbing down and giving in.

My understanding was that Edward VII sided with the Liberal majority in Commons over the People's Budget and agreed to pack the House of Lords with hundreds of newly-appointed Liberal peers to break the standoff if the Liberals demonstrated persistent popular support for their policies by winning two consecutive general elections. Edward died in 1910 before this could happen, but George V took much the same position, and it was George's threat to pack the House of Lords that convinced the Lords to acquiesce to the Parliament Act of 1911.
 
The other thing that would help is a opposition with better nationwide organization and organization less prone to infiltration by spies.
 
Really? I've read the English Bill of Rights, and I don't remember its saying that. Which section are you referring to?

The part that declares William and Mary the joint monarchs and that James II has abdicated.

This gives Parliment the right to vote the reigning monarch out of office, and it was signed by Royalty so it became defacto the way to remove a sitting monarch.
 
The part that declares William and Mary the joint monarchs and that James II has abdicated.

This gives Parliment the right to vote the reigning monarch out of office, and it was signed by Royalty so it became defacto the way to remove a sitting monarch.
And whereas the said late King James the Second having abdicated the government and the throne being thereby vacant... the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons assembled at Westminster do resolve that William and Mary, prince and princess of Orange, be and be declared king and queen of England, France and Ireland and the dominions thereunto belonging...
Not quite. They said James had already abdicated, and therefore they voted William and Mary into office. There was a big debate about what exactly amounted to James's abdicating - was it his tyrannical acts or his fleeing the country? - but everyone agreed that he had already abdicated; Parliament was not deposing him but recognizing a preexisting state. Of course, since James still claimed to be king, there wasn't any difference at the moment - but no, it isn't a precedent for Parliament deposing a king just because they feel like it. They'd need to think up some proper excuses along the lines of the Bill of Rights.
 
Not quite. They said James had already abdicated, and therefore they voted William and Mary into office. There was a big debate about what exactly amounted to James's abdicating - was it his tyrannical acts or his fleeing the country? - but everyone agreed that he had already abdicated; Parliament was not deposing him but recognizing a preexisting state. Of course, since James still claimed to be king, there wasn't any difference at the moment - but no, it isn't a precedent for Parliament deposing a king just because they feel like it. They'd need to think up some proper excuses along the lines of the Bill of Rights.

I will concede the point to you, but if the Monarch refuses to sign an Act into Law, can that monarch not be accussed of trying to override the will of Parliment, therefor giving Parliment a reason to think it was an act of abdication. In the same way that Parliment forces Edward VIII to abdicate rather than make Mrs Simpson Quuen Consort?
 
If Queen Victoria's withdrawal from public life after Albert's death was more protracted and more extreme, the monarchy's popularity would suffer. If more scandals about Bertie's private life came out, then the position of the royals is in serious stuff.
 
Queen Victoria's withdrawel is probably the closest you get and was certainly pretty near the 'modern' monarchy's lowest ebb.
Her retreat was seen as a dereliction of duty as she wasn't undertaken any of what were regarded as the public side of her duties combined with a reluctance to allow her son to undertake any duty that normally would be the preserve of the monarch.
Her longevity and the general sense of Britain's superior parliamentarian system (however corrupt) saved the crown in the 19th C.
Even in the darkest days of the abdication crisis republicanism was a minor issue and despite the royal family's view of the danger of Edward VIII's actions it wasn't a serious threat.
Cromwell gave republicanism a bad name even at the height of the Glorious Revolution and thereafter it was a scramble to find a willing Protestant Royal willing to work with Parliament to preserve the status quo.
I suspect that would have been the result of any crisis over Ernst Augusts succession if you remove Victoria - a simple Parliamentarian assault on the crown based on his perceived betrayal of the principles of Britain's parliamentarian monarchy - there were plenty of alternates in waiting.
 
Queen Victoria's withdrawel is probably the closest you get and was certainly pretty near the 'modern' monarchy's lowest ebb.
Her retreat was seen as a dereliction of duty as she wasn't undertaken any of what were regarded as the public side of her duties combined with a reluctance to allow her son to undertake any duty that normally would be the preserve of the monarch.
Her longevity and the general sense of Britain's superior parliamentarian system (however corrupt) saved the crown in the 19th C.
Even in the darkest days of the abdication crisis republicanism was a minor issue and despite the royal family's view of the danger of Edward VIII's actions it wasn't a serious threat.
Cromwell gave republicanism a bad name even at the height of the Glorious Revolution and thereafter it was a scramble to find a willing Protestant Royal willing to work with Parliament to preserve the status quo.
I suspect that would have been the result of any crisis over Ernst Augusts succession if you remove Victoria - a simple Parliamentarian assault on the crown based on his perceived betrayal of the principles of Britain's parliamentarian monarchy - there were plenty of alternates in waiting.

Have to agree, at the end of the day Parliment has MORE power in a constitutional monarchy than the equivilent in a republic. They are bound to want to retain the status quo, prehaps with a more malliable head of state.
 
Top