For you lovers, admirers, fans of British royalty:

[Ocelot II]

18. Bingo. Whatever bad shit England got up to in its history,

which is also our history, was the work of many people and institutions. England had had a parliament for centuries; following the house arrest, trial and execution of Charles I by the Parliament in 1649 (obviously he wasn't really in control of things at that point), there was an interregnum during which England, led by Oliver Cromwell, declared itself a republic. During this period Cromwell brutally conquered Ireland and invaded Scotland, then returned to England and dissolved Parliament. A reconstituted Parliament then declared Cromwell "Lord Protector for life." Under Cromwell's rule Britain continued the expansion of its empire. After his death, and notwithstanding his objections to monarchy, Cromwell was succeeded as Lord Protector by his son Richard. Richard had no power base in Parliament or the Army and was forced to resign in May 1659, ending the Protectorate. Concluding that the republic thing hadn't worked out so well after all, Parliament invited Charles II back from exile and restored him to the throne in 1660. He was succeeded by his brother James II, who was basically chased off the throne after constant battles with Parliament in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and replaced by William of Orange and Mary. The Glorious Revolution established the primacy of parliamentary sovereignty.

English history consists of constant battles between forces of the monarchy, the church(es), and elected representatives. England hasn't had an absolute monarch since the early middle ages (if even then), as much as many of them wanted to be one, and to place all the evils of the empire on the shoulders of increasingly weak monarchs is to completely ignore or misunderstand this complex history. I am not advocating for monarchy; it's clearly an antiquated and unnecessary form of government that still survives only as a historical and symbolic relic. The monarchs of Britain and the other European countries that still have them are essentially powerless and ceremonial, serving only as titular heads of state, not heads of government. Any of those countries, all of which are also representative democracies, could abolish their monarchies through acts of their parliaments but so far they have chosen not to do so. It makes no more sense to heap hate on the soap-opera Windsor family that it does to hate the Kardashians.