Pony tries to eat the Queen's flowers at Stirling Castle but she gently boops its snoot

to George VI (of The King's Speech fame)

I'm cringing at that descriptor. I'm British. I learned about King George VI (and every other monarch going back about a thousand years) in primary school. The King's Speech came decades later and is not why he's famous.

Anyway, the abdication of Edward VIII was a major constitutional crisis for the United Kingdom and you're talking about it like it was no big deal. The monarchy survived his abdication mainly because the public was far more loyal and less sceptical to the institution than today. It shook the establishment to its core because it could have so easily gone the other way. Getting rid of Edward was no walk in the park for the government or the monarchy.

Also, we aren't talking about any member of the royal family limiting their engagements due to age or health. That's a false equivalence right there. The Queen is still the Queen regardless of her health and infirmity. We are talking about a perfectly healthy heir to the throne who has been groomed his entire life to be the next King - who, like the Queen, probably thinks he was chosen by God for that role - stepping down for no good reason in order to pass the baton to William. It undermines the 'divine right of kings' doctrine, it exposes and raises questions about the privileges enjoyed by the heir (for example: why has Charles been profiting from the Duchy of Cornwall since he came of age if he was never going to be King?) and it lays bare the fragile, mythical framework that holds the establishment (monarchy, Church of England and even the House of Lords) together.

The British monarchy scraped through by the skin of their teeth in 1936. These are not "well-charted waters," by a long shot. They are stormy, shark-infested and best avoided altogether for anyone wishing to maintain the status quo. The British masses (now citizens, not subjects as they were back then) are better educated and more politically informed than they used to be. If Charles did something like that there would be in-depth analysis and uncomfortable questions raised about the lottery that is the head of state. There would be a serious risk of the British head of state being democratised.

/r/aww Thread Parent Link - i.imgur.com