Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty
Americans who are tempted to use the death of Queen Elizabeth for an excuse to indulge in a vicarious modern monarchism—all Oprah/Meghan Markle style, no real substance—would do well to remember the harsh facts: the House of Windsor is as important in terms of the British constitution as the Targaryens are to the Iron Throne.
Their motto says it all, in the Norman French of the dynasty before the dynasty before the dynasty before the Windsors’ own: Honi soit qui mal y pense—or, in the contemporary vernacular: Don’t f**k with us—or we’ll f**ck with you.
It’s true that the late Queen played her hand beautifully: since the Glorious Revolution of 1688—which, lest you forget, followed an English revolution, a vicious civil war (one in ten Britons died) and an unsuccessful attempt to restore an absolutist monarchy—British sovereigns have been left with largely negative capabilities.