Monarchy Vs. Democracy

4 Pages 1123 Words

Monarchy, in various shades and formulations, was the modern government of civilized people. Every European nation was governed by a Monarch, and the British empire was especially proud of its "mixed" form of government—the finest form yet developed. The prevailing political theory of the day was that any pure form of government, be it monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, would ultimately collapse. Each of these was susceptible to despotism, so the only rational system would be one whereby two or more pure forms were played off each other in order to achieve a sort of balance. Great Britain, with its King (monarchy), its House of Lords (aristocracy), and its Parliament (republican-democracy) was touted as the most perfectly constituted government ever. Two facts were at hand to demonstrate the reason of that claim. First, that the English people, no matter where they lived in the Empire, enjoyed standards of diet, education, and justice, that were hard to attain outside of the Empire. Second, that the Empire itself had been such a successful mechanism, political and economic, for so long. These arguments were good enough for many people, but there were several problems on the ground. For this ideal English government was not so much designed as it was a devils bargain.
For centuries, philosophers, theologians, and rulers pointed to the downfall of the Roman Empire as the final failure of democracy, and of any purely republican form of government. The only answer to government was to be found in Monarchy. The rule of a Monarch, it was agreed, had to be a contract between the ruler and the ruled. But how would the Monarch be accountable to justice? Well, certainly not by recall from the people at large. The Monarch was supposed to be accountable to God, most immediately through God's emissary in Rome, through the Pope. The balance struck placed God on one side, the King and his subjects on the other. The King had a responsibility to r...