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[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Are you kidding? I'm fascinated with British people and the UK. I love hearing a British woman's accent.

[–]Cornfed 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

To answer the question, in terms of absolute day to day power probably the only ones who ever had it were William I and to some extent Henry VIII. In terms of absolute de jure power and quite a lot of de facto power, they probably never lost it for long, as others as stated. QE2 is vastly wealthy and has the theoretical right to rule many countries in the world as a dictator, some say including the United States.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

answer is they never did

[–]jet199 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Of course the actual reason they don't answer is because the monarchy never lost power.

They just choose not to just it for political purposes.

This is why the British police force is avoiding dealing with Andrew, the Queen can step in at any point and shut the case down but everyone wants to pretend she can't do that.

Just wait until Charles gets crowned then they're in for a shock.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

the royal family let's the british prime minister and other politicians play in a sandbox on matters that don't really matter. But for important issues such as when Quebec was thinking about seceding from Canada, the queen steps in.