What were the problems of monarchy before the revolution?

Question

I believe that the main problems of anarchy was it made kings abuse their power, even if their was parliament. I also believe that a behavior mainly affect a society, which means if you have a bad king, then you will have a bad society. Can you give me other ideas of the problems of monarchy

Answer 1

there are 3 main problems with a monarchy.  first, they put most if not all of the power in the hands of one man or woman.  this is fine if the ruler is a good one and doesn't abuse power, but there are no checks on that power.  the ruler is able to appoint who he wants and a certain amount of power will lead to corruption in most cases.  the second and most important is that most monarchies are hereditary meaning that power is passed down through one family.  this again is fine if it is a good ruler, but every family has its bad apple and sooner or later one of them will ascend to the throne.  if power stays in one family for too long that family is deified and are seen as infallible or ordained by God.  sooner or later this will happen and the people begin to follow blindly.  when the people realize the error in the system it will sometimes lead to outright revolt.  the monarchy will also begin to see themselves as ordained by God and not be willing to give power to the people as was seen in Russia in the early 20th century.  finally, when a ruler dies there can be a power struggle.  kings typically have many children and if an heir isn't named then many will fight to gain power.  in a perfect world a monarchy is the best way to govern.  with a righteous monarch the kingdom will be well looked after and ruled fairly, but that is seldom the case over time.  if you want good insight on the subject read Machiavelli.  he explains the good and bad of all forms of government.

Answer 2

Which revolution?  

One problem with monarchy is that it is not a merit-based system.  Monarchs usually just inherit their power, unless they have fought another monarch for it.  The people the monarch rules have nothing to do with it--nor do intelligence and abililty.  You're just not going to get the best leader this way.

Answer 3

It would assist to know what monarchs and what revolutions you are referring to. It would also be helpful if you were to define your terms - in particular what do you mean by a 'bad society'. I would have thought, however, that if you assume a revolution overthrows a bad monarch, then you accept that society cannot be bad - as it, or part of it, sees the wrong in the monarch.

Answer 4

I'd have to disagree with monarchs abusing their power. You may have been fed that claptrap from birth, but look at the UK for an example of a working monarchy. The Queen is thoroughly regulated by an elected parliament. Her powers are mostly ceremonial.

Answer 5

Succession was a huge problem. The absence of a strong male heir  in direct line for the throne could cause a struggle for power among the most powerful nobles.  In England, this happened repeatedly.  The death of Edward, who came to the throne on the death of his father, HenryVIII, created such a struggle.  Read about what happened to his successor, Lady Jane Grey. Ambitious nobles made a h**l of the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots, That's a long and tragic story.

In some countries, the effort to concentrate power in the hands of the royal family lead to terrible inbreeding resulting in insanity and deformity. This was obviously true in some periods of monarchy in Spain.

I think that the main problem of monarchy was that the court life that developed in sophisticated countries so alienated the monarch from the  conditions of daily life for ordinary subjects that  they lost any sense of economic reality

You can see this in the French revolution, the Russian revolution and to some degree in the revolution that lead to the beheading of CharlesI in England..