To any monarchist reading this, I want to tell you that monarchy is not dead. Monarchy, I believe, is still the most natural & most tried & tested forms of governance.
Many people seem to think the concept of monarchy is just one man ordering everyone around, while that is the case, it is not the full picture. I believe that MONARCHY IS AN INSTITUTION. While the king can remove & replace anyone from their political positions, there are still norms in a land & depending on how advanced the written law of the land is; these norms are usually a collective, unwritten agreement with the national community or written down in legislature.
Now, before a king is born & even during when he is a prince - there are known laws in the land & depending on how useful they are to the greater public, the king can choose to alter, do away with or add new laws. Remember, the king governs a nation & his well-being depends how well-governed the land & nation are. A king that alienates the masses & leaves the masses dissatisfied, is doomed. So while people think monarchy is just some arrogant guy having his way with everything, he only commands everything to ensure the land is well & satisfied thus ensuring his comfort & stable life. You will notice that eccentric, arrogant & obnoxious kings are disliked in history yet sensible, reasonable kings are the subject of admiration & high praises. This is because the while the king is the "natural ruler", he is not the only person in the land.
Therefore, a monarchy - at best - needs to be an institution with laws surrounding it & enforcers of such laws. This is to prevent a self-destructive king who seeks to destroy the nation & land from succeeding. While the king should be immune from legal punishment in general, it should not be to the mass-scale downfall of the people & nation he governs. A king's privileges cannot come at the price of the destruction of the nation or land he governs & most sensible king's know that. The king's privileges & laws surrounding the monarchy ensure that a king's role is stable & seldom out of place.
KINGS & WAR
In antiquity, the king led the army into important wars as a requirement. A force defying the law of the land defied the king himself & the king would have to address the problem personally. If he is defeated & the country he created is defeated - he dies for & with the land he created rather than a king who sends an army & the army loses morale without the king's leadership. And if the kings forces are defeated, he is left without a part of his army, vulnerable in his home rather than if he were at the frontline of battle commanding his forces.
Now, a king could lose a war & not die falling unto the rule of another foreign entity. In this case, he may as well no longer be a king at all but an object of contempt & ridicule for the rest of his days. This is why conquered or defeated kings were killed or they fled their former land. If they did not flee, they are renamed "pretenders" of a no longer existing kingdom in the English language or relegated to a regional chief in a greater kingdom/empire.
Of course, kings have trusted generals who they send to command the army & it is only if the country is under threat of genuine invasion or collapse that the king would need to take himself to the frontline of the battle himself. Today, leaders (presidents, prime ministers etc.) send militaries but never go to fight the war themselves & while it's the norm because of how disconnected leadership has become to the people in cosmopolitan lands, it still leaves room for the question of cowardice & sending young men to die while you live in comfort. Not the qualities that earned admiration in antiquity.
P. S. African kings do not wear Eurocentric golden crowns with encrusted gems & diamonds.
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