Historical Dictionary of the British Monarchy

The monarch is the United Kingdom's head of state, exercising powers that are circumscribed by common law, convention, and statute law. Nowadays, many of the sovereign's functions are ceremonial but in the past the balance between ceremony and decision-making was very different. The foundations of the modern monarchy were laid more than a millennium ago, in Anglo-Saxon and Celtic Britain, so its modern form is a stage in an evolution that has been shaped by attitudes towards divorce, the changin