«Тайна Британской монархии» К. Савельева, 9 класс, гимназия №144 О. Л. Пин – научный руководитель, учитель высшей категории гимназии № 144

Britain is one of the most developed European countries. It has a top football team, IT development corporations, business system, entertainment industry and… the Queen. What helped British monarchy survive? What will happen to it in the future? I got interested in the questions and decided to make a research on topic of British monarchy. I hope it may be interesting for the others too, because everything what is unique always attracts us and inspires us to explore it and use the experience if possible. So, the aim of my research is to find out the conditions which let the British monarchy change in a certain way but survive throughout centuries. So, I studied the history of British monarchy, the way it changed through centuries and tried to predict its future. The history of the country dates back to 55 BC when Julius Caesar established the first army camp on the Isles, and in 43 BC the territory was conquered up to what is now Scotland. So, the Roman emperor was the first governor of the British Isles. Then came 1066 – the year of the famous Hastings battle. William the Duke of Normandy conquered the territory. So, the country was ruled by a foreign sovereign again. As years passed, new monarchs came to power, ruled the country, quarreled, proclaimed wars, made peace and died to let the next ones come to power… In about 1642 civil war broke out. During the war the king had been executed, the monarchy had been abolished and a new republic called the English Union had been proclaimed. Oliver Cromwell gained the power in 1653, but in about 1660 the monarchy was restored. However, it was a different monarchy. The power of the king was not considered «the power of God’s favour» any longer, it was the monarchy by «the favour of Parliament». The Bill of the Rights (1689) and the Throne Inherence Law (1701) are the most important documents stating the laws of British constitutional monarchy. I`d like to describe it using the words of British philosopher of the XIX century Walter Begot: “Within the constitutional monarchy Souvereign has three rights: a right to consult, a right to encourage and a right to warn.” I came to a conclusion that the most important thing which made British monarchy different from the other countries` ones and helped it survive is that it kept changing to suit current needs and moods. I predict it definitely will continue changing because it is the only thing which helps it be acceptable for new generations. Even some conservative monarchists think it is high time to change something nowadays. But what exactly should be changed? Everybody has his/her own answer to the question. I suppose the Windsor dynasty will continue keeping its power because it still is loved and respected by the subjects. First of all I`d like to say that I have gained a lot of knowledge both in terms of history and language while doing this research. I was very interested to study the history of British monarchy and of Britain itself; it was also a fairly challenging task to work out what helped British monarchy survive and to predict what is going to happen to it later on; I had to study the issue quite thoroughly to fulfill the task. Concerning the possibilities of carrying further research I`d like to mention some of them. Firstly, one could have a more closer look at a target historical period in order to find out what helped British monarchy survive during the period and what forms did “changing to suit current needs and moods” actually take. There is also a possibility to predict the future development of the British monarchy basing on a deeper research on the issue of its historical background. One more interesting idea is to have a look at one of the monarchs and study his/her contributions into the country’s development.