how did the British royalty become “ royal”. What started this 1000 years ago?
In: 1643
There are multiple different points you can say it started. I see a lot of people in this thread mention William the Conqueror but he was the rightful here to the title of the King of England though his grand aunt the Queen of England. The fact that he had to send a big army to England to kill everyone who were ahead of him in the line of succession is besides the point. The line of succession have taken several similar jumps like that through the family tree later on, although not with so much blood shed.
The fact is that people were given the title of King from God himself. Because God is not so good at conversations the Pope is the intermediary. There are certain evidence that God lacks conversational skills with the Pope as well but at least the Pope can interpret the often confusing signs from God. And the best sign God have of someone being appointed King is to allow them to control a great area of land, as long as he allows certain freedoms and taxes to the right church of course. So the Pope will declare the King and signify this by crowning him.
This did change a bit in the 1500s and 1600s though. First England got a parliament and a sort of constitution. This constitution was worded as a contract between the King and the parliament. You could interpret this as the parliament allowing the King to be royal as long as he followed the contracts and laws. This got reinforced when the church were reformed and the English church were no longer under the Catholic church so there were no Pope any longer. And then in the English civil war the parliament even executed the King for not following the laws. So from this era the King is a royal not because God say so but because the people let him.
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