Monarchy was a TV series by historian David Starkey from twenty years ago, which I am re-watching for about the third time.
The series runs from the Anglo Saxons up to Queen Elizabeth II; and treats this as a single narrative arc - albeit with major disruptions along the way (e.g. the Norman Conquest, Henry VIII).
The series is very good, because it is genuinely informative and the presenter has a thesis throughout. Starkey's focus is on the balances of monarchy, between the needs (or, at least, benefits; especially military) of centralized authority, and "freedom" (or, at least, autonomy) as it applies mainly to the various institutional subdivisions of the nation such as the nobility (earls, lords etc), church/ religion, and the merchant/ professional class.
The intellectual perspective is pre-millennial; and Starkey's national concerns and focus on specific persons are now obsolete; in our world of global totalitarianism, and waxing strategic chaos.
However, for most of recorded history; monarchs were crucial, unavoidable, and their quality varied extremely widely - such that "a good King" became one of the most yearned-for, and urgently pressing, of human hopes for this world.
Starkey helps us understand this, and how it worked in practice.
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