Does that sentiment extend to Henry VIII?

Monarchy is not something to be celebrated.

They have power because they inherited it from someone that conquered it. Just like people may inherit companies and fortunes.

Besides, to a modern democrat, what could be more legitimate that receiving something from parliament?

But we probably have no need to get rid of our monarchy, the family seems to be doing that job for us. When that happens, we can see whether tourist revenues go up or down :-)

It is absolutely amazing to see so many people who obviously have no skin in this particular game crawling out from under their rocks to share their strongly held beliefs about the royal family, as if the rest of us give a toss about your opinion...

So yeah, getting rid of the monarchy seems to have worked.

Today it's seen as almost quaint and cutesy. The history of it all is anything but. The monarchy originally would have gained power like most other cases in world history where someone raised an army and took it by force. That, while not my favourite thing, is legitimate. After parliament became a thing and the monarchy was no longer running the show, what legitimacy does it have? What's the need to keep it? Who would stop anyone getting rid of it? The monarchy themselves aren't in the position to raise an army and conquer the nation again.

What it is today vs. how it originated leave me feeling like there is a big disconnect in how it's viewed. Ask anyone "should we get rid of it?", plenty say no. Ask those same people "should we get rid of parliament then and go back to monastic rule" they will say no. Ok, so you _dont_ like what it used to represent but you like what it represents now? What the heck?

as for celebrities and "royalty", humans are hard-wired to follow hierarchies and thus be fascinated by those at the top

My whole thing is we used to be _dominated_ by the monarchy without a choice about it. Now that we aren't, what's even the point in being _fascinated_ by it? They're at the top, but of what anymore?

They got nothing on Gul Dukat.

There are two different typos possible here and I am undecided which one is funnier ;)

Which has advantages, admittedly -- far lower expenditures and a far lower rate of child-rapes among them -- a lot of the British royalists might object to a change of rulers on that basis.

Personally my grandmother's civilian ship was fired on by the british navy because ... well fun!

Remarks like "useless social fiction from antiquity" come across as uninformed, provincial snobbery motivated by some kind of superficial progressive mythology. There are forms of government that are objectively bad, others that are poorly suited to time and place, but the notion that the best form of government is the democratic republic, everywhere and in all times and places, is silly.