Most of us view monarchies as relics of the past, preserved only symbolically nowadays. For some reason, we still tend to spend numerous years of our upbringing learning about the kings and queens of England and other nations – which ones were Catholic, which ones were Protestant, who had whose mistress beheaded, who married which ally’s niece, etc. The lengthy chapter of kings and queens in human history is actually incredibly convoluted, with the one constant being this: for many hundreds of years, and possibly the entire history of human history, people have decided to place symbolic hats atop proven…