• William Pit the Younger or King George III. Who had more power


  • I assume the meaning of your question is whether, in the late 18th and early 19th century, the Prime Minister of Great Britain had more political power than the King.  The answer is yes.  At that time (and as is still true today), the job of the King (or Queen) was to reign but not to rule.  He was the head of state, but not the head of the government.  The head of government was the Prime Minister, and it was with the P.M. (and with Parliament in general) that political power mostly rested.  British sovereigns do have a certain number of “reserve powers,” but these rarely get used except in constitutional crises.  (If you’re interested in a Canadian example of the use of these reserve powers, check the Wikipedia entry on the King-Byng Affair.)


  • @CWO:

    I assume the meaning of your question is whether, in the late 18th and early 19th century, the Prime Minister of Great Britain had more political power than the King.  The answer is yes.  At that time (and as is still true today), the job of the King (or Queen) was to reign but not to rule.  He was the head of state, but not the head of the government.  The head of government was the Prime Minister, and it was with the P.M. (and with Parliament in general) that political power mostly rested.  British sovereigns do have a certain number of “reserve powers,” but these rarely get used except in constitutional crises.  (If you’re interested in a Canadian example of the use of these reserve powers, check the Wikipedia entry on the King-Byng Affair.)

    When was the time that changed power structures in UK so that the British P.M had more power than kings or queens? 1700? 1750? 1800? 1850?


  • @Subotai:

    When was the time that changed power structures in UK so that the British P.M had more power than kings or queens? 1700? 1750? 1800? 1850?

    Because the reduction in royal powers in Britain took place over many centuries, and because Great Britain has an uncodified constitution, it’s hard to point to one specific date.  For example, the Magna Carta of 1215 was an early step in the process of placing limits on royal authority. The English Civil War was largely a power struggle between Parliament and King Charles I (who, in a fairly dramatic application of the principle that the authority of the sovereign should be curbed, ended up on the wrong end of an executioner’s axe in 1649).  The Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the subsequent Bill of Rights 1689 also contributed greatly to the establishment of parliamentary supremacy in Britain.

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