From the United States to France, the monarchy (and pseudo-monarchy) is seriously upsetting the rabble, with everything from protests and theft to sharpening of guillotines indicating that we’ve all had enough. This is the modern monarchy, mind you, so they’re more of a nuisance than a threat, but I’ve certainly noticed a trend in recent media reports… and the masses are getting restless.

Starting with the pinnacle of all things royal, the British. King Charles is really irked by his brother’s paedophilic past and has decided to strip Prince Andrew of his royal titles. Being the title-less peasant that I am, I assumed this meant he would no longer be called ‘prince’. I also assumed that raping children on the island of a rich man embroiled in a human trafficking ring that extends to, quite literally, the highest positions in the land meant that he’d also experience jail time. I was wrong on both counts.

Poor Prince Andrew will no longer be referred to as the Duke of York. Gasp! He was already stripped of his military titles back in 2022 when it came to light that he’d besmirched the good name of the British monarchy, but now the poor man is slipping even further down the flagpole. They even stripped him of his title ‘Knight of the Order of the Garter’ after he clearly chose to order the stripping of another garter at night, leaving him with the lowly title of Prince.

Poor man. I mean, he still lives in the 30-room mansion in Windsor, is waited on hand and foot by a team of servants, and will never know what it means to go on the dole. But still, shame.

Never has such disgrace been brought upon the British royal household… except for that last time by the King himself, and his dad, and his son, in-laws, ex-wife, extended family, and mistresses … but stripping of one’s titles is apparently the highest dishonour for people so out of touch with reality. In fact, the last time a royal member was stripped of his title was 100 years ago, when Queen Victoria’s grandson decided to fight with the Germans in World War I.

This, despite the fact that Queen Elizabeth went on to marry a German, not two years after World War II ended. Okay, maybe he wasn’t 100% German, but his mother was German, all four of his older sisters married German aristocrats, he was fluent in German, and he adopted the German surname Mountbatten before his marriage. Ever so slightly German then.

But it’s not just the UK. Just a hop over the Channel and the peasants are taking back what’s rightfully theirs from the monarchy as well, more than two centuries after lopping off Marie Antoinette’s cake-eating head. The Louvre museum in Paris was the stage of an Oceans 11-type saga when priceless crown jewels were stolen right under the noses of France’s gendarmerie. These items are so famous you can’t just sell them; you’d have to melt them down and dismantle the jewels. Or prance around your house wearing them and your powdered wig at dinner parties.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Melania started donning some pretty heavy jewellery in the next few days. America is, incidentally, experiencing the biggest No Kings protest since 1775, when King George III had his crown jewels properly handed to him during the American Revolutionary War.

Norway isn’t having a much better time of it. Marius Borg Høiby, the eldest son of Norway’s crown princess, has been charged with 32 offences, including four counts of rape. Whether he’ll be stripped of his titles remains to be seen, but he, too, might want to keep his crown jewels in check.

On the other hand, our royal family appears to be doing something right. Despite still fighting for the legitimacy of the throne (gotta have some heirs’ drama!) Zulu King Misuzulu kaZwelithini is advocating for public health programmes and encouraging kingdom-to-kingdom partnerships that support trade and culture – which is more than can be said for most politicians. Granted, he’s meeting with the UAE, which doesn’t have the best human rights track record, but, at this point, which kingdom does?

Don’t get me wrong, I love modern royalty. They’re like real-life soap operas with just the BEST back stories that make it so much more gripping than any Netflix docu-series. But I love them in the same way that I love a friend’s puppy. It’s fun, it’s entertaining, it’s slightly inbred, and I don’t have to clean up any of its mess. Plus, they present about as much danger to me as any commission of enquiry does to corrupt South African politicians.

Truth is, it’s not the royal families that present the threat, it’s the modern politicians trying to emulate that level of authority from the 1600s… just in 2025. And we all know how that ended. Best they not continue on this gilded path lest they want to lose their crown jewels. With a blunt guillotine.