What may Japan have in common with Spain, Belgium, Qatar, the Netherlands, Bhutan, Lesotho and even the Vatican City, but not with the United Kingdom?
(Yes, Lesotho is a country.)
But before you shoot wild guesses, tell your grandmother to calm down as she scolds your father – her irresponsible son – who forgot to pick up her latest prescriptions glasses. Her booming voice in the background may distract you while you solve this puzzle.
Or maybe not.
With its parliament passing a law allowing Emperor Akihito to abdicate, Japan may soon join the league of nations that have seen their monarchs making way for the heir, while the latter can be still found functional. UK, however, is another matter. All hail the Queen!
The Longest Reigning Monarch
Queen Elizabeth II is the longest reigning monarch in the world and she doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to abdicate. If rumours are to be believed, she is waiting Prince George of Cambridge to come of age of.
But her biographer, Sarah Bradford, insists, “The Queen simply feels she must do her duty and she's never even contemplated abdication.”
The 68-year-old Prince Charles, the heir apparent, would have already retired had he been a government servant in India. Maybe his good behaviour towards the authorities would have fetched him post-retirement sinecures, too.
Three consecutive queens of the Netherlands have abdicated in the last few decades to pass the royal duties to the heir sooner. Is poor Prince the wrong sex, then? Would the Queen have abdicated for a female heir in a feminist show of nepotism? King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands can be heard guffawing from his aircraft.
Even the hot-blooded Spaniards need to cool off after a few decades on the throne. King Juan Carlos decided in 2014 that 39 years of wielding the sceptre were enough.
He abdicated in 2014 in favour of his son, Felipe. With 65 years under her belt, the Queen is still holding on to her orb. Surely, she will never get a grateful smile from her son, unlike her Spanish counterpart.
2013 was the cruelest year. Three monarchs, and the Pope, abdicated and made their heirs happier. This was also the year little George was born to William and Kate. The happy grandfather became the butt of a renewed slew of jokes.
The royal crown might go directly to George, passing over not only Charles but also William, was the global chatter. William, 34, is already much older than what his grandmother was in 1952, the year she ascended to the throne.
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Is abdication a bad word in UK? It certainly looks like that. The last time it happened, a constitutional crisis arose in the British Empire.
King Edward VIII abdicated in 1936, succeeded by his brother, King George VI, the present monarch’s father. This abdication was nothing short of a scandal. In an “all for love” gesture, the King chose his love, the divorcee Wallis Simpson, over the throne.
Each time a British monarch has fought for love, there have been serious consequences. When Henry VIII wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, he had to establish an alternate Christian belief system in his kingdom. Since Rome wouldn’t let him divorce Queen Catherine, he set up the Anglican Church.
It is another matter that he got this dearly begotten wife beheaded later. Falling out of love with their wives is not uncommon in the British monarchy.
It could be, then, a curse that’s keeping Charles from the throne. Who knows!
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