Royal riots! Till kingdom come?

Nepal is on a royal boil. The Himalayan country has had 13 unlucky governments in its 16 years of republican life. No wonder, many citizens are saying, damn the democrats, call back the king.

- R. PRASANNAN

That's much like how England was in the 17th century when the country had its brief fling with republicanism. In six years the people got so fed up with their parliamentary protectors that they called back the king in 1660. They have never since regretted, though the restored king, son of the deposed and beheaded Charles I, spent more of his waking hours with whores in bed than with lords in the court.

Constitutional monarchy has since struck such deep roots in England's functional democracy that Egypt's last king Farouk once predicted that England's would be the only king who would survive into the 21st century along with the kings of Clubs, Spades, Hearts and Diamonds. Indeed, monarchs have survived in a few other European courts, but none as deeply institutionalised as England's.