#and then the Cromwell died the Roundheads imploded and Chalres II came back

[asha-mage]

Their is always this moment in "Arthur returns" fics where the subject of how government has changed comes up and Merlin invariably goes "Oh yeah we have this thing called democracy now and it's really good haha" and each time I can't help but be taken back.

Cause look. I love Merlin but that boy is a hardcore, dyed in the wool Royalist if there ever was one. He believes in his King so much that he waited for more then a thousand years for the crisis bad enough that it would call Arthur back from Avalon to reclaim his throne, never doubting that he would return and he would fix everything when he did.

Merlin 100% believes in the institution of absolute monarchy as a result of Arthur. He would still be bitter about the Magna Carta in the year 2023 and have a dart board somewhere with a picture of Cromwell taped to it. He would be disgusted by the office of sovereign being reduced to figurehead celebrity and is convinced their hasn't been a proper sovereign since Anne Stuart. He calls the Hanovers "those posers from the continent". He likes the Windsors a little bit better but not much: George VI and Liz II won some points in his book for their services in World War 2, but he detests the advent of the modern "celebrity royal" for degrading the dignity of the crown to new lows.

Everything wrong with England and Britain, in his mind, is the fault of Parliament who he still sees as a bunch of unruly Barons and angry Roundheads squandering the nation's future to stay in power.

(If anything Arthur "I want what's best for my people always" Pendragon is the one much more into the idea of democracy and parliament, and would crush Merlin's hopes of simply dissolving to body by instead reforming it to make it more fair.)