For replacing the royals, ... Worse still for me is WHO might replace them - President Blair ? No thank you..
Ok, here's an inheritance story. I promise.
I quit my job to take a job at a major international software company to work in their office in the London area. They had called me and invented a job for me. I did it so my wife could affordably complete her doctoral research in the various libraries there. I told my boss that I really enjoyed working at the company and with him, but I needed to support my wife and this was the only way I had found to do it. And that I didn't really want to go to work for the big megacorporation, but needs must, and I hoped I would be welcomed back in a couple of years.
The next morning I was called into the big bosses office and they offered to park me in a hotel, covering room and board and a rental car, for a month. "We wanted you to take some time to do some writing for us, and we don't much care where you do it." I stayed and my wife, daughter and I went off to London for the month.
This happened back when Tony Blair and his wife first occupied #10 Downing Street. They inherited Humphrey, a truly friendly cat who hung out in the waiting room and greeted folks therein. This cat had been there when Thatcher and later Major were the PM. (I promised an inheritance story!!!)
Then a newspaper reporter noticed the cat was gone and they had also heard that Blair's wife hated cats. So they wrote a glowing editorial about it in the London Times that extolled the virtue of this wonderfully friendly cat and mentioned that Mrs. Blair didn't like cats. They closed by hoping that Humphrey was well and not tossed out into the alleys of London.
The London Times had never received more letters on any other topic in its entire history. People were very concerned about this cat. We heard the story and, being cat lovers, started following the story.
Now I have to digress a bit. About the same time some information started to come out about how Mr. Blair might have been a bit misleading with some public statements he had made about some large sums of money that he ought not to have been able to spend on his campaign. I don't recall the exact quote, but basically, it sounded like he had flatly denied it. However, as the information started to come out, people realized that his words had two possible meanings, the one that sounded like a denial and another, possibly more truthful one in which he had done it.
In an attempt to minimize the public relations damage, Mrs. Blair posed in a photo with a cat to show she liked cats. This isn't the photo I saw (it was in a black and white newspaper), but her facial expression is exactly the same. Sort of a grimace frozen in place trying to be a smile. Let's just say we were absolutely not convinced she likes cats.
Now, nothing makes people more suspicious about what you say than catching someone doing that. It's poisonous for maintaining trust in any way, shape or fashion. People don't like to be played for fools. It's important to understand this digression to get what happens next.
The photo didn't assuage public opinion at all.
Blair was answering a few questions from the press before left on a helicopter. The last question he was asked was "Where's the cat?" His answer was short and snippy, "The cat is in a quiet country place." With that, Blair turned and started to walk away towards the helicopter.
The reporter called out very loudly, "By 'quiet country place', do you mean a cemetery?"
Boy, howdy! Blair looked like he had been hit with a brick bat. He actually staggered under the weight of that question!
The very next night, a television cameraman was taken in an unmarked van with no windows to someone's carport. He was rushed out of the van into a house whereupon he was presented with "the cat" to video, in order to prove that the cat was alive and well.
The next thing to happen was an editorial in the London Times wondering whether the cat really was Humphrey or whether it was an imposter. Perhaps Thatcher or Major could be called in to verify the cat's identity?
I don't know whether there was more or not after that. That's about the time we left the country and pre-internet it was harder to get detailed foreign news.
I still love this story.
The PM of Britain is one of the most powerful people in the world and he couldn't even get rid of a cat in his house without this much grief from his constituents. I think our republics would be ever so much better if our legislators and presidents learned that lesson to their core in their first months in office.
And not all inheritance stories are about relatives, eh?