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LadyEllen -> RE: Nearly all US Presidents are descendant of British & French Royal Families (3/5/2010 5:19:16 AM)
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The feudal system survives only in one sense, and that is that the title to the entirety of England and Wales (not so sure about Scotland and Ireland) belongs to the Crown (not the Queen who is a distinct person, nor the Monarch who is a distinct person, although the two are joined and often confused with the Crown) and that consequently even those owning land and property are freehold tenants of the Crown, who own an estate in the value of the tenancy which they are permitted by the Crown to pass to their named heirs - if there is no one to pass the estate to, then after a 30 year period for claimants to come forward or be found, it reverts to the Crown.
The system started to break down in the aftermath of the Black Death in the 14th century, which saw England move from a feudal agricultural society to a nation of merchants and traders. This increased the prosperity of the average peasant enormously and opened him to a world his ancestors could never have dreamt of, including opportunities for education which ultimately led to political awareness, a Civil War or three that changed the Constitution utterly and eventually to the society we have today where we are no longer subject to a lord, who is in turn subject to another, but rather we are all subject to one another through the democratic process that determines how our world should be organised, what our rights and duties might be and what is and is not the law, decided collectively and not by one person who rules our lives simply because his ancestor defeated our ancestor in some battle.
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