In a surprising move last week, Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, announced their intention to “step back as ‘senior’ members of the royal family.” They further noted their intent to “work to become financially independent.” Many wondered aloud what, exactly, this meant for the pair and for the institution of the British monarchy. “Feels pretty damaging to the whole ethos and purpose of the royal family if you can just, like, quit being part of it,” wrote BuzzFeed’s Rosie Gray.

In many ways, the couple’s self-removal befits the deracinated monarchy. Once upon a time, English monarchs were sovereign, supreme. The occasion of democratizing reforms such as the Magna Carta beginning in the late Middle Ages brought the English monarchy down, down, like glistering Phaethon, into “the base court.” The nobility, and later the gentry, procured means of coercing their monarch, of tempering and resisting royal power.