The British royal family and government were sick of the sight of each other. The British aristocratic bloc, which had been suppressed for years, was still deeply moved by Prince Albert's words: "The only difference is that they are protected nobles wearing medals on their chests."
In theory, the aristocracy still held an absolute advantage in British politics, but so-called nobles had never been a monolith, and that had been true since ancient times.
Many historians and political scientists liked to deliberately view the aristocracy as a single whole, but in reality, many British nobles had already become bourgeois by this point.
Otherwise, it would have been impossible to pass so many bills detrimental to the traditional aristocracy. Did they really think ordinary nineteenth-century Britons could decide the direction of national politics?
The traditional aristocracy's main source of income was land, but profits from it had already begun to decline sharply.
The repeal of the Corn Laws, in particular, had effectively pronounced the death sentence of many traditional landed nobles. They could not even maintain a dignified standard of living.
Either they sold off family property to preserve appearances, slapping their faces until they swelled just to pretend they were fat, or they joined in making money, engaged in rent-seeking through power, or even turned around and became someone else's lackeys.
Of course, there was another, more traditional approach at the time: the so-called alliance of the strong, meaning marriage into wealthy families. They could marry off their children, or personally take the field themselves.
Their social standing continued to decline, and many critics even called them "parasites."
Nor were the British aristocracy and royal family a monolith. At the root of it all, the British royal family was not even British.
Under traditional aristocratic thinking, restricting royal power was