William with a tangential post: We Californians do not take well to royalty - think of Maximilian I, the Austrian archduke who reigned as the only Emperor of the Second Mexican Empire from1864 until his execution in 1867. Yet having lived under the reign of Japanese emperors for most of my life, I have grown to appreciate their function. Morose at the loss of Elisabeth 2. (Funeral styles are rather different - the Showa Emperor and the Queen Mother.)