(I do not know what HM Queen Elizabeth II's opinion on abortion is. However, it is clear that the royal family do not approve of the tyrannical fox-hunting ban, and the Queen has at least privately raised questions about the surrender of Britain's sovereignty to the EU. But given the modern era's worship of "democracy," there is nothing she can do.)
A well established republic has minority protections and checks and balances. There is hardly a "tyranny of the mob" present in America -- most of the populace obeys the rules of the constitutional order. Abortion can be imposed by unelected powers (like judges here) just as well as democratic majorities. That is a specific moral issue on which to fight within the constitutional structure. To overthrow all popular civil rights on that one basis is ridiculous. Autocracy is a crapshoot. In most autocracies, there is a civil war between reigns and sometimes in the midst of them. Even in traditional Europe, where rules of legitimate succession evolved over time, there were sometimes problems.
Dear royalcello,
"Since Tolkien said that he favored "'unconstitutional' monarchy," he clearly had something rather different in mind than the modern powerless British monarchy, which has no practical ability to check democratic forces when they get out of control.":
I will agree that if a country is going to go through all the trouble of having a real, honest-to-goodness monarchy, it ought to have something more than the enfeebled "constitutional monarchy" currently in place in the United Kingdom.
Yet, one might argue that the historical forces that made the British monarchy worthwhile all ultimately enfeebled it, as well. The very checks on power that you cite - common law, judiciary (not even the king is above the law), parliament, etc., seem to have slowly, but inexorably narrowed the ambit of action available to the British monarch.
Then again, maybe we can lay all the blame for that at Henry VIII's feet, too. ;-)
sitetest