When he was deposed in 1952, Egypt's King Farouk predicted that there would be five monarchs left at the end of the century: the kings of hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades, and England. To date, his prediction has proved wrong, and while the 20th century saw the collapse of monarchies across Europe, many democratic societies have retained them. Monarchy deserves neither the adulation of the right nor the dismissal of the left, comments Dennis Altman, and here he surveys the unexpected durability and potential benefits of constitutional monarchies.