Then it means he doesn't have that power. What kind of power is that which you can't exercise? If you can't exercise it, it means you don't have it.

He can, he just doesn't want to. And if he did we'd probably have no insight into what even happened. The society doesn't even know kings' finances.

> He can, he just doesn't want to. And if he did we'd probably have no insight into what even happened

Of course we do, the order would be ignored. (To whom would he even give the order?) English history is written in constitutional crises.

[citation needed]

> [citation needed]

Well, the death penalty was abolished in the U.K. in the 1990s, so there's that. More significant: habeus corpus, which goes back to somewhere between the Magna Carta and Interregnum.

Even at its height, the Crown's power to unilaterally command executions was intentionally curtailed for centuries.

by this reasoning, I also have absolute power. I just choose not to exercise it because I would be ignored/arrested/guillotined afterwards.