Throughout the Commonwealth realms The Crown is an abstract metonymic concept which represents the legal authority for the existence of any government. It evolved naturally as a separation of the literal crown and property of the nation-state from the person and personal property of the monarch.

Similar concepts of "The Crown" also operate in other constitutional monarchies, in which (like the United Kingdom) the monarch is Head of State, but the actual governing of the nation is conducted according to the wishes of a democratically elected national legislature. The Holy Crown of Hungary is an example that similar concepts (although in symbolic rather than legal contexts) can survive even in a republic.