At least in Medieval Europe, monarchs didn’t really have to sacrifice functionality if they didn’t want to. They were certainly wearing the fanciest surcoats and armor, but so were a lot of the nobility. The main difference was the use of a circlet crown affixed to their helmet, so everyone could tell who the king was:
This replica – supposedly of Richard III, who wore a crowned helmet to Bosworth Field, which might have made the whole business of Henry VII finding the crown hanging on a hawthorn bush a bit tricky – shown above is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. Henry V used both a crowned helmet (for when he was hanging back in command) and a regular greathelm for when he went into the thick of it), which was a good thing, because he got the latter dented pretty badly at Agincourt. On the other end of the spectrum, Casimir III of Poland rocked this number:
Which just seems like a bit of a pain in the neck, to say the least.
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