“The Queen is dead. Long live the King.”
Some would add to that conventional and ringing enchantment, “God save the monarchy.”
It could not want saving, however the British monarchy gained’t be the identical. Queen Elizabeth II was a one-off, as they are saying.
I clearly keep in mind the dying of King George VI and the ascent of the 25-year-old Elizabeth. I used to be dwelling in a far nook of the British Empire, in Southern Rhodesia.
In the colonies, we had been a research in patriotism, and we believed in Britain and the empire itself as practically a divine intention. We nearly believed within the divinity of the monarch.
More, we believed that the brand new queen, so stunning and younger and hopeful, would usher in a brand new period of Elizabethan greatness. A brand new Queen Bess set to revive the fortunes of Britain after the savagery of two world wars.
It wasn’t to be, in fact. The winds of change had been rustling, if not but blowing, and Britain’s international manufacturing dominance wasn’t to return. Gradually, we discovered that our imaginative and prescient of Britain as the nice civilizing pressure, the joyful world policeman, was fantasy.
But Elizabeth stored her promise. The promise she made on her twenty first birthday, “I declare before you all, that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of that great imperial family to which we all belong.”
She stored to the letter and the spirit of that promise. Through all these many years of convulsive change, Elizabeth has been as fixed because the Rock of Gibraltar, one of many remnants of the time when the solar actually didn’t set on the British Empire.
Elizabeth wasn’t a fantastic thoughts, a visionary, or perhaps a girl who understood a substantial amount of what she noticed and was informed. Arguably, she wasn’t even an excellent mom. But she was, on daily basis of her lengthy, lengthy reign, the embodiment of that phrase from the times of empire “duty.”
Elizabeth did her responsibility on daily basis of her life and did it fully. How many hundreds of native dances did she endure? How many college choirs did she hear? How many terrible heads of state did she break bread with and chat in regards to the climate?
A well-known cowl of the satirical journal Private Eye had an image of her greeting Nicolae Ceausescu, the Romanian dictator, and a balloon quote from her stated, “Do you have any interesting hobbies?” One from her husband, the late Prince Philip, stated, “Yes, he is a mass murderer.”
Her real love was horses. She was a loyal equestrian who rode, in opposition to physicians’ recommendation, shortly earlier than she died.
Queen Elizabeth II will likely be remembered for a lot, and it should embody rising above her dysfunctional household.
In England, I coated the wedding of her sister, Margaret, who, hiding behind the doubtful cowl of 1 forbidden love affair, lived the lifetime of a princess about city — no trace of responsibility or exhausting work there. At the time of her marriage to the photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones, royal mania gripped the nation. It was an emotional outpouring to not be equaled in depth till the dying of Princess Diana.
The queen’s humorousness shone by way of when she termed one terrible private yr an “annus horribilis.” Always her sense of being human was entwined together with her regal demeanor.
Save for the funeral of the beloved Elizabeth, one can count on an enormous lack of stature by the monarchy. Charles, the brand new king, is an odd duck. He has good intentions, however he doesn’t encourage. His son, the long run King William, has but to show that he’s greater than a median younger man with a strong-willed spouse, the long run Queen Catherine.
The monarchy will survive as a result of Brits prefer it, not the way in which they got here to like Elizabeth however as a result of it’s a helpful establishment. And, in a time of wobbly political management, establishments are an vital shock absorber to democracy’s vagaries.
With a monarch, folks can imagine there may be an order past the dysfunction of the political course of. When I got here to the United States in 1963, I used to be struck by how we, the folks, had no place to hold our feelings on — in addition to on the president — and, at any time, about half the folks dislike the president.
Elizabeth wasn’t born to be queen however got here into the succession due to the abdication of her uncle Edward VIII.
Never overlook, the royals present the best present on earth with all that pomp and ceremony, beloved by the Brits and the vacationers.
Watch the best funeral you’ve gotten ever seen unfold on tv. This nice queen will likely be buried as none different has — on tv.
–Llewellyn King
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Llewellyn King is government producer and host of “White House Chronicle” on PBS. He wrote this for InaspectSources.com.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com”