She did not complain. She doesn’t call sick. She did not fall into self-pity. She doesn’t deviate from tradition, at least not if she can help it. She doesn’t show her emotions in public. When her beloved husband, Prince Philipdied in the dark days of Covid, she complied with government guidelines by sitting separate from the others at his funeral, photo of the sternness and severity of the upper lip in the suit black mourning and wearing two masks.
Queen Elizabeth II is an analog celebrity in the digital age, perhaps the most popular woman and confusing celebrity in a world that tends to share too much reality TV stars and celebrities. influence on the internet. Discreet, cautious, can’t show and carefully, she embodies traditional British values and is just as remarkable for the things she didn’t do – in the service of a sense of responsibility and self-discipline – as well as the things she did.
Even before she became queen at the unbelievable age of 25 – King Charles III has just ascended the throneHer son, 73 – Elizabeth set the tone for her reign by declaring, in fact, that work is bigger than people.
“I declare before you all that my entire life, long or short, will be devoted to your service and to the service of our great royal family that we all know. We all belong,” she said on the occasion of her 21st birthday.
Indeed, her life was very long; Her family is known for its longevity. (Her mother, Queen Elizabeth Mother of King, died in 2002, at the age of 101.) And as the years passed, she became an incomparable icon, a constant figure in an ever-changing world. She provides a link to a simpler time in a Britain that seems increasingly fractured, fragmented and uncertain about herself or her role in the world.
She presided over the final years of the British Empire. She lived through the Suez Crisis, the Cold War, the Falklands War, the unrest and labor shortages of the 1970s, the beginning of the Internet, the collapse of the World Trade Center, Brexit, Covid and 14 prime ministers (15 if you count Liz Truss, who took the job last week).
Most Britons – really, most people – have never lived in a world without Elizabeth. There are many people who have questioned or reconsidered the institution but still admire the queen. She is a comforting character, somehow both intimate and aloof from majesty.
“It’s hard to believe, after 70 years, she’s not here with us anymore,” said George Carey, who served as archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002 (and who, at 86, is 10 years younger than Elizabeth. age), wrote in The Daily Telegraph. “Indeed, she has been a regular element in most of our lives.”
She rarely speaks in public except to give scripted remarks in official establishments – a state dinner, a charity, her annual Christmas radio address – adds to the feeling that it’s impossible to know who she really is behind the tightly controlled public personality. And so it’s remarkable how emotional she feels to make remarks that go beyond her usual utterances.
She spoke rarely of her own and country’s crises in 1992, a year in which Windsor Castle caught fire on the anniversary of her wedding, three of her four children. she is separating or divorcing the couple and one of her daughters-law is involved in a sex scandal that is covered by the news. But it seems that a woman who is reserved and disgusted with self-pity seems to be a good fit for which she has used both. gentle satire and latin in making her point.
In a speech in London to mark the 40th anniversary of her accession to the throne, she said: “1992 is not the year that I will look back on with indelible joy. In the words of one of my more sympathetic reporters, it turned out to be an ‘Annus Horribilis.’
And the statement she made after September 11, read aloud by Britain’s ambassador to the United States during a ceremony in New York in honor of Britons lost in the attacks, remains memorable for its beauty. Its simple, painful beauty. “Nothing can be said to begin to take away the anguish and pain of these moments,” the statement said. “Grief is the price we pay for love.”
Perhaps at no point in recent years has the monarchy been in trouble, or the position of the queen more precarious than in the bewildering days following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales , 25 years ago. The monarchy is embedded in the British system of government and does not rely on the will of the people; the monarch may not vote in or out of office; The royal family is not subject to recall. However, it is constantly called upon to make a suitable case of its own.
After Diana’s death, the queen’s widely admired qualities, the notion that family matters are private and people don’t reveal their feelings in public, suddenly seemed to work. against her. “Show us you care!” was a typical title at the time. And so the queen broke with tradition, returned to London, ordered the flags on the top of Buckingham Palace to be lowered to half a foot and agreed to do so. rare public address with the country about something she considers very private. It is an expression of humility and an attempt to assuage a nation’s sorrow – but also a means to sustain a faltering monarchy.
She said: “It is not easy to express feelings of loss, as the initial shock is often made up of a mixture of many other emotions: distrust, not understanding, anger and concern for those left behind. . “We have all felt those emotions in the past few days. So what I tell you now, as your queen and as a grandmother, I speak from my heart. “
As the queen’s health declined in recent years, perhaps due to the loss of her husband, there was a sense of uncertainty in the air. If Elizabeth is the glue that holds it all together – if she’s the only one in an unstable world – what will happen to England when she’s gone?
In her tribute, the former archbishop praised her kind-hearted, egotistical nature, and warned of what might come next.
“Therefore, I hope that our new government will learn from the queen’s selfless example that its purpose as crowned minister is to serve the nation,” he said. “I pray that all of our civil servants are dedicated to competing with her in the dark and difficult days to come.”
