Queen Elizabeth died Thursday as she lived, quietly, and with royal dignity, a dignity that has characterized her more than 70 tumultuous years on the throne making her the longest-serving British monarch.
Her passing at 96 came at her beloved Balmoral Castle in Scotland, surrounded by her often-troublesome family.
It is truly the end of an era, the last changing of an old guard which will now pass into the history books.
And history should be kind to her.
When Elizabeth become queen in 1953, an English exchange student at my school invited each of his close gringo friends to celebrate in secret with smuggled English champagne, the consumption of which, even for such a worthy occasion, could have gotten us kicked out of school.
He also presented each of us with a rather ugly souvenir coronation tie that we felt we had to wear.
The throne has never been a comfortable seat. Although the second World War was long over when Elizabeth became queen, Britain certainly didn’t feel ‘great’, and it was only starting the giant effort to build back.
‘Keep calm and carry on’ was the aphorism on stiff upper British lips.
The decline and fall of its colonial empire and its transformation into a Commonwealth were causing endless problems. The amorphous crown, with all its traditions and rich history, was the glue holding it all together.
Each of the former colonies had its own views of its place in the world, but each paid reverence to, even love for the Queen. When she paid visits, the people waving little union jacks flooded into the streets to glimpse their monarch.
She had incredible popularity that grew and grew over the years.
The world was changing with warp speed, the British supersonic aircraft Concorde crossed the Atlantic with 100 passengers in less than 3 hours, and men were walking on the moon.
That the British public voted recently to leave the European Union and trust in the nation’s rugged individualism must have been another change difficult for her to embrace.
Balancing her responsibilities against these changes was never easy.
Just as the British have no written constitution, the crown functions are largely a combination of royal prerogative and tradition.
Queen Elizabeth’s uncle, the Prince of Wales upended that tradition and gave up the throne for the twice-divorced American woman he loved.
That was then, and it must have seemed very strange to the young Elizabeth, growing up within the formality of the palace to even contemplate such an abrogation of the duty she was to embrace.
And if the concept of divorce was foreign to her, she had to get used to it seeing her eldest son, heir to the throne and soon to be crowned King Charles III, through his break-up with Princess Diana in what the Queen called publicly her ‘annus horribilis’.
It’s hard not to think of Queen Elizabeth as she was pictured in the Netflix series ‘The Crown’ whether that was in fact, accurate.
Certainly, mystery is an important ingredient in the magic of royalty, and however much we get to see of the ‘real’ life, it’s at best, only a glimpse.
What was the Queen’s life really like, absent the secretaries, courtiers, butlers, footmen, and the golden ceremonial carriages?
All we know is her enormous sense of duty, her love of Corgis, and her stable of horses for rides in the country.
Her husband Prince Philip is rumored to have joked that Elizabeth wasn’t interested in anything that didn’t have a mane and eats hay.
A sensitive essay said: “Elizabeth led a life made up of privilege and sacrifice, and even those who resented the former acknowledged the latter.”
Her gracious waves to adoring crowds of subjects from the Buckingham Palace balcony spoke volumes of the affection felt for her by her subjects and hers for them.
There is something momentous in the changing of a monarch. Queen Elizabeth will be an extremely hard act to follow.
After all these years of waiting in the wings, it’s hard to imagine Charles in the starring role or even at his advanced age of 73, whether he really wants that spotlight.
There is a certitude in the changing of the guard that gives confidence that while it changes with clock-like regularity, it remains essentially the same.
Only time will tell if that will be true of this change in the United Kingdom monarchy.
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