The Royal Family during the Trooping the Colour
Photo Credit: Rex Features
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The reports of the British Monarchy’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
That became abundantly clear over the past two weeks while the world (especially Britain) was in mourning over the death of their beloved Queen Elizabeth II, the longest reigning monarch in British history. She was on the throne for 70 years, from February 6, 1952 until September 8, 2022.
The Queen was 96.
The very fact that her funeral had to take place at Westminster Abbey (the first funeral service at the Abbey for a British monarch since George II in 1760) instead of at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, attest to her popularity spanning the globe. St George’s Chapel can only hold 800 people; the Abbey’s capacity, on the other hand, is 2,000 and can hold as many as 8,000 if necessary. Ever since George III (1820), funerals of British kings and queens have been at St George’s Chapel.
Reportedly, about 500 guests from 200 countries and territories were present at the funeral for the Queen, including nearly 100 presidents and heads of government. In all, the funeral was attended by around 2,000 guests. The Queen’s funeral was additionally watched by 29.2 million people on television in the UK.
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Across the Atlantic, solemnity wasn’t the order of the day; rather, it was pure venom.
Many leading news publications in the United States, especially the New York Times, did their best to rain on the Royal Families parade by linking the monarchy to oppressive colonialism and included one prickly opinion piece (written by a Harvard historian) which charged Queen Elizabeth II with vicious racism and “helping obscure a bloody history of decolonization.”
The New York Times editorial board, obviously, assembled after the death of the Queen and decided they were on a mission to bring down the monarchy.
“They will not succeed,” Nile Gardener of the Telegraph newspaper wrote. “The Monarchy is strong, robust and vital to Britain's future. It will remain at the heart of the British nation for centuries to come. The Queen has left a powerful legacy, and her life of service will continue to inspire the British people and the free world for generations to come.”
If you read newspapers from the United States over the last couple of weeks, readers can’t help but get the impression that the monarchy is an antiquated, crumbling relic and its citizens (fed up with all the pomp and circumstance) is aching for a Republic form of government.
The Commonwealth was first founded by George VI (the late queen’s father) in 1949 to maintain Britain’s links with the former colonies. They grew from seven to 54 countries, encompassing 2.5 billion people, during Queen Elizabeth’s reign, during a time when many of the countries of the once mighty British empire gained their independence.
What very few mention is that in June, Togo and Gabon (neither with colonial links to the UK) have joined the Commonwealth, becoming the 55th and 56th members to join. Both countries are former French colonies, which gained independence from France in the 1960s. Prior to that, Rwanda joined the Commonwealth in 2009; and before that, Mozambique in 1995.
There is an additional swath of nations with a total population of some 40 million currently seeking membership.
You would think there are heaps of countries heading for the exits from the Commonwealth; when, in fact, the Republic of Ireland was the only country that left and did not rejoin.
Reportedly, 60 % of Australians want to keep the monarchy, rather than opt for an elected president under a republican form of government.
I found it laughable that newspapers like The New York Times were determined to dismantle the monarchy, at a time when the United States (if the polls are any guide) is on the brink of civil war with the electorate split down the middle on the right-wing leaning U.S. Supreme Court, pervasive racism (whether real or imagined), and the revolting violence which took place on January 6, 2021, when pro-Trump supporters thundered through the Capitol building in Washington D.C. The insurrection culminated in five deaths with many injured, including 138 police officers.
A poll, recently conducted by the Economist and YouGov found that 55% of self-identified "strong" Republicans believed civil war is at least somewhat likely, while 40% of self-identified "strong" Democrats echoed that sentiment.
Contrary to what The New York Times believes, residents in Britain would like to keep their form of government exactly the way it is.
According to the British Attitudes Survey, from 1983 to 2021, a majority strongly believe it’s important for Britain to continue to have a monarchy.
Between 1994 and 2021, for example, two-thirds (67%) of respondents in Britain have expressed this view.
And why is it so important for the monarchy to stay in place?
Clement Attlee, former British Prime Minister from 1945 to 1951, wrote an essay for the Observer on August 23, 1959 on the role of the monarchy in Britain. Many of the elements of the monarchy that Attlee highlighted 63 years ago is remarkably still significant today.
“The monarch,” Attlee wrote, “is the general representative of all the people and stands aloof from the party-political battle. A president, however popular, is bound to have been chosen as representative of some political trend, and as such is open to attack from those of a different view. A monarch is a kind of referee, although the occasions when he or she has to blow the whistle are nowadays very few.”
It's truly stunning that during her reign, Queen Elizabeth II visited 116 countries, on 261 official overseas visits, including 78 state visits, while meeting with 14 of the 15 sitting U.S. Presidents. And yet, Elizabeth rarely, if ever, tipped her hand on how she felt about certain hot-button issues. She greeted former presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump with the same grace and decorum as she would any head of state.
British writer CS Lewis, summed it up perfectly: “Where men are forbidden to honor a king, they honor millionaires, athletes, or film stars instead; even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.”
And what exactly has become of those few, those seemingly happy few countries, which have abolished monarchies during Queen Elizabeth II’s reign?
Of Afghanistan, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Greece, Iraq, Iran, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Rwanda, Tunisia, Vietnam, and Yemen, only Greece, as Daniel Hannan of The Telegraph shrewdly points out, “can be said to have made a successful change.”
It’s ironic that countries, living in monarchies, such as Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and New Zealand sport the most open-minded and egalitarian forms of government and aren’t storming their Parliament buildings and demanding election results be overturned.
As Mathew Syed in The Times of London so beautifully wrote, “It wasn’t just her [Queen Elizabeth’s] status but her character that united us. In a world where politicians so often fall short, she rarely did.”
It’s also striking that within the British Parliament itself with all the rancor currently taking place among the political parties (Labour, Lib Dems, Conservative Party, etc.) with the awesome responsibilities the new PM, Liz Truss, inherits: a spiraling energy crisis, the falling of the pound to historic levels, and the overall financial well-being of the country up in the air, Britain and its political parties remained in harmony in their support for constitutional monarchy and the queen whose devotion to service and duty over seven decades was nothing less than spectacular.
Queen Elizabeth II bows in front of the Dublin Memorial Garden on May 17, 2011, in Ireland. Her visit was the first by a monarch since 1911.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
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And for those who think Britain and its monarchy are wedded to a bygone era, just consider that during her reign, the queen in 2011 became the first monarch to visit Ireland in its 90 years since bloody independence, and 32 years after the IRA assassination of her husband’s (Prince Philip) uncle. When she bowed at the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin for those who died fighting for Irish independence, she became a symbol of peace.
Prior to that, she travelled to West Germany in 1965 and Moscow in 1994 to renew Britain’s friendship with World War II allies, all during an age when many thought the Queen was just an insignificant figurehead.
Imagine, there are 29 billion British coins in circulation with Queen Elizabeth II’s face on them.
Far from the hostility, vindictiveness, and toxic nature of politics among voters and political rivals in the United States, the Queen (and now King Charles III) remove themselves from the fray and rancor of the political battles and turn their attention to uniting the country by displaying dignity, discretion, and duty—all important hallmarks of the British Monarchy—in ways few world leaders are able to.
Columnist Nick Timothy of The Telegraph captured the unifying mood holding the country together so well, when he wrote: “The respect we show for the Royals reflects esteem not only for them as individuals, but as symbols of the stable constitutional settlement their family provides for us.” “It reflects,” Timothy continued, “our acceptance of their status as the protectors – not the participants – of the democratic political system that sits beneath them. It may be paradoxical, but our parliamentary democracy depends on our hereditary monarchy.”
--Bill Lucey
September 28, 2022
Dear Bill Lucey: Very nice post on the Monarchy. To quote the old Lite Beer commercial, I feel very strongly about it both ways.\
As a NY Times alum and reader, I think the Times had every right to bring up the history of the monarchy. But I also think the weeks of ceremony reminded millions of the dignity of the Queen herself but also the value of the ritual. Now let's see if the next generation(s) can mess up as badly as many of some recent prime ministers one could name.
I add that my mother was born in England and remained very proud of her heritage, and that my wife has a huge genealogy study of her ties to prominent English and New England figures going back a millennium or more. The rituals touched both of us, no matter what either might think of the various royals on display.
Nice to read your latest dispatch. George Vecsey
Posted by: George Vecsey | 09/28/2022 at 06:42 PM