The British people and perhaps even the Queen herself did not fully grasp the world wide affection in which she was held and what influence she and, through her, the United Kingdom had throughout the World.
Queen Elizabeth II was always dignified, smiling, genuinely interested in her subjects, loved for her humour and optimism and a hard working pillar of the Nation State and that vast collection of Nation States which is the British Commonwealth.
So many millions around the world have a feeling of great loss. A full page headline in a German quality newspaper read “The world cries for the Queen”. How many hundreds of millions of people throughout the world would refer to only one person as “the Queen”. I reproduce here the words of a long time friend Bernard Chalumeau, President of the Alliance for the Sovereignty of France:
Here too, we all feel to have lost someone in our own family. We all thought she was eternal: at all the ages of her life, she was so pretty, so smiling, so present, so brave, so close. She was the United Kingdom! She embodied the United Kingdom! Before her death, we were very close, after we are even closer! It is the miracle of sovereignty which, throughout the world, brings together free peoples. Never forget her! Never!
The Queen was always well received in France – she was after all the Duke of Normandy! The Queen was always cheerful, kind and optimistic – how much more powerful than a thousand international treaties! As she said many years ago:
“I cannot lead you into battle, I do not give you laws or administer justice, but I can do something else. I can give you my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.”
Only because she loved her own people could she show compassion for other nations. She did indeed touch the hearts of millions around the world. She was genuinely interested in people and in her own Government and having appointed 15 Prime Ministers she could offer a wise historical word to temper the fevered brow of politics. And she had a ready wit. Like Queen Victoria Elizabeth loved her home in Windsor Castle close to Heathrow Airport. When visiting Surrey she talked to a resident plagued by the noise of aircraft flying into Gatwick airport “like your Majesty at Windsor”. “Yes”, the Queen replied – “we are thinking of moving”
But successive governments manipulated her into doing their nefarious work – not least on granting Crown Prerogative powers to sign the European Treaties which removed her own sovereignty and that of her subjects. Many thought she should have spoken out publicly and even those who understood how she could not be involved with politics nevertheless thought that the loss of constitutional power was a different matter. What should disturb all true democrats is that despite a mailbag full of her Subjects’ fears for their and her Sovereignty, even the Queen felt cowed into silence by the State of which she was the Head.
Her successor, despite being prospective head of the Church of England and constitutional monarch of a sovereign nation, has unfortunately so often and for so long involved himself in blatantly political affairs, describing himself as “Defender of Faiths”, preaching the excesses of the climate change industry and joining some of the worst elements in that corporatist globalism which seeks to destroy the nation state which he and his late mother personify.
A modern Monarch requires courage, cheerfulness, engagement with the people and a stable marriage, willing to defend the nation state and the democratic sovereignty of their people, commanding respect abroad and showing strict neutrality in political matters.
It is not clear whether there is enough support for the continuation of the Monarchy in the UK in the long run but if any member of Government or Royalty wanted an example of the true and loved Monarch they could start with Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
May she rest in peace – “a good and faithful servant”.
Floral Tribute (Lily of the Valley was her favourite flower)
by the Poet Laureate Simon Armitage:
Evening will come, however determined the late afternoon,
Limes and oaks in their last green flush, pearled in September mist.
I have conjured a lily to light these hours, a token of thanks,
Zones and auras of soft glare framing the brilliant globes.
A promise made and kept for life – that was your gift –
Because of which, here is a gift in return, glovewort to some,
Each shining bonnet guarded by stern lance-like leaves.
The country loaded its whole self into your slender hands,
Hands that can rest, now, relieved of a century’s weight.
Evening has come. Rain on the black lochs and dark Munros.
Lily of the Valley, a namesake almost, a favourite flower
Interlaced with your famous bouquets, the restrained
Zeal and forceful grace of its lanterns, each inflorescence
A silent bell disguising a singular voice. A blurred new day
Breaks uncrowned on remote peaks and public parks, and
Everything turns on these luminous petals and deep roots,
This lily that thrives between spire and tree, whose brightness
Holds and glows beyond the life and border of its bloom
