THE QUEEN GOES PLATINUM

 

London, UK

One of the more striking ripple effects of the American Revolution upon the English-speaking world apparent on this extraordinarily significant date is the fact that if one were to ask just about any citizen of the most potent of the English-speaking nations on earth what the significance of this day is, they would respond with a shrug. “Super Bowl Sunday is next Sunday,” they might answer.

Across the United States, Americans are currently in the process of inviting family and friends to Super Bowl parties which, next Sunday, will be held in homes and pubs across the country, from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific; from the Mexican border to the Canadian (and beyond). Pizza and Buffalo wings will be ordered, purchased, and consumed in unimaginable quantities next weekend, and emergency rooms will be busy the following Monday.

Today, betting Americans are fiddling with their hand-held devices as they use sportsbook apps to place wagers either on the LA Rams or the Cincinnati Bengals, hoping for a minor windfall when all is said and done next weekend. Today, Americans, tuned into the Olympics on NBC after paying lip-service to the Deity in their megachurch of choice, are still reminiscing about a wild NFL playoff season in which games were won and lost on a coin toss in OT and in which stunning upsets seemed to be the rule rather than the exception. Neither Tom Brady, nor Pat Mahomes, nor Josh Allen will be dazzling fans with their athletic skills on the gridiron at SoFi Stadium on February 13.

Thanks to the American Revolution, a declining superpower is all but oblivious to the fact that the rest of the English-speaking world is today marking the 70^th anniversary of the accession to the throne of the figurehead of much of the world, the longest-serving head of state on earth. In Los Angeles, where preparations are being made for next Sunday’s battle royale, few have any clue that Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the seas, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, has become, as of about 5:45am New York time, the first female ruler in the history of the world to celebrate the platinum anniversary of her reign.

Today, “The Queen” (as she is known the world over) celebrates her Platinum Jubilee. Should she yet be on the throne by the close of the year 2024 (in her 98^th year), Elizabeth II will become the longest-reigning European sovereign, ever, surpassing even the 72-year reign of France’s “Sun King”, Louis XIV.

No need to get ahead of the game, however. On this date, at 10:45 am Sandringham time, in a jolt to the entire English-speaking world (the United States included), King George VI died suddenly from complications due to terminal lung cancer at the age of 56, leaving the eldest of his two daughters to take the reins of the British commonwealth from him.

Too many writers and commentators over the years have foolishly gushed and waxed sympathetic over the fact that Elizabeth was “so young” and “just a girl” at the time, marveling that such a young lady of a such a tender age should have been suddenly faced with “shouldering the burden of an empire”. 

Let’s stop all that; it is saccharin in the extreme, wildly incorrect, and it frankly belittles her. Louis XIV was five years old when he ascended the French throne, for heaven’s sake.

Elizabeth II, on the other hand, was a competent, confident woman of 25, a wife, and the mother of two children when she took the throne. She had served in the Second World War as a subaltern of the ATS, driving and maintaining combat vehicles. The queen, upon becoming queen, was no helpless little girl anymore than she is, as a platinum jubilarian, a delicate little old lady. This queen may seem the lovely and charming grandmother of the Anglophonic world but she is, in fact, a woman of steel.

There is a tendency today in Hollywood to gravitate to female super-heroines in order to counterbalance the pantheon of superheroes whose preternatural powers we have, for decades, marveled at on the silver screen. If we find ourselves too captivated by the absurdly unrealistic virtues of these fictitious Olympian heroes, however, we run the risk of losing sight of what constitutes true heroic strength, which has nothing whatsoever to do with lassos of truth, invisible jets, or the ability to leap over tall buildings in a single bound.

How about the superhuman ability to go to the office and to do the same job each and every day from age 25 to age 95? How about, through doing so, maintaining the political stability and social equilibrium of not one, but multiple nations scattered across the globe? That may be a more useful service to humanity in the 20^th and 21^st centuries than anything Wonder Woman or Superman might bring to the table.

It is a mistake (and it is not necessary) to over-inflate the burden which fell upon the shoulders of the 25-year-old Princess Elizabeth when King George died in 1952. By the time of Elizabeth’s arrival on the throne, the British Empire was no more and the monarchy had long become symbolic and ceremonial by nature. The burden which fell upon the shoulders of Elizabeth II was not at all like that which fell upon the shoulders of Elizabeth I, for example. Elizabeth I was expected to govern as well as reign in a time of unimaginable political, social, and religious upheaval. Now, that was real pressure.

It would also be a mistake, however, to undervalue the role that Queen Elizabeth II has played, regardless of the much-changed nature of the British monarchy since the time of her Tudor namesake. There is little use in comparing the two simply on account of the fact that they share a gender and a name. Talk of a “New Elizabethan Era” in 1952 was overblown and overly dramatic. It wasn’t helpful and it didn’t take hold.

We have not, in the last 70 years, referred to these times as an “Elizabethan” era and future generations will not so christen them in hindsight. The last 70 years have already been demarcated into indelible eras, most notably the Postwar era, the Cold War era, the Space Age, and the internet age. King Edward VII was the last British monarch to have his own “era”, and that only after a fashion. Suddenly facing the end of the lengthy “Victorian era” and not knowing quite what else to do, really, Britons felt the need to coin a new “era” (however brief and indistinct from the latter part of the previous era it may have been).  

The remarkable thing about the reign of Queen Elizabeth II is not that it has constituted an “era”, for it has not (nor could it, given the diminished global status of the British monarchy coupled with a world in constant flux). No, the remarkable thing is that it has spanned a succession of distinct epochs representing an astounding display of change, upheaval, conflict, reordering, advancement, and decline. Elizabeth’s reign is like a great arc which almost amusingly unites the age of tailfins and hula-hoops with the age of Netflix and the Metaverse.

The queen’s greatest service to Britain and to the world during these 70 years has not had anything to do with ruling or governing or decision-making or leading. Instead, it has been the gift of her constant presence, a presence which has subtly and subliminally provided a sense of stability and continuity to an otherwise chaotic planet. From the time of the infancy of most of us (if not all of us), the queen has been the one and only human constant in this world. She has always been there.

The queen’s face has greeted us everywhere we have looked, whether on currency notes, on coins, on stamps, on portraits framed and hanging in post office lobbies, in courtrooms, and so frequently seen on television and the internet. We are as familiar with her face as we are with our own faces. Elizabeth II’s quiet and stately presence has been something of a backdrop to the living of our daily lives and--even for those Anglophones who are focusing upon next Sunday’s Super Bowl rather than upon today’s Platinum Jubilee event--when that unnoticed backdrop has at last fallen, the absence of it will be disorienting, indeed.

One might compare Elizabeth II’s reign to the beige walls in one’s home. We never really notice them or pay attention to them; only to the art, photos, and clocks hanging upon them. Take away those walls, however, and the clocks and frames come crashing down as the gusts blow through the frame of the house. The once-safe cocoon has become a vulnerable, insecure, and chilly place, leaving us exposed to the elements and unsure of tomorrow.

Alright, so that’s a healthy dose of hyperbole, and yet the point is made as to the unseen value of “The Queen” in our world.

When the queen, with her brightly colored hats, quaintly gloved hands, and smiling visage, is replaced by a fidgeting king in a grey flannel suit and the matriarchy has been supplanted by a long succession of aging patriarchs (Prince William having already reached middle age), it will be a much different scenario than perhaps we are psychologically prepared to absorb and process. The Victorians, if they could, would caution us to brace ourselves.

Granted, there will be both a king and a queen. That is known for certain, now, thanks to Elizabeth’s expenditure, today, of some of the auctoritas she has accumulated over the decades, in the form of a rather dramatic pronouncement that she hopes that “in the fulness of time” the Duchess of Cornwall will accompany the future King Charles III as queen consort. Well. There it is.

Although Queen Elizabeth II might like to be assured that Britain will have a “Queen Camilla” once she has gone, others (her grandsons, included) might not be quite so delighted by the idea. The shadow of Diana continues to fall over Charles and Camilla (and ever will, I think).  That shadow has darkened the image of the couple in the popular imagination and once Charles and Camilla have become the new faces of the monarchy, attitudes toward that institution are apt to begin to change.  It will be interesting to see how enthusiastically Canadians and Australians embrace the idea of “Queen Camilla” when the idea of “King Charles III” already leaves many of them cold.

King Charles and Queen Camilla will come to the throne very much in their old age, their reputations preceding them, with none of the romantic glitter and starry-eyed glamour which accompanied the young Elizabeth II when she was crowned in 1953 in the presence of her fair-haired prince charming. The ’53 coronation was the last of its kind, and they just managed to slip it in before the dawn of the age of Elvis Presley and the space race, so as not to render it so utterly anachronistic as it might have seemed had it occurred even one year later.   

What will even a greatly pared-back version of that ceremony held in Westminster Abbey five or ten years from now, for the benefit of the octogenarian King Charles and Queen Camilla, say to the peoples who will be asked to pay them their homage in that moment? What will the average Glaswegian, Torontonian, Quebecker, or Canberran make of all that, I wonder. Time will tell.

Elizabeth II’s longevity and continued vitality has postponed and will continue to postpone all meaningful considerations of the deluge to follow and today, in any event, is not the day for those discussions. Today is a day to give thanks that we may kick the can down the road once again, and keep on kicking it, thanks to the long life and reign of a remarkable queen.

Vivat Regina!

THE KINGDOM OF GREAT HANOVER  .  2022