World leaders have gathered in Glasgow for COP26 this weekend, but Queen Elizabeth II – most likely the dignitary they were eager to see – will not be there to greet them. She will instead address the delegates in a recorded video. The convention would lack the magic dust that the physical presence of Europe’s last anointed and longest-reigning monarch shatters on such occasions.
This is the latest of many information on royal mortality. This year the Queen, 95, long ago handed over difficult overseas tours to her son and heir to the throne, Prince Charles. Just as the Palace begins to shift more duties around the royal “firm”, Britain must begin to think: life unimaginable without him.
Britain’s constitutional head canceled a planned two-day visit to Northern Ireland last week after an overnight stay in a London hospital, news of which was severely blocked from the world’s media by Palace officials. The intention was to reduce the fear for her health and protect her privacy from intrusion. Instead, it raised alarm bells and led to allegations of cover-up. To avoid repetition, allies would have to be more open with the press and public about the emperor’s health in old age.
The Queen is now resting at her home at Windsor Castle, although on Tuesday evening she made an appearance at a reception for the government’s investment summit, welcoming Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Bill Gates among other guests.
But the shadow of his years lengthens. The Queen was recently photographed with a cane and now conducts her weekly audiences by telephone rather than face-to-face with Johnson, avoiding Buckingham Palace in London if she can. She has also given up on horse riding, which is her favorite holiday. Everything is normal for someone his age.
However, one day – sooner than later, we hope – the Palace’s bulletin will declare something similar about his grandfather George V (“The life of the king is moving peacefully closer to his”). There will then be a telephone call to the Prime Minister’s Office on a secure line with the message “London Bridge is down,” the code for their passing. The Foreign Office’s Global Response Center will share the news with 15 governments outside the UK where the Queen is still the head of state and with 36 other Commonwealth countries. Alerted within minutes by a press association newsflash, most of his people would learn of the death of the only monarch they have ever known.
Everything will change – from the head on banknotes to the sense of certainty and continuity Elizabeth II has so calmly embodied.
I would be surprised if the Queen doesn’t preside over the Remembrance Sunday memorial ceremony, an event she considers the most important on her calendar. Elizabeth II takes her coronation oaths and royal duties with religious solemnity.
Unlike some other modern monarchs and even a recent pope, she has refused to consider formal retirement – the job she signed on to the coronation is, for her, a job for life. . The last long-reigning queen, Victoria, distanced herself for many years after the death of her husband Albert in 1861 and became unpopular for it. This is not the way of his descendants. Elizabeth intends to remain in public for as long as possible.
“Long Live the Queen” was a declaration made after her accession to the throne, but since her husband’s death, her subjects have come to understand that there is a terminus in her life.
Even the minority of his subjects who are staunch Republicans and hate all the hassle associated with royalty, will be shaken by his departure. In opinion polls, the overwhelming majority think it is doing a great job. Through her dignity and emotional restraint, she has largely avoided personal controversies that plague her children. Above all, he is a symbol of continuity in the history of Britain.
For the Queen is the final episode of the Age of Empires, the Second World War and the finest of Winston Churchill’s watches.
Critics said he was wrong not to give way to his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, once a decent period had passed after the death of his first wife, Lady Diana, and his remarriage to Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. Was. But perhaps by staying here, the queen has done one last great national service.
Britain has just passed through a painful period of political upheaval. The Brexit referendum in 2016 was a bitter affair that divided friends, families, classes and the four countries of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which make up the UK. Years of wrangling in the House of Commons almost resulted in constitutional disintegration and left the country in a political stalemate.
In the eyes of the world and many of its people, Britain was collectively having a nervous breakdown. A voice of peace in this fiery atmosphere was the queen. If she had left at that time, the country would have trembled. Now that the worst is over and political anger has subsided, perhaps the country he ruled can find greater inner peace – if not compromise – and live with Charles, an heiress who Dutiful and devoted, but a more outspoken and divisive individual.
But first we must come to terms with the idea that the Queen’s reign is steadily drawing to a close and prepare accordingly – even if the royals have a way of having mis-legged hopes. After all, the Queen Mother, who died in 2002, was 101 years old.
Martin Evans was editor of the Sunday Times from 2013 to 2020 and was formerly its chief political commentator. He is the Director of the Board of Times Newspapers.
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