LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR, WIFE ARRIVE FOR JUBILEE CELEBRATIONS
English do pomp and pageantry better than anyone in the world
LONDON – This venerable Roman city on the River Thames is agog this weekend over the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth — with Union Jacks and imperial red, white and blue bunting visible almost everywhere.
It was 60 years ago this Saturday — on an equally gloomy, drizzly day — that Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was crowned Queen regnant of the United Kingdom and six other Commonwealth nations, the first of which in order of precedence was Her Majesty’s oldest and therefore most senior dominion, Canada.
As the sun emerged briefly through a grey sky the Queen spent Saturday afternoon doing something she loves, watching the Epsom Derby. Dressed in a blue coat and matching hat, the keen and knowledgeable horsewoman was greeted with an enthusiastic rendition of God
Save the Queen by a crowd that included the cream of British society, among them many of her kin and oldest friends.
On Sunday, the pomp that nobody does better than the British is to begin in earnest as the Queen leads a flotilla of more than 1,000 vessels down the Thames aboard her new royal barge. On Monday evening she is to be feted by a Who’s Who of British pop music, including Sir Elton John and Sir Paul McCartney, before the lighting on a beacon at Buckingham Palace that follows by a few minutes the lighting of another beacon on the roof of nearby Canada House.
On Tuesday, she is to cross over from Westminster Hall to the palace in a horse-drawn royal cavalcade guarded by soldiers on horseback, where she is to look out from the royal balcony at the crowds gathered at Canada Gate and on the Pall Mall. On Wednesday she is to have lunch with her Commonwealth prime ministers, including Stephen Harper.
At 86 years of age — twice a great-grandmother in a family where the women are known for their longevity — Elizabeth obviously has slowed down a bit but remains in apparent robust health. If the Queen lives four more years she will break a record that once looked to be unassailable. She will surpass her great-great grandmother, Victoria, as Britain’s longest-reigning sovereign.
Should Elizabeth reach that milestone, there will be speculation aplenty about whether she should or would abdicate so that Prince Charles, who is already 64, can become King Charles III. Many believe Charles should in turn step aside so that his far more popular son, Prince William, can succeed the Queen as King William V.
While Victoria, Empress of India, saw her realm extended to the far corners of the globe, Elizabeth has watched hers contract bit by bit — especially in the late 1950s and early 1960s when nation after nation in Africa, the Middle East and the Far East declared its independence.
“Lilibet,” as she was called by those closest to her when she was young, has been the one constant in British life for more than half a century. What had been a white, Anglo-Saxon nation arose, quite literally, from the ashes and austerity of the Second World War and was transformed into a multicultural hub and one of the trendiest playgrounds for the famous and the infamous.
In another sign of the times, the Queen now has a mobile phone. Sixty years ago it took nearly 24 hours for news to reach her in Kenya that her father, King George VI, had died in London and that she and her husband must immediately break off their planned tour to Australia and New Zealand to attend the funeral.
The new Elizabethan Age has not been without its trials and disappointments for the Queen. Hounded by the paparazzi and a ravenous tabloid culture that no longer treats younger royals with respect or gives them much breathing room, some of her children and grandchildren have, to use an old English expression, “let the side down.”
The marriage of her firstborn and heir, Charles, to Princess Diana, ended in a shambles. So did the marriage of his younger brother, Andrew to Sarah, Duchess of York and — albeit with far less public opprobrium — the union of her only daughter, Anne, to Captain Mark Phillips. There have also been embarrassments as Andrew and his estranged wife, “Fergie,” as well as others close to her — including her youngest son, Prince Edward, and his wife, Sophie — appeared to trade on their royal connections to try to get easy money.
Throughout these often tawdry controversies and others involving Andrew and Fergie’s two daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, and Charles’s second son, Prince Harry, the Queen has maintained her dignity and her high reputation. Without complaint, she continues to get on with the punishing demands of an international life of public service, regularly reviewing classified private dispatch boxes on global affairs and having frequent consultations with British prime ministers.
There have been many trying times — none more so than when the Queen was slow to understand that many of her grieving subjects expected her to leave Balmoral Castle to mourn in public alongside them in London after the death of Diana in a car accident in Paris, which also killed an Egyptian lover whose reputation was that of a indolent bounder. Back in London, and dressed in black, the Queen dutifully emerged from Buckingham Palace to speak with some of those who gathered to honour Diana.
Even as a child, Elizabeth was regarded as someone with both a sweet nature and grit — not to be trifled with or crossed, according to those who knew her back then. That potent mixture and the fact that her primary private interests have always been her horses, her Welsh corgis and long walks around her English and Scottish estates, may explain why the Queen has been spared the intense scrutiny that her children and now her grandchildren must endure.
Nevertheless, the Queen continues to quietly assist her offspring and their progeny to prepare for public life. She had made the rounds recently with granddaughters Beatrice and Eugenie in tow, as well as with William’s bride, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.
With Britain in the middle of a recession that seems likely to get worse, the Queen and her Diamond Jubilee have once again brought some magic to the British Isles and to the centre of the royal universe in London. In a fit of patriotism, parliamentarians have been so gobsmacked by the Queen and the Second Elizabethan Age that they are reportedly about to rename Big Ben — the big clock atop Westminster Palace — as the Elizabeth Tower.
Given the pomp and hoopla that attended the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday, some are already wondering what her daughter’s centenary bash will be like.