Unique devotion of a great Monarch

THERE is something hugely moving about the Queen’s conduct in recent times. Long after most of us would have sought a secluded retirement of carefree peace, she has remained at her post, as she was taught to do from her childhood. There are, alas, precious few men and women from that stoical, dauntless generation left among us. But we could not have done without them, or without her, in the long and difficult decades of fear, war and national change through which she has lived.

Let us learn from her now. Besieged by age, she has faced and endured the deep personal loss of Prince Philip, her unique and essential support. She has faced the turmoil of Harry and Meghan’s departure for the woke world of California and the wretched misery of Prince Andrew’s public humiliation.

Can she be like us and still survive such repeated devastating blows? Yes, she is like us, human, vulnerable to hurt and grief. But she is also not like us.

She has learned to be unimpressed by flattery and luxury, and to be armoured against adversity. To her, triumph and disaster are impostors, as Rudyard Kipling rightly described them. She is a great Monarch precisely because she has seen so much and lived so long.

But now the unavoidable burden of her own remarkable age is growing greater, so great that it has come between her and duty. We can only imagine how hard it must have been for her to decide to stay away from tomorrow’s service for her beloved Commonwealth at Westminster Abbey.

As the Thanksgiving for the Duke of Edinburgh’s life, set for March 29, approaches, we should be thankful for her unique devotion over so many years, and hope and pray that she soon recovers her strength.