Malta remembers monarch’s past
VALLETTA, Malta — A dilapidated villa outside Malta’s capital where a young Princess Elizabeth and her husband lived for a fondly recalled period before she became queen has become a focal point of Malta’s remembrance of the late monarch and her ties to the former British colony in the Mediterranean.
Flowers and wreaths have crowded the door of Villa Guardamangia, where Elizabeth and Prince Philip spent months at a time between 1949 and 1951, following the death of the woman who would go on to serve for 70 years as Queen Elizabeth II. Philip, a Royal Navy officer, was assigned to Malta in the early years of the couple’s marriage.
“Visiting Malta is always very special for me,” the queen said in Malta in 2015, when she visited the island nation for a Commonwealth meeting in what became her final visit. “I remember happy days here with Prince Phillip when we were first married.”
Unlike in some other former colonies, where the monarch’s death has conjured up memories of oppression or lasting economic disparities as a legacy of British rule, residents of Malta generally remember the monarch with respect.
The Maltese government in 2020 purchased Villa Guardamangia, which had fallen into disrepair, and is renovating the dwelling with the aim of turning it into a museum documenting the history of Malta’s relationship with the British monarchy.
“Obviously, Malta was a colony, too, so there are people who also remember that Britain had colonized us,” said former President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca. “But I don’t think people really mix the issue of being colonized and the queen. The queen carried a lot of respect.”