Congrats to Queen Elizabeth II on a lifetime of service
Anyone who feared — or hoped — the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland might soon embrace republicanism needed only to see the pictures from London on Thursday to be disabused of that notion as tens of thousands of loyal subjects of Queen Elizabeth II crowded The Mall and well beyond, hoping to catch a glimpse of their beloved monarch at Buckingham Palace as she began her weekend of celebration for her Platinum Jubilee.
At 96 and now struggling with her health, the queen might well have preferred putting her feet up with a nice cup of tea to standing on a balcony with those members of her family who have not been felled by scandal or disillusionment and thus remain “working royals,” but she showed up nonetheless, as she stoically did through World War II (no evacuation to the safer countryside for her), changing times, inconstant offspring and even as a stream of prime ministers (and U.S. presidents) came and went.
The (mostly) inscrutable queen, the only monarch most Britons ever have known, has been a constant presence, ever steady as she went. Depending on one’s point of view, and how seriously one takes “The Crown,” that’s either been a unifying comfort for at least four generations or the last stand of the indefensible.
In a democracy, there’s no viable justification for a hereditary monarchy, of course, except one: The people want it to continue.
And while the queen’s relationship to her beloved Commonwealth of Nations, the continuation and sustenance of which has been the most impressive achievement of her life, is clearly challenged by the newly energized critique of the legacy of colonialism, she remains a popular figure at home and well beyond.
Once she’s gone, though, all bets will be off, which is why the historic events across the pond this weekend have the feeling of a last stand, the final chance to see the Elizabeth appear in public and perhaps even representing the last major appearances of her historic reign. The British are resigned to a regency, if not an imminent abdication. The monarchy will survive in some form, at least on British soil, but it will be forever diminished.
It’s worth remembering that more than a million Chicagoans, a colossal number, lined the shores of Lake Michigan when the queen arrived in Chicago
in 1959 on the royal yacht Britannia, part of a celebration of the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway. She was hardly alone as she alighted, across from a bedecked Buckingham Fountain: the aquatic entourage included seven warships and some 500 smaller boats. Thereafter, Mayor Richard J. Daley hosted a famously lavish dinner for the queen and her late consort, Prince Philip, reportedly featuring gold tablecloths and 50,000 roses. He also handed over a box of recordings by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and, improbably, a couple of polo mallets. Our tabloid competitors at the Sun-Times offered a whopping 20 pages of pictures and on-the-spot coverage of that day, lest the public interest is in doubt.
On the morning of that visit, July 6, we editorialized thus, under the headline “Hands across the lakes” and with a strikingly defiant emphasis not on London calling, but on the queen’s relationship to Canada:
We are confident that the welcome Elizabeth receives in Chicago Monday will be as hospitable as any she has received in the lands over which she reigns. Like so many before her, she will find Chicago’s heart as warm as its lake front is beautiful, and this is a warmth based not on fealty or tradition, but on true friendship for her as queen of Canada.
Most of us have followed her career since she was a little girl, and we have regarded her as worthy of the station and responsibilities which are hers. Her arrival in Chicago as the queen of our friendly and
respected neighbor enables Americans and Canadians to clasp hands across the Great Lakes, which, while dividing our countries, yet unite them thru the completed seaway over which Queen Elizabeth has come here.
Daley, though, likely saw things differently as he micromanaged the royal visit. In their book “American Pharaoh,” Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor argue that the arrival of the queen was seminal in Daley’s growing confidence and in his understanding of the power of his office and, by implication, the potency of the city he ran: “Daley might have started out as a precinct captain in the 11th Ward, and he might have still lived in a simple bungalow in Bridgeport. But he had invited the queen of England to come to Chicago as his guest and she had come.” Indeed she did.
So the queen did both Daley, who was swaggeringly ecstatic, and Chicago, ditto, a solid in 1959, becoming the first reigning British monarch ever to visit the city, smiling throughout and shining a light on its assets as she did for so many other places.
She won’t be back. But almost 63 years later, Elizabeth remains a symbol of stability, continuity, resilience, service, faith and determination. And she is one of the very few people left on the planet that most everyone in the world respects, whatever they think of her country or her institution.
She deserves a heck of a party and, from Chicago, we thank her for her service and wish her Godspeed.