Presidents and prime ministers are sometimes, increasingly seldom these days, liked and respected. But they are hardly ever loved, not even by democracy worshippers.
Conversely, even those who are lukewarm on the monarchy can, against themselves, love the monarch. As we all love Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II – especially this weekend. One detects this pure feeling even in people who have always professed their hatred for the institution the Queen has now represented with so much dignity for 60 years.
If asked to explain why, we all, monarchists and republicans alike, would sound strained. Even the more eloquent people, those who could weave intricate and cogent arguments explaining their thoughts on various politicians, will struggle to sound sequentially logical trying to give an account of their feelings. That’s because likes or dislikes aren’t like love. One can always explain the former. The latter doesn’t need an explanation.
We may think we know the Queen, but we really don’t. How can we? The way our constitution has been interpreted, she never expresses her own views, only those of her government. Over six decades, assorted politicians, few of whom have been fit for office, have acted as ventriloquists, making Her Majesty say things and endorse policies with which she couldn’t possibly have agreed.
They, empowered by a constitution that’s not as unequivocal as many think, have made her stay on the sidelines as her realm reeled from one blow after another. It is with a bleeding heart that the Queen must have watched one piece after another being ripped out of her Empire, until it existed in name only, and then not even in that. It must have caused her much piercing pain to watch her subjects being brutalised, their education destroyed, their religion first vulgarised, then swept aside like stale crumbs off a table. Above all, she must have agonised over the sight of her subjects’ national character being pushed further and further away from her own, one that embodies every trait for which the British used to be admired the world over: dignity, restraint, moderation, equity, prudence, respect for others.
How she must have craved to speak out, nay to cry out at the sight of the country she serves with so much devotion turning away from the straight path charted by many generations of her family. But the ventriloquists wouldn’t let her; the lowly must pull down to their own level those who tower above them.
That was the animus behind Blair’s government forcing the Queen to take part in the obscene necrophiliac spectacle 15 years ago, when ‘the people’s princess’ was killed together with her louche lover. A mob in the throes of mass hysteria, expertly whipped by government stooges and their poodle press, was braying, ‘Show us you care, Your Majesty!’ And she did care – for her realm, not those who brought it into disrepute. And she did show she cared – over what was then 45 years of tireless, selfless service.
The Queen carries within herself everything that makes Britain British. If at the beginning of her reign she personified all that was good in her country, today she is practically the only good thing left. She is perhaps the only public figure we’ve had for quite some time who puts the interests of others above her own, who is willing to serve without being served. If there is any hope for her realm, it’s that she and her family will continue to provide that vital link between the generations past, present and future, without which no civilisation will remain even vestigially civilised.
I do hope Her Majesty preserves for posterity her real thoughts, which are bound to be so much loftier for being simple. The rest of us can only speculate on the essence of Britain, her unrivalled constitution, the meaning of her history. And, as the subject is complex and multifarious, we are bound to overcomplicate matters. The Queen doesn’t have to speculate on these things: she carries them within herself. She isn’t an exegete; she is an embodiment. That’s why, if she ever deigns to enlarge on such matters, she will use words of Biblical simplicity – and therefore of poignancy reaching her audience’s hearts. Wouldn’t you like to hear? Wouldn’t you like to know what the Queen thinks about her country, her God, and how the two are intertwined?
This dialogue took place exactly 60 years ago:
Archbishop. Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England? And will you preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of England, and to the Churches there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges, as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them?
Queen. All this I promise to do.
Many happy returns, Your Majesty – and God bless you.