The death of a ruling sovereign is a strange thing, at once a private tragedy and public spectacle. In more unsettled times, Parliament would be dissolved and all officers of the Crown dismissed, marking the advent of a new political order. As monarchical power ebbed, so did the political implications of a demise of the crown; yet the democratic form of monarchy merely increased the intensity with which the event is felt. As the Queen’s forebears gave up their last state prerogatives, they gained a new place in their subjects’ consciousness; and private and public grief became one.

The Queen, we were told, was “comfortable and resting”, that most deadly of postures, the whitest of lies from the Royal Household, perhaps the last bastion of euphemism in an age notable for its bluntness. We all knew what it meant; yet a superstitious reticence stopped many from saying it out loud. But then the event would occur, the recent evasions would be forgotten, and the mourning would begin.

It is almost impossible to say anything about The Queen’s reign which has not been said before. Hopes of a second Elizabethan age which accompanied her accession, it is often said, have not been borne out; but they have been, just not in the manner people expected. Her subjects have gained a degree of prosperity which would have delighted their ancestors who witnessed her Coronation; yet there is also a widespread sense that the civic unity of her peoples has decayed at the same time, along with their sense of national purpose.