June 3, 2022 - 7:00am
Only four times in recorded history has a monarch achieved seven decades of continuous reign, and barring some extraordinary sequence of events, Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee will be the last platinum jubilee any of us will ever witness. In five years, Her Majesty will be 101 years old, an actuarially unforgiving age, and her longevity on the throne will be so beyond our lived experience and vocabulary that the resulting jubilee — if there is one — will be called a diamond jubilee once again. None of her heirs and successors is likely to be as young as she was on their accession, nor will any of them reign for as long as she has.
Longevity has a mystique of its own, but also brings its descriptive dilemmas. Almost everything that could be said about the Queen has been said since the day she stepped off her plane at London Airport after her father’s death in 1952, a strikingly modern entrance which still has the power to move us even today.
Though brave efforts have been made to define the essence of this Second Elizabethan Era, as her reign was being optimistically described in 1952, it is hard to find any common theme uniting these seven long decades, except perhaps for ever-present anxieties about national decline.
Celebrations for this Jubilee, modelled largely on the pattern of previous ones, share the same lack of focus. Staples such as Trooping of the Colour and the traditional flypast are supplemented by new tree planting and literacy initiatives, scientifically designed by committees to be as unobjectionable to as many of her subjects as possible. It is even reported that organisers of the Jubilee pageant were ordered by Buckingham Palace to avoid “over-glorifying or over-egging” the Queen, lest British republicans, who count among their ranks some of the most professionally joyless people in the country, should be offended.
But it would be a mistake to overthink such things, as those who make their living with words are wont to do. The appeal of monarchy, even in its most democratic manifestations, has always been a fundamentally mystical one. Queen Elizabeth has many virtues, which are made so much more poignant by their gradual disappearance from today’s public life.
But as sneering republicans often point out, there are many virtuous old ladies everywhere, and none of them will be celebrated in quite the same way. This misses the point. The Queen is the Queen, and not any old lady, because of the remorseless laws of primogeniture — by accident of birth, in other words, but one “which identified the life of her family with our history, and which made what came of her an exemplar for the country”.
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Subscribe“…lest British republicans, who count among their ranks some of the most professionally joyless people in the country, should be offended”.
Had to have a giggle at that one – how true. I am something of a part-time republican these days – but I think I’d be more enthusiastic about the prospect if there were fewer committed sourpusses among the existing population. Who articulated a positive view of a future state rather than just whining about unearned privilege.
I think mystical is the right way to explain the continued fascination and devotion to the monarchy. It does feel instinctive, a little irrational and quite divorced from the specific person who occupies/will occupy the top spot (although, at 40, I’ve only ever known QE2). It’s rather like the odd feeling of home I get whenever I’m near the sea and get the salt air in my nose.
It’s this basic feeling of belonging that can only be felt and not really described but which not even decades living in a landlocked republic can erase.
ed32
Excellent article, great job at putting the ineffable into words.