This week, to mark her platinum anniversary, Queen Elizabeth II gave a televised interview. No, of course she didn’t – she was the queen and did not sail to the throne until her 70th birthday, adopting the tactics of ordinary politicians and celebrities. Already the longest reigning monarch in Britain, she is one of the few people to make the news just by continuing.
Elizabeth II is the most famous of all the British, but she reveals little. Biographers have found other royalty ready to open, but it remains a closed book. At the age of 96, she gave at most one interview (“talk” about her coronation in 2018) and limited herself to brief careless remarks and an annual Christmas message. She can be seen but not heard – as on this long holiday weekend, when she appears on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to watch the anniversary show.
The British love her for this discretion. Four-fifths have a positive view of the queen, which removes her from the next most popular king, Prince William. Sales of official platinum anniversary souvenirs have been suspended due to “unprecedented demand” – a blow to those who urgently need a gold cup and saucer for £ 225.
Elizabeth Windsor ascended the throne in February 1952, at the age of 25, when her father died suddenly. She was on holiday in Kenya with her husband Philip when she heard. (Their two children at the time, Charles and Anne, aged 3 and 1, were abandoned in the United Kingdom.) “I ruined everyone’s trip,” she apologized to one of her parties.
In fact, her life from the age of 10, when Edward VIII abdicated, has taken shape to this day. Her sister Margaret had felt an early wedge between the two as the teachers focused on the queen. On her 21st birthday in 1947, Elizabeth promised in a radio address to devote “her whole life, whether long or short”, to the service of the peoples of the British Commonwealth and the Empire.
The empire collapsed and Britain changed dramatically. But the queen was rarely abandoned. Its lowest point was in 1997, when public concern over the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, was channeled into complaining that the monarch had not shown enough emotion. One defense is that she cared for Diana’s sons, William and Harry, in Balmoral. But Britain’s obsession with royalty has never yielded much to their well-being.
Otherwise, the troubles of her family largely make her look good in comparison. She avoided her husband’s blunders and the unhappy marriages of her children. She certainly never mingled with Jeffrey Epstein. Criticism of the “Boss”, for example, that he is moving away from parenthood or that he financed Prince Andrew’s aggressive legal tactics, has never remained.
Its administration includes 14 prime ministers, starting with Winston Churchill, and includes a weekly audience with them. “It was cathartic in many ways,” Sir John Major recalled this week. “You could discuss things with the queen that you couldn’t really discuss with almost anyone else.” He jokes that he often wants her in the office.
Her views almost never ran out, but she was thought to be unhappy with Margaret Thatcher’s pigeon stance on apartheid in South Africa and was convinced to make the slightest intervention on behalf of the Union in the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum. was involved in the Brexit debate, with Eurosceptics claiming she supported leaving (based on false evidence). Economists have suffered several regrets about the financial crisis: in 2008, when she asked why no one saw her, and again in 2012, when she visited the Bank of England, she noticed that “people are a little lazy”.
The Queen is not the most influential Briton, nor the richest. Her fortune is estimated at £ 370 million, putting her behind musician Sir Elton John, who will play at the anniversary concert on Sunday. She agreed to pay income tax as one of her periodic reverences to public sentiment.
What sets her apart is her sense of duty. Unlike all other royalty, except perhaps Anne, she was never annoyed during the service. It is determined by religion, horses, corgis, colorful clothes, the British community and most of all Britain.
Her judgments seem surprisingly wise. When planners suggested she celebrate her golden jubilee in 2002 by boarding the new London Eye, she apparently replied: “I’m not a tourist. However, she agreed to participate in the James Bond series for the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games and in a comedy commercial for Prince Harry’s Invictus Games in 2016.
Somehow the queen manages to resonate even with some Republicans and those who find respect for the monarchy blatant. Punk singer Johnny Rotton said this week that he respects her. When gardening presenter Alan Tichmarsh mocked the jubilee event, “For 70 years there has been a constant pulse of this nation and this heart belongs to Her Majesty the Queen,” the camera cut off the woman herself, who shrugged, very relatively.
If it reaches June 2024, it will overtake Louis XIV, the French Sun King, as the longest reigning monarch in history. But nothing lasts forever. Her husband, Philip, died last year. She was unable to attend the state opening of parliament last month due to “occasional mobility problems” or Friday’s Thanksgiving service in St. Paul’s due to “discomfort”. Officials are waiting to perform Operation London Bridge, a choreographic sequence to mark the inevitable.
henry.mance@ft.com
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