Shillings and guineas are history,
espresso
it overcame tea, there are more papists than Anglicans, and the imperial system of measurement barely survives on sacred allegiance to the pint of ale.
From one end of Elizabeth II's life to the other, there is almost nothing that has not changed in the United Kingdom: if her father exercised his dominion over "a continent, a hundred peninsulas, two thousand rivers and ten thousand islands", she already she did not arrive in time to be Empress of India and her son is very likely to only reign over a few geographical whims and tax havens.
Yes, from 1926 to 2022, everything has changed in a United Kingdom that, from the continent, was seen as "a placid lake" of stability: a world war has been won, an empire has been lost, it has been in and out of the European Union and there has been a decade for the counterculture and another for the conservative revolution.
God save the queen
— a punk anthem came out of him like a
punk
and that the two have lived together in perfect peace, in that entente of tradition and progress that has encrypted the best of British genius.
Because the United Kingdom has been on the verge of losing even one of its constituent nations —Scotland—, but among the things that have not changed is a monarchical model established in history and at the same time harmed or benefited by the exemplary nature of the sovereign: if the The Duke of Windsor would have been a good king, Elizabeth would never have been a queen.
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When speaking of the crown of England, however, there is an ingredient that —as Bagehot, his great nineteenth-century writer, knew— is as inevitable as it is inexplicable: affection.
After crushing the longevity of Queen Victoria on the throne, and after celebrating -70 years- her platinum jubilee, Elizabeth II has been, before her family, the princess who collaborated in the war effort, the young fairy tale queen, the mother who had her children's cradle installed in the office and the venerable grandmother in whom the British have been able to “see royalty”, as the philosopher Roger Scruton wrote, “with all its most prestigious symbols, aspirations and memories”.
In any of these phases, she has been the vault key of British institutions, but also part of the family landscape of all the generations that now live on the islands,
immutable as the fine rain, the cliffs of Dover or the expectant expression of her son Carlos.
If the distance from the people is a common anti-monarchist argument, Elizabeth II could well have said that she met more Britons than anyone else: any traveler in the country can't help but be amazed at the number of reminders that testify to the hyperactivity of the monarchy, of the opening of the Hull transport interchange in 1976 to boredom upon boredom, the fiftieth anniversary of Glasgow's first class of dermatologists.
Perhaps that is why there are British against the monarchy, but Elizabeth II made it very difficult to be against the queen.
And perhaps for this reason, because the crown is a personal magistracy, there have been territories —New Zealand, the aforementioned Australia— that have not wanted to stop having her as head of state.
the cliffs of Dover or the waiting expression of his son Carlos.
If the distance from the people is a common anti-monarchist argument, Elizabeth II could well have said that she met more Britons than anyone else: any traveler in the country can't help but be amazed at the number of reminders that testify to the hyperactivity of the monarchy, of the opening of the Hull transport interchange in 1976 to boredom upon boredom, the fiftieth anniversary of Glasgow's first class of dermatologists.
Perhaps that is why there are British against the monarchy, but Elizabeth II made it very difficult to be against the queen.
And perhaps for this reason, because the crown is a personal magistracy, there have been territories —New Zealand, the aforementioned Australia— that have not wanted to stop having her as head of state.
the cliffs of Dover or the waiting expression of his son Carlos.
If the distance from the people is a common anti-monarchist argument, Elizabeth II could well have said that she met more Britons than anyone else: any traveler in the country can't help but be amazed at the number of reminders that testify to the hyperactivity of the monarchy, of the opening of the Hull transport interchange in 1976 to boredom upon boredom, the fiftieth anniversary of Glasgow's first class of dermatologists.
Perhaps that is why there are British against the monarchy, but Elizabeth II made it very difficult to be against the queen.
And perhaps for this reason, because the crown is a personal magistracy, there have been territories —New Zealand, the aforementioned Australia— that have not wanted to stop having her as head of state.
If the distance from the people is a common anti-monarchist argument, Elizabeth II could well have said that she met more Britons than anyone else: any traveler in the country can't help but be amazed at the number of reminders that testify to the hyperactivity of the monarchy, of the opening of the Hull transport interchange in 1976 to boredom upon boredom, the fiftieth anniversary of Glasgow's first class of dermatologists.
Perhaps that is why there are British against the monarchy, but Elizabeth II made it very difficult to be against the queen.
And perhaps for this reason, because the crown is a personal magistracy, there have been territories —New Zealand, the aforementioned Australia— that have not wanted to stop having her as head of state.
If the distance from the people is a common anti-monarchist argument, Elizabeth II could well have said that she met more Britons than anyone else: any traveler in the country can't help but be amazed at the number of reminders that testify to the hyperactivity of the monarchy, of the opening of the Hull transport interchange in 1976 to boredom upon boredom, the fiftieth anniversary of Glasgow's first class of dermatologists.
Perhaps that is why there are British against the monarchy, but Elizabeth II made it very difficult to be against the queen.
And perhaps for this reason, because the crown is a personal magistracy, there have been territories —New Zealand, the aforementioned Australia— that have not wanted to stop having her as head of state.
Elizabeth II could well have said that she met more Britons than anyone: any traveler in the country is astonished by the number of reminders that attest to monarchical hyperactivity, from the opening of the Hull transport hub in 1976 to, tedium on boredom, the fiftieth anniversary of the first graduating class of dermatologists from Glasgow.
Perhaps that is why there are British against the monarchy, but Elizabeth II made it very difficult to be against the queen.
And perhaps for this reason, because the crown is a personal magistracy, there have been territories —New Zealand, the aforementioned Australia— that have not wanted to stop having her as head of state.
Elizabeth II could well have said that she met more Britons than anyone: any traveler in the country is astonished by the number of reminders that attest to monarchical hyperactivity, from the opening of the Hull transport hub in 1976 to, tedium on boredom, the fiftieth anniversary of the first graduating class of dermatologists from Glasgow.
Perhaps that is why there are British against the monarchy, but Elizabeth II made it very difficult to be against the queen.
And perhaps for this reason, because the crown is a personal magistracy, there have been territories —New Zealand, the aforementioned Australia— that have not wanted to stop having her as head of state.
from the opening of the Hull transport interchange in 1976 to, boredom upon boredom, the fiftieth anniversary of Glasgow's first class of dermatologists.
Perhaps that is why there are British against the monarchy, but Elizabeth II made it very difficult to be against the queen.
And perhaps for this reason, because the crown is a personal magistracy, there have been territories —New Zealand, the aforementioned Australia— that have not wanted to stop having her as head of state.
from the opening of the Hull transport interchange in 1976 to, boredom upon boredom, the fiftieth anniversary of Glasgow's first class of dermatologists.
Perhaps that is why there are British against the monarchy, but Elizabeth II made it very difficult to be against the queen.
And perhaps for this reason, because the crown is a personal magistracy, there have been territories —New Zealand, the aforementioned Australia— that have not wanted to stop having her as head of state.
Other sovereigns reigned in more epic times, but she took over the Crown shortly after knowing one of its worst moments —Edward VIII's abdication—, and not only did she return to gild her prestige, but, at the time of her death, could highlight political successes of all relevance.
The queen dared to do what, before her, no one thought could be done: she met with the Pope of Rome, visited the Republic of Ireland, knew how to lead the passage from the Empire to the Commonwealth, attended the "return" of the parliaments of Scotland and Wales and to the “patriation” of the Canadian Constitution.
With the codes of behavior of the parliamentary monarchy in her blood since she was a child, Elizabeth always maintained that active neutrality that, throughout the 19th century, configured the British sovereign as a "light above politics":
he knew well that the Crown, in order to belong to everyone, should not belong to anyone or be patrimonialized by anyone.
There were rumors about her concern about Scottish secessionism, and there were more rumors about alleged sympathy for Brexit, but her greatest involvement – and she had to mediate a pandemic – was being in favor of vaccination against covid.
The interesting thing about the times was not going to break that silence, although it would always manage to support the country's morale, from the Suez disaster to the Falklands, from the devaluations of the pound to the years of lead in Ulster, Iraq and Afghanistan. .
The bitterest cross would remain at home, however: divorces, tragic deaths like that of Diana of Wales, also deadly attacks like Mountbatten's, Andrés's lusts, the jealousy and envy of Enrique and Meghan and Carlos' money management.
Any of these events would have condemned a monarch to a certain halo of doom, but if she was respected by the tabloids, it was also because they found her respectable.
“As in the best families”, she settled there for the
annus horribilis
of 1992, "we have our capricious and impetuous young people and our family disagreements."
Few of her extravagances were known about her, although every morning at 9 o'clock a piper came to play under her window in Balmoral, where he has died.
It is very much in keeping with the dimension of the character that the figure of Elizabeth II grew older as her decline approached.
Last survival of the 20th century in the 21st, its mere existence already had something of a relic, and those of us who have been on the islands over these years have been able to live what has been a long, immense farewell: suddenly, all that calendar that marked the national life as a liturgy - the speech in Parliament, the Royal Ascot, the tribute to the fallen of the War - began, due to age, to be done without her.
If until now there has not been even a hint of sentimentality —the trait, perhaps, most contrary to his character—, as of today, the genuine pain of many people can only be channeled with the rigor and beauty of funeral honors in the that the British are teachers.
It was seen a year and a half ago,
when the Duke of Edinburgh died, in a ceremony that inevitably had something foreboding about it.
There, lonely, suffering, bent over the years, nevertheless clinging to her duty without fuss, Elizabeth II once again embodied a dignity that raised the compassion of so many to admiration.
To praise Elizabeth II, one of her prime ministers turned to Elizabeth I, applying the same description as the old monarch: "She has the heart and guts of a man."
Age-old sexisms aside, Churchill had already penetrated something of her personality when, still in the queen's childhood, he writes in amazement about her "character" of her, about "an air of authority and reflection that strikes a girl ”.
The elderly politician would eventually go to Buckingham as a devoted Prime Minister to the Queen.
Elizabeth II represented until today that ancient world, where girls learned French and piano and horse riding until her debut: in her last public act, she had some poetic justice that she received what was already her third head of government, Liz Truss .
In her first speech as monarch, delivered in Africa, she had sworn that “my whole life, however long or short, will be devoted to the service of my country and my empire”—what was left of the empire.
It has been, happily, a very long life.
Only a few months ago, the salvos that sealed the commemorations of the last jubilee simply wanted to recognize - as a tribute of gratitude - that she had delivered.
Ignacio Peyró
is a journalist and writer.
His latest book is
An English Air
(Fórcola).
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