With her 90th birthday on the horizon next April, and even the idea of a Platinum Jubilee in 2027 seeming less implausible with each passing year, the Queen has taken on what could be described as a historical quality. History, however, is impatient to record itself, so in recent years we’ve seen high-profile representations of episodes from her reign on stage and screen. In the cinema Helen Mirren portrayed her response to the death of Diana, and in doing so explained and justified the monarch’s behaviour more effectively than a thousand newspaper columns. On stage, The Audience surveyed 60 years of weekly meetings with 12 prime ministers. And the play King Charles III speculated in mock-Shakespearean style about possible events in the immediate aftermath of her reign.
There was a scene in that drama in which, after a night spent clubbing, a freewheeling but troubled Prince Harry finds himself in conversation with the owner of a kebab stall. With the country both in mourning and political convulsion, the kebab man offers up the simple notion that “maybe she was what held it together”. The line resonated, even though those watching wouldn’t for a moment have thought that it was (or even should be) through any political action of the monarch herself. Indeed, one of the defining features of her reign has been the final divorce from any sort of political function, although powers might exist in the form of the Royal Prerogative, and her name is still invoked when elections prove indecisive and referendums take place. It has not been difficult, too, to intuit her attitude to Scottish independence.
Her obvious devotion to the Commonwealth has kept that institution alive in the face of indifference from her successive governments. The fact that its role is now discussed with renewed interest in political circles — that it is once again taken seriously as a possible part of Britain’s uncertain future — must be gratifying to her. Keeping it alive is probably one of her greatest personal achievements.
But otherwise she has been the least political of monarchs. Her father, George VI, invited Chamberlain on to the palace balcony on his return from Munich. A similar ill-judged act by his daughter is inconceivable. She has set an example of how a modern constitutional monarch should behave.
Her unifying function — “holding it together” — is accepted as symbolic, but the power of symbols, over time, is greater than a hundred changes of government. In ways that were quite unforeseeable at her succession, this function is becoming more, not less, important as the 21st century goes on and Britain faces increasing social, economic and even demographic division.
You don’t know what you’ve lost until it’s gone, the saying goes; justifying the monarchy on similar grounds has always proved a disadvantage for its defenders. By her longevity and her example, Elizabeth II has removed the need for such retrospective evaluation. Long may she continue to reign.
There was a scene in that drama in which, after a night spent clubbing, a freewheeling but troubled Prince Harry finds himself in conversation with the owner of a kebab stall. With the country both in mourning and political convulsion, the kebab man offers up the simple notion that “maybe she was what held it together”. The line resonated, even though those watching wouldn’t for a moment have thought that it was (or even should be) through any political action of the monarch herself. Indeed, one of the defining features of her reign has been the final divorce from any sort of political function, although powers might exist in the form of the Royal Prerogative, and her name is still invoked when elections prove indecisive and referendums take place. It has not been difficult, too, to intuit her attitude to Scottish independence.
Her obvious devotion to the Commonwealth has kept that institution alive in the face of indifference from her successive governments. The fact that its role is now discussed with renewed interest in political circles — that it is once again taken seriously as a possible part of Britain’s uncertain future — must be gratifying to her. Keeping it alive is probably one of her greatest personal achievements.
But otherwise she has been the least political of monarchs. Her father, George VI, invited Chamberlain on to the palace balcony on his return from Munich. A similar ill-judged act by his daughter is inconceivable. She has set an example of how a modern constitutional monarch should behave.
Her unifying function — “holding it together” — is accepted as symbolic, but the power of symbols, over time, is greater than a hundred changes of government. In ways that were quite unforeseeable at her succession, this function is becoming more, not less, important as the 21st century goes on and Britain faces increasing social, economic and even demographic division.
You don’t know what you’ve lost until it’s gone, the saying goes; justifying the monarchy on similar grounds has always proved a disadvantage for its defenders. By her longevity and her example, Elizabeth II has removed the need for such retrospective evaluation. Long may she continue to reign.
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