If you were born in the month of April in 1926, if you were born on a Wednesday, if you were born in England, if you are female, if you have been a wife and mother, you have got a lot in common with a very extraordinary human being — Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor! Perhaps her very humanness is the most obscure factor about her. She's one of the most privileged people in the world. She's been given much, both in wealth and in social status. It has to be the rare individual to directly differ with her, let alone contradict or criticize her. It also has to be the rare person who has cried or cursed in front of her! Yet she has numerous social and royal obligations, a list of which may well overwhelm most of us commoners.
If she's clearly been granted extra protection in the area of everyday human foibles, imagine the discipline and control of many natural urges that are denied to "Her Royal Highness!” This observer has never heard or read of her loss of temper, expression of impatience or rudeness — not even during the stressful period in 1997 when Princess Diana was killed and many wondered what role "the Queen" played in Diana's discomfort with Prince Charles, Elizabeth's eldest son.
To many of us, bound to an ordinary existence, Queen Elizabeth is the head of a fairyland on whose imperial soil the sun never set. Note: If the sun once never set on British soil as proclaimed by the great prime minister and author Benjamin Disraeli, it could be observed that the sun never rose on British soil! Another version was as follows: "The sun never set on the British Empire because God did not trust the British in the dark!”
Princess Elizabeth and her husband Prince Phillip were reaping one of the many royal privileges of the British Empire at the very hour of King George's death. Their Royal Highnesses, as guests of the Kenyan government, were in a mighty treehouse overlooking a salt lick in the Kenyan jungle that was visited by just about every wild animal imaginable. Summoned from this wondrous kaleidoscope back to "civilization'" and informed of her father's passing, Elisabeth was immediately whisked back to England. She changed into a black dress during the flight and emerged from the plane to be greeted by a solemn Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who immediately granted his love and loyalty.
Queen Elizabeth's reign is invariably compared and contrasted with that of her great, great grandmother Queen Victoria whose reign lasted from Tuesday, June 20th, 1837 until Tuesday, January 22nd, 1901 — a total of 63 years, 216 days. The two women would be very different. Victoria was both rigid and opinionated in temperament. She came to love Prime Ministers Robert Peel and Benjamin Disraeli, but she heartily disliked and distrusted Prime Minister Henry John Temple Palmerston--or Pam as he was known. Queen Victoria worked with eleven prime ministers to Elizabeth's fourteen. As head of state rather than head of government, Queen Elizabeth has stayed strictly away from political doctrine whether her prime minister was Margaret Thatcher or Harold Wilson, Winston Churchill or Boris Johnson.
As for the "times," things have changed much more radically during Elizabeth’s time. In 1953, Eddie Fisher, Perry Como and even Bing Crosby were entertainment stars in Great Britain. Less than ten years later, The Beatles came along and the Queen eventually knighted the two living members of the group. In 1953, television was in its infancy. No one even imagined that one day there would be a computer in the house. As the 1950s rolled along, colonies such as Kenya, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and numerous others obtained their independence although the British Commonwealth has remained as stabilizing as the queen's monarchy itself.
In Britain as here in America, many dismiss the significance of the very idea of royalty. Although no one can form a legitimate government without Queen Elizabeth's consent, she is solely empowered to legitimize a government leadership endorsed by Parliament. Note that on Friday, May 10th, 1940, King George VI, Elizabeth's father, would have preferred to invite Lord Halifax rather than Winston Churchill to succeed the beleaguered Neville Chamberlain, but as a member of the House of Lords, Halifax himself asserted that he couldn't be an effective prime minister during a time of war.
Perhaps the finest complement to Queen Elizabeth II on her Seventieth Anniversary is that her personal presence stabilizes British society in a more genuine way than the idea of “national unity" which is what reassures the “United” States in this hour of America's most severe period of turmoil since before the Civil War.
Obviously a grand lady, she's ultimately encased in a grand institution. Royalty has never quite lived up to its grand ideal. It can’t, because every human, Elizabeth included, is ultimately fallible!
The authority she inherited through her father's accession to the throne was brought about by her Uncle Edward's abdication. George VI gained his high royal office largely through the political power of the parliament rather than through personal ambition. This gentle and humble royal servant never failed to realize that nor has his eldest daughter.
However, before you dismiss the ongoing significance of royalty, remember the personhood of one Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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