The Queen
The Queen is in the news again. She was admitted to the King Edward VII’s hospital a few days ago for an intestinal infection. Although being sick is common for old people, the 86 years old Queen has been unexceptionally healthy. According to reports, the last time she went to a hospital was a result of an accident and that was almost 10 years ago. The Queen mother died at age 101. If the Queen inherited her mother’s genes, she can be expected to live for another 10 or 20 years.
The Queen will die some day. Although the odds that she can live for many more years are very great, she, like all old people, cannot avoid meeting that eventuality. To many people of her age, Death himself is probably not as dreadful as not knowing the time when He will come. So perhaps with this uncertainty in mind, the Queen is probably spending more time thinking about her legacy than before. The result of that may be the reason for the recent publication of a Queen’s biography.
What prompted me to be interested in this piece of news about the Queen’s illness is the book Elizabeth the Queen – the Life of a Modern Monarch, by Sally Bedell Smith. I just finished reading this book a few days ago. There have been so many news reports, books, and numerous tabloid stories about the Queen and the monarch that we all cannot avoid knowing something about her and her family. Yet the book still reveals many lesser known stories and insights that it is hard to believe that the biography has been published without the blessing by the Queen. The book portraits a positive image of the royal family and there is almost nothing that would blemish that carefully maintained public image. I believe that the book is an indication of the Queen’s effort to leave something to the posterity before it is too late to do so. No one, even Her Majesty, can avoid a sudden visit from Death. The most recent episode may be just the first of many future stories like this.
To me, reading the book is not just about learning many untold or lesser known stories so that I can be better equipped to read the next major tabloid headlines about the British Monarch, be the Queen’s health or the birth of her great grandchild, the fourth in line to the throne. What intrigues me while reading the book is the remarkable sensibility of every member of the royal household to live their lives in the context of past, present, and future, epitomized by the actions of the Queen herself.
The Queen would at best have been the Princess, Her Royal Highness, had not it been that her uncle, King Edward VIII, or more famously known as the Duke of Windsor, abdicated to pursue the love of an American woman. Her father succeeded to the throne and became King George VI. On one of the day’s in the King’s family’s visit to Kenya, under a tree, the 25 year old young princess got the news that she had become the Queen of the British Commonwealth.
Ever since that day, the Queen has conducted herself dutifully and the popularity of the Monarch has been steady at around 80% in Great Briton. The popularity of the royal family among the other Commonwealth nations varies from nation to nation, but among the most important of those nations, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, the Queen and the Monarch have been enjoying continued majority support throughout the years. There is always a certain percentage of the population in those countries that desire a republic without the Monarch. But they have been a minority and these countries are still part of the British Commonwealth and the Queen is still the Queen of the Commonwealth, not just the Queen of England.
The Queen has been so popular that people can just say: “The Queen”, without having to say which queen. After years of the American Revolution and independence and the flourishing of republicanism, there are still many kings and queens in the world, but no monarch can enjoy the current status of the British Monarch. No one else in present and history could have enjoyed the title “The Queen” like Queen Elizabeth II of England. She has become the Queen of the world. America has been one of the oldest and certainly the most successful republic in history, but America’s fascination with the Queen has grown more intense during the years of her rein.
As a Chinese reader, whose motherland had been ruled by numerous monarchs for centuries and the current regime may be a republic in name only, I cannot help to compare the British Monarch with the past and present Chinese regimes. The Chinese empires all collapsed unwillingly. They faced the crises and they all stood to the last moment without yielding to the new and stronger conquers. The British Monarchy, on the other hand, not only survived as one of the oldest monarchies, but also thrived in a system that is seemingly completely incompatible with a monarchical rein. Great Briton is a kingdom, and she is also one of the most advanced democracies. We, the citizens of the world, do not give this strange amalgamation much thought. We are too busy with our daily affairs for survival. But if anyone puts himself a few hundred years back, could he imagine that he would be the subject of a king or queen and yet enjoy the most personal freedom in all aspects of life, including mocking about the monarch, or even advocating the removal of the monarch? Even if we go forward a few hundred years, and if the British Monarch still exists, people will look back the present time in amazement. The survival and the continuation of the British Monarch is one of the most remarkable achievements of human societal advancements.
The credits of such an extraordinary result should be almost completely given to the British royal family and their ancestors. The kings and queens of the past not only kept their own survival but also preserved a system, whose existence proved that there are love, compassion, tolerance, kindness, and fairness in the souls of the most ruthless competitors. The British Monarch survived not because they voluntarily yielded to the insurgents of every kind. Instead, they survived because they knew when and how to stand the ground and when and what to give when that stand could no longer be maintained. The British kings and queens suffered internal and external struggles and wars just like many other monarchs. But unlike the other monarchs, who chose death over compromise, the British royal ancestors found a path to the modern age that have kept themselves alive and their subjects gaining more and more freedom, to the eventual government of themselves. When the Americans rebelled, the monarch tried hard to subjugate it. But when that failed, the monarch accepted the result and dealt with the new nation fairly and squarely. The result is that American is now the strongest and most royal ally of Great Briton. The two nations share the same language and heritage, their common interests have been closely intertwined with each other ever since the founding of America. The special and essential relationship has withstood the test of two great wars and the bound between America and the United Kingdom is separable by nothing.
The Queen continued that track of preserving the Monarch in a modern and democratic world. The key is not because the Queen is a smart woman, who knows how to behave herself. Rather, the key is that she views the title of the Queen as a job that she needs to execute to her best ability and her fullest potential. Unlike the other jobs in the world, the job of a queen is a very special one. At the moment she became the queen, she committed her entire life to this job. She must like and enjoy this job. When she becomes tired of this job, as we all do regardless how good a job is, she cannot quit it. When she doesn’t like a certain job function, she cannot refuse it. Although she enjoys a big house and spends millions of pounds every year and travels around the world, she must not get tired of it. She needs to put on a smiling face every time she appears in public. May people want to be a queen, but very few people would want to be committed to doing things that are controlled almost entirely by others.
Not only that she needs to be conscious of her role at all times, for the sake of past, present, and future, she also needs to ensure that her entire family, including her children, her grandchildren, and her numerous relatives, whose titled are dukes, earls, princes, and princesses, have the same sense of time and historical significance. To an astonishing extend, they all seem to heed this imperative, that for the whole royal family to last as long as possible, they must bind themselves together and earn the survival and existence for their future generations. I say that is truly remarkable, that such a large family, living in the constant public scrutiny for everything they do, can achieve what they have achieved.
It’s entirely possible that one day a mi*****ehaving king or queen can destroy the love of the people of Great Britain, but now that possibility appears to be very remote, or even inconceivable.
The survival of the British Monarchy is not just about a matter of keeping themselves being loved by the people, it’s really about keeping a system so that the British feel proud of their system. The Queen is keenly aware of her role in the system. In the book, whenever there is anything of importance, even for purely family matters, the Queen’s first thought is given to her constitutional duty. The Queen consults with the prime minister and the government on all matters that may be of public interest. As we can see that every move of the members of the royal household is monitored and reported by the press. No one likes that kind of scrutiny, but the royal family knows that as a special component of the British constitutional monarchical system, they need to be exposed to such special and many times unwelcome treatment.
There are not many things said in the book about how the Queen, her ancestors, and her children educate their children so that they grow up to be fully capable of living as special citizens of the kingdom. Just based on what we see in historical, as well as the behaviors of the contemporary members of the royal household, we can see an educational system that is almost impeccable in its ability to raise generation after generation of future monarchs that dutifully fulfill their role in the over a thousand years of rein. Every member of the royal family, including every heir apparent, dedicated themselves to the public welfare of the nation of Great Briton. The males typically serve in the Royal Navy or Army. Many of them died in their service. Others devoted themselves to charitable work. The monarch survives by earning people’s trust and love, not by forcing them. They don’t have any ways or means to force people to do anything. But they have successfully played their roles to not only guarantee their own survival and livelihood, but also a unique system that the people of Great Briton feel really proud.
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