I'm sure your attention has also been captivated, as mine has, by this week's passing of Queen Elizabeth II, the longest reigning monarch in the history of Britain.
I would be out of my league trying to fully explain the reasons for our fascination with the Royal Family and its accompanying pomp and circumstance; what follows are simply some random thoughts as I process the week's events.
Or maybe you aren't so fascinated. But I think most of us are moved at least a little by the scenes of opulent splendour (had to use the British spelling) of Elizabeth's coronation or her wedding to Prince Phillip. Or even the ceremonious changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, which I first experienced as a 9-year-old. Is it perhaps the fact that we are witnessing an institution that is almost four times as old as our nation, and that Elizabeth was one of a line of 42 British monarchs dating back to William the Conqueror in 1066.
But it's certainly more than pomp and circumstance and even the constance of the monarchy through both war and peacetime, as has been referenced a good deal this week. I heard historian Sir Simon Schama comment this morning that the British crown provides the possibility of a nation not defined by increasingly hostile partisanship, as is the case in today's America. Said Schama:
““People are desperate all over the world…for a kind of global citizenship that is not a zero-sum game, that is not simply about self-advancement….” ”
Couldn't have said it better myself. However, we as Americans, and indeed all those outside the Commonwealth, are in the position of watching the magnificence of the monarchy from a distance; there's no question in my mind that our attitudes could be considerably different -- and more than a little complicated -- if it were our tax money funding the perpetuation of this institution. There is a growing popular will in the UK to see the monarchy streamlined in the 21st century. And King Charles III does not appear insensitive to this.
Speaking of the newly proclaimed king, I have found myself thinking about him a good deal. Both of my parents died within less than a year of each other, and I remember feeling, a least for a moment, like a 50-year-old orphan. The patriarch I looked for in my father was now me, something I was not prepared for.
Charles has had 73 years to prepare, and yet I can't help thinking he must feel inadequate to the task of fulfilling the "promise of lifelong service I renew to you all today". Mamá is gone, but her example lives on into perpetuity. An example author Louise Penny describes as:
"Steadfast, calm, dutiful to the end. How old-fashioned and precious those qualities have become."
Indeed. Long did she reign, and now long live the King.
I'd love to hear your thoughts and observations of this momentous time in history. Just leave your comment below.