A friend who was born in Hyderabad, and grew up in both India and Minnesota, asked me a fairly pointed question on the day of the queen’s passing: What was the fixation with a foreign monarch? After all, both the United States and India had evicted the Brits in order to get out from under a monarchy and establish representative forms of government.
It’s a fair question, and one I’ve been chewing on.
Over the past few days, I’ve dragged out my old Viewmaster and popped in the three-disc set of the Queen’s coronation in 1953 that my mother bought as a young woman, and kept all these years.
Yes, the monarchy itself, as an institution, provides the British people the comfort of tradition and stability, a shared cultural foundation.
But I think it has become evident in the days since her passing that this specific monarch was obviously more than mere symbol, that through the way she lived her life she transcended the limitations of her office.
Much as Nelson Mandela meant more to the world than serving as president of the 23rd largest country in the world, and John Paul II became personally important to a much larger flock than just the Catholics he was head of, so Elizabeth II in many ways was the symbolic queen of the world.
A 70-year reign is out of the ordinary, to begin with. But that specific seven-decade span was particularly historic, taking in the immediate postwar years, and the winding down of the British Empire. No monarch in history has ever overseen the willing liberation of so many formerly colonized lands - and while under the U.K. constitution, Elizabeth played no formal role in that process, she always exhibited grace as her former subjects declared their independence, and warmly, authentically wished them the very best as they left her domain.
But prior to all that was her life before she became queen - a reality that was only thrust upon her when her uncle abdicated in 1936, leaving her father as the new king. Until she was 10 years old, Elizabeth was set for a life as a royal, but not as future monarch. Until the day her uncle announced his abdication, she could look forward to a relatively normal life - marriage, children, work.
Like her father, who never sought nor wanted the crown, Elizabeth embraced her new duty with dedication and carried it out with honor.
War clouds were already on the horizon when Elizabeth’s father assumed office, with Japan invading China mere months after his brother’s abdication.
During World War II, when the Luftwaffe specifically targeted the royal family, the king, queen and two princesses stayed put in London (this made Elizabeth the last living person with a price put on her head by Hitler). Buckingham Palace was bombed (and the two princesses were moved slightly outside the city, to Windsor Castle, lest the entire royal family be killed at once), and yet each time, the queen and her two daughters were out the next morning helping staff Red Cross food pantries for those who had lost their homes to the Nazi bombs, out walking bombed out neighborhoods, giving what aid and comfort they could.
When Elizabeth turned 18, she enlisted in the Army as an ambulance driver and mechanic. Her future husband saw combat with the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean, and her second cousin, Louis Mountbatten, also saw combat. (And her grandson Harry would see combat in Afghanistan as well - it is a sense of service largely missing from the ranks of our supposed elite elsewhere in the West.)
So beloved were the royals for their steadfast refusal to abandon London during what was called The Blitz, for their insistence on sharing the dangers of their people, that when Elizabeth’s mother passed away in 2002, 200,000 viewed her body as it lay in state, and more than 1 million lined the streets for her funeral procession.
Few who endured the Battle of Britain are still with us, yet the quiet courage her family displayed during those dark days shaped Elizabeth’s entire reign.And so, in the end, I think much of the world - particularly the English-speaking former colonies who threw out her predecessors - mourns Elizabeth because she transcended the symbolism of her office. Under her steady, and very human guidance, the British monarchy became not just a symbol of British perseverance, but an icon of honorable service in defense of liberty and, counterintuitive though it may be, of democracy itself.
Music journalist Ted Gioia shares a wonderful tale on his latest Substack about when Duke Ellington wrote a suite in commemoration of meeting Queen Elizabeth - and made just one copy of the record, which he sent to the queen in 1959.
Ted’s article is well worth reading, and while Ellington never intended for any one else to hear the suite, it has subsequently become available.
(Gioia writes primarily, but not solely, about jazz, and is one of my favorite reads. If you’re at all interested in jazz, or just smart writing about music, I highly recommend his Substack.)
An early birthday present arrived in the mail over the weekend - Buddy Hackett’s “The Truth About Golf and Other Lies.”
Golf is a game that has always appealed to comics and humorists, from P.G. Wodehouse to Leslie Nielsen, Robin Williams to Mark Twain. I think it is the inherent cruelty of golf that so appeals to our comedians.
While Hackett is not broadly remembered today, he was a mainstay of talk shows in the 1960s and ’70s.
I’ve not dove into it very far yet, but I did already find one gem I love: Hackett writes about calling Dean Martin, a scratch golfer who took the game very seriously, and asking for a round. Ah, sorry, we already have three, was Dean’s reply ... (golfers will get the joke ...)
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Having been married to the same good woman for 46 years (in 2 weeks, if I make it...) I can report that like golf, you never know what lies will get you into or out of trouble...