Queen Elizabeth II Died: A Watershed Moment for Britain
The death of Queen Elizabeth II is a turning point for Britain, both incomparable and unpredictable.
It marks both the loss of a revered monarch – the only one most Britons have ever known – and the end of a figure who served as a living link in Britain’s WWII glory, who struggled to adapt to a ‘postcolonial and post-imperial and saw it through its bitter separation from the European Union.’
There is no comparable public figure who will be so deeply grieved in Britain – Winston Churchill is perhaps closest – or whose death could lead to a greater showdown with the country’s identity and future. Elizabeth’s extraordinary longevity has given her an air of permanence that somehow makes her death, even in old age, shocking.
The ups and downs of the queen’s seven decades of reign were many, a tapestry of events that traces the history of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Britain and 15 other Commonwealth realms she presided over are a shadow of the declining kingdom she inherited in 1952. How many of these countries will continue to recognize the British monarch as head of state is an open question.
Queen Elizabeth II Died: A Watershed Moment for Britain
Her family’s weaknesses were dissected endlessly and endlessly – from her uncle Edward’s abdication to marry divorced American Wallis Simpson, which sparked the events that propelled her to the throne, to the painful rift between his grandson, Prince Harry, and the rest of the family after his marriage to Meghan Markle, an American actress.
The House of Windsor withstood the upheaval largely thanks to the Queen’s anchor rolling. With her dignity and sense of duty, she rose above the tabloid headlines, whether it was about her troubled sister, Princess Margaret; his eldest son and heir, Prince Charles, and his unhappy marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales; or their second son, Prince Andrew, who is under judicial scrutiny over his dealings with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. A well-documented misstep occurred in 1997 after Diana died in a car crash in Paris when the Queen refused for days to leave her summer home at Balmoral Castle in Scotland to join in the mourning of the nation.
The future of the royal family under a new king, Charles, is uncertain. He remarried – his second wife is Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall – and his accession to the throne is no longer in doubt as it was during his personal struggles.
But Charles has long expressed a desire to rationalize the family so that it strains the public coffers less. And internal strife continues as the royal family adjusts to the departure of Harry and Meghan, who has made a new life for themselves in California.
The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon.
The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/VfxpXro22W
— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) September 8, 2022
