Reflections on a unique reign
Like most people alive today, I shall never forget where I was on September 8th, 2022, when I heard that Queen Elizabeth II had died.
I was in a meeting in the boardroom at the Basildon Centre with my colleagues Cllrs. Hedley and Gascoyne and three officers. I was there in my capacity as Cabinet Member for Housing and the meeting was regarding a particularly tricky bit of casework Councillor Hedley has raised with me. Tony and I were also due to attend Cabinet at 7 p.m. but, a little after 6:30, an officer walked into the room, his face ashen, and broke 'the bad news' that the Queen had passed away. I was instantly reminded of Winston Churchill's reaction to being informed of the death of the Queen's father, King George VI, "Bad news? The worst!.." and, pushing away his papers, "...How unimportant these matters seem now."
The six of us who were in that room are now forever bound together by the experience of being there when we heard that awful news. It is so hard to describe. A couple of us remained stoic. A couple of us just went quiet and numb. A couple of us wept. I was not among the stoics. Colleagues were by then arriving for the Cabinet meeting, which was of course cancelled, and many were in tears. I shall never forget it.
The Queen – and it was to Her that any such unqualified reference undoubtedly pertained – has been a fixed point in our national life for as long as most of us can remember. You would have to be well into your 70s or 80s today to remember a time before Elizabeth II sat upon the throne. She had already been Queen for 30 years when I was born in 1982. My father was born in the year of the Coronation and, with my grandparents now all gone, there is no-one left alive in my family who can remember a monarch before Her. Three generations, one Sovereign.
"My father was born in the year of the Coronation and, with my grandparents now all gone, there is no-one left alive in my family who can remember a monarch before Her. Three generations, one Sovereign."
She was the longest-reigning and longest-lived monarch in British history and the longest-serving female Head of State in the world. Her reign has seen 15 British prime ministers, 14 U.S. presidents and 7 popes. Her first Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, was born in 1874 and Her last, Liz Truss, was born 101 years later in 1975. She must have been the most widely travelled and universally respected world leader ever to have lived. Between Her accession in 1952 and her decision in 2015 aged 89 to cease making overseas trips, the Queen visited more than 100 countries and made over 150 visits to the Commonwealth (Canada alone 22 times). She visited France on 13 occasions and spoke French fluently. She was the first British monarch to visit mainland China and the first to visit the Irish Republic. Indeed, it was the Queen who, arguably, drew the definitive line under the Troubles in Northern Ireland by shaking hands with the late Sinn Fein politician, Martin McGuinness.
Of course, beyond Her sense of duty, the other two great pillars of Her life were Her husband and Her faith. She was Supreme Governor of the Church of England and stated many times how Her Christian faith had sustained Her and She was happily married to Her late husband, Prince Philip, for 73 years. His death last year at the age of 99 must have been a terrible blow and it is of some comfort that they are now, God willing, reunited. Her late Majesty will be laid to rest in the King George VI Memorial Chapel within St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. The remains of His late Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, which have rested in the Royal Vault beneath the chapel for the past 17 months, will be moved to lie beside those of his treasured wife, so that they may rest side by side. The Queen's late parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, also rest in the chapel along with the ashes of the Queen's late sister, Princess Margaret. They will all be together again.
The Queen was only 25 years old when Her beloved father died in his sleep at Sandringham at the age of only 56, exhausted by the stresses of the war and ravaged by lung cancer. Thus, from a treehouse in Kenya where She was on a State Visit, deputising for the King, Elizabeth II began Her long years of service; always seeking to follow the example of Her father, whom She so revered. During Her reign, She carried out tens of thousands of public engagements, assented to around 4,000 pieces of legislation, hosted hundreds of state visits and garden parties and met every world leader you can think of.
With superlative canniness, the Queen was able to provide us with a fixed point in our national life whilst remaining broadly ‘current’ and relevant (but not too much!). Amid all the tumult and change of the past 70 years, Queen Elizabeth II remained an anchor to Her peoples. That did not mean that She was static – She was the first monarch to send an email in 1976, the first to have a website in 1997 and sent Her first ‘tweet’ in 2014. Just three years ago, She made her debut on Instagram. Perhaps most notably, She is the only Head of State anywhere in the world to have jumped out of a helicopter with James Bond and co-starred in a comedy skit with Paddington Bear. But She kept the same hairstyle for about 60 years! She was always recognisably and unmistakably Her.
Her late Majesty in a 'virtual meeting' last year
The Queen remained an unchanged and undaunted beacon of stability and continuity. Indeed, only a few days ago She presided over the seamless transition from one Prime Minister to another, acting, as She had so many times before, as the ‘dignified part’ of our Constitution. Yet the Queen was no mere figurehead. She was a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a grandmother and, ultimately, a great-grandmother at the head of a Royal Family and it is this that makes ‘The Crown’ so much more than just an overdecorated piece of millinery but an institution that forms the lynchpin and lodestar of our national life. It is the Sovereign and the Royal Family that injects the essential humanity of our constitutional settlement. It is the person of the Queen, rather than the institution of the Crown, that made Her someone we trusted as the guarantor of our laws and liberties, the head of our Armed Forces, whose face adorns our currency, our postage stamps and whose signature is borne on every law passed and international treaty ratified and to whom every soldier, statesman, jurist, policeman, clergyman and various other public servants swear their allegiance. Her service to the nation was unparalleled – from 1940, when at the age of only 14 She broadcast to all the children evacuated from their homes during World War II (during which She served in uniform), to Her now famous ‘We will meet again’ broadcast during the pandemic in 2020. Through all the decades, She has held our hands, cheered and comforted us, as the Mother of the Nation.
"She was a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a grandmother and, ultimately, a great-grandmother at the head of a Royal Family and it is this that makes ‘The Crown’ so much more than just an overdecorated piece of millinery but an institution that forms the lynchpin and lodestar of our national life."
It would be fair to say that I have always been a fanatical monarchist (except for a brief flirtation with republicanism during my misguided teens). I remember as a very young child, hearing about some terrible conflict somewhere in the world and asking my mother why the Queen did not just order them to stop! To my innocent mind, the Queen was Queen of the entire world and everybody had to do what She said. Can you imagine how much better a world it would be if it were only so? By the time I was at university, I was a convinced monarchist and when other undergraduates might have been joining sporting or social societies, I became a fully paid-up member of the Constitutional Monarchy Association (you can imagine what a riot I was to be around in those days).
I have always made a distinction between being a ‘royalist’ and a 'monarchist'. I am not just a slushy sentimentalist about the Queen and the royals (though I am probably that too). I believe deeply and profoundly in constitutional monarchy as a system of government and in the legitimacy of history and its inherent wisdom as an institution. If one were designing a system of government from first principles, one probably would not turn instinctively to hereditary primogeniture but therein lies the organic genius of it. From the antiquity of the ancient traditions of tribal chieftains, feudal kingship and amaranthine royalty, has emerged a modern, functional, yet elegant system that delivers us an apolitical Head of State, rich in colour, pomp and circumstance but above petty partisan politics, through whom the relationship between Parliament and the Armed Forces is mediated and maintained, and who enables us to damn the Prime Minister and damn the Government but still cheer the Head of State. As the 5th Earl Russell once put it, “There is a lot of sense in choosing the referee by a different principle from the players. It lessens the danger that the referee might try to start playing!”
"From the antiquity of the ancient traditions of tribal chieftains, feudal kingship and amaranthine royalty, has emerged a modern, functional, yet elegant system that delivers us an apolitical Head of State"
One of the greatest honours of my life was being asked by the Leader of Basildon Council to chair the Council’s Platinum Jubilee Working Group last year. One of my earliest conceptions was for a new piece of public art to commemorate for posterity Her late Majesty’s momentous milestone. I was struck by the simple elegance of the memorial to the Queen’s grandmother, Queen Mary, the widow of King George V. It is mounted outside Marlborough House, where Queen Mary lived until her death in 1953, just prior to her granddaughter's coronation (it is now home to the Commonwealth Secretariat). It is a relatively simple plaque featuring an effigy of the old Queen Dowager. I forwarded a picture of it to officers in December and by April this year I was visiting the workshop of local artist Aden Hynes to see his clay model before it went off to the foundry to be cast in bronze. Sadly, I missed the formal unveiling by the Lord-Lieutenant (it clashed with my wedding; the only conceivable thing that could have made me miss it short of being run over by a bus) but every time I walk past it, I feel proud. I am so glad that Her Majesty lived to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee and experience that outpouring of love and affection from all the people, both here and around the globe.
My feelings over the last 24 hours have been strange. My heart is obviously heavy with sadness and a curiously personal sense of loss but also, somewhat to my surprise, I have been almost overwhelmed by an incredible feeling of gratitude. I have found myself reflecting with immense thankfulness upon Her late Majesty’s long life and peerless contribution to our country. The new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, has called the Queen “The rock on which modern Britain was built” and today in the House of Commons, Her most recent former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, referred to the Queen as “Elizabeth the Great”. She really was. Good Lord, how very, very lucky indeed we all were to have had Elizabeth II as our Head of State for all these long years! What astonishing good fortune to have had such an amazing woman and such a wise and faultless leader, who also loved us; I mean really loved us. What we have lost in incalculable and I consider myself privileged to have been an Elizabethan.
"What astonishing good fortune to have had such an amazing woman and such a wise and faultless leader, who also loved us; I mean really loved us. What we have lost in incalculable and I consider myself privileged to have been an Elizabethan."
On Her 21st birthday in 1947, the young Princess Elizabeth made a famous broadcast in which She said: “I declare before you all, that my whole life, be it long or short, shall be devoted to your service.” Her Majesty kept Her promise. She was granted a long life and gave to all of us the most devoted and loving service. The Second Elizabethan Age has now drawn to its close. The Third Carolean Age begins. The Queen is dead, long live the King!
Her late Majesty has done us one last great service by passing, secure and unsullied, a throne of undiminished dignity and splendour to Her son, His Gracious Majesty King Charles III; a man who has already shown - not least in His moving Address to the Nation on Friday evening - that He is equal to His late mother in His devotion to duty and service and who has been in training for the role literally His entire life. Indeed, it is scarcely possible to conceive of a person more qualified for any job than His Majesty, our new King, who has served a 7-decade apprenticeship under the careful tutelage of the most noble Lady ever to have graced these isles. I feel sorrow but also huge optimism for the forthcoming reign. His Majesty the King, with the love and support of Her Majesty the Queen Consort and of Their Royal Highnesses our newly-created Prince and Princess of Wales, I have no doubt will serve us all with the same steadfast dedication that characterised the reign of the late Queen.
"Her late Majesty has done us one last great service by passing, secure and unsullied, a throne of undiminished dignity and splendour to Her son, His Gracious Majesty King Charles III; a man who has already shown - not least in His moving Address to the Nation this evening - that He is equal to His late mother in His devotion to duty and service and who has been in training for the role literally His entire life."
On Sunday, His Worship the Mayor of Basildon will join other civic leaders across the realm by reading the Proclamation of the Accession of King Charles III and on the following Sunday, September 18th, Her late Majesty will be laid to rest. May She rest in everlasting peace and well may we invoke, with heart and voice, the prayer and the anthem…
GOD SAVE THE KING!
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