Newsfight!
The death of any individual is always sad and the death of Elizabeth Windsor, passing away at the grand old age of one hundred and one is no exception. However, the commotion which her dying caused far superceded any logical or emotional rationale. This woman not only outlived one of her daughters, she outlived an entire century.
Whilst her corpse visited more of England in a week than she had probably done in the last five years, in a seeming spin-off of the Antiques Roadshow, droves of people turned out to honour a woman they had never met. The late Princess of Wales was not simply a title but a woman who had striven to better the world. However, the recently deceased's claim to fame was that she stayed in London during the Blitz, a plight which I suggest many women went through without royal luxuries; whilst most made do with town houses, the Queen Mum made do with a house the size of a small town.
Correspondents muse on how the pageantry was an event from a different age without questioning why so much attention is lavished on a relic whilst children dying in Israel capture as much public interest as a national paint-drying fair. Furthermore, people seem to lose their marbles when royalty die, not out of sadness, but just because they feel they should. Individuals were featured on the news joining the queues to Westminster Hall for a couple of hours and then departing, feeling they had achieved something. At Westminster Abbey she was described as some kind of almighty Buffy the Vampire Slayer-like character whilst Prince Harry showed his concern by analysing his hymn book for an hour. When will people stop admiring Spitfires, stop celebrating 1966 and wake up and smell the dead Empire?
The passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, the last Empress of India, was a sobering occasion indeed. The nation managed once again to impress in the field of which she is the undoubtedly master: royal splendour which excels all comparison, the dream and envy of every other sovereign and political leader in the world. As the music of Purcell's setting of the funeral sentence 'Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts' drifted through Westminster Abbey, sung as it has been at every state funeral since that of Queen Mary in 1695, one realised that our gaze was set upon an institution so venerable and so distinctive that it seemed a piercing insight into the very heart of Britain. The monarchy is a testament to everything about this country, and at such moments displays its best and most glorious for a captivated world to witness.
Yet such ceremony is, after all, merely opium of the masses, and is notnecessarily justifiable as an end itself. Britain talks of her royalty's benefits, for national pride and commercially through tourism; but this is all ultimately a façade behind which lies the nation's real attachment, which is that the Monarchy is supported as a political institution. I would submit that a majority of people, if they searched their hearts, harbour a love for what the Queen brings, or rather spares us, in the political process. Who would truly strike their colours to the mast in support of an elected head of state, for instance? In reality, precious few would, most of us harbouring severe disapproval of over-democratisation, particularly when taken to its logical extreme. Americans elect their judges, for heaven's sake, and presidential elections reduce the system to the farce of a popularity contest - the bane of good government.
It is just a pity that it takes such a death to reflect upon the ideological nonsense of so-called republicans; but in this case a variant on the old saying tells us that in mortis veritas.
25th Apr 2002