Decades later, Britain�s monarch remains opaque
After more than
six and a half decades on the throne she has become so much part of the fabric of Britain as to be virtually
synonymous with it � and thus thoroughly deserved all the pomp and circumstance
she duly received
Michael Simkins
Its been a good time to be a tourist to the UK these past few days, what with pageantry, parades, multiple gun salutes, the lighting of commemorative beacons and all manner of sights to see. The reason is, of course, the 90th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II.
After 64 years, 2 months and 14 days on the throne she has become so much part of the fabric of Britain as to be virtually synonymous with it and thus thoroughly deserved all the pomp and circumstance she duly received.
Like many of her subjects, my impression of the Queen is largely predicated on little more than images of her on TV and in the papers, with the occasional glimpse of her in person, waving from the window of some passing motorcade, just to prove shes real, which is exactly as it should be.
In an age when the private lives of world leaders are under scrutiny as never before, Her Majesty has somehow managed to retain both her mystique and her dignity. While many of her most illustrious predecessors can be conjured up in a few visual short cuts Henry VIII with his girth and inelegant table manners, Elizabeth I with her chalk white visage and starched ruff, Victoria with her bustle and dyspeptic countenance Britains reigning monarch remains intriguingly opaque, and 60 years on we know little more about her likes and dislikes than we did back in 1953. And therein, surely, lies the secret of her constitutional longevity.
Take, for example, last Thursday evening, when in front of the gates of Windsor Castle, her eldest son and heir to the throne, 67-year-old Prince Charles, paid tribute to her in front of an adoring crowd.
Your Majesty, he began in sober tones, before adding mischievously, Mummy. Whatever she made of being referred to in such starkly intimate terms in public we will never know, for her face remained an inscrutable mask throughout his speech.
During her reign she has presided over 12 British prime ministers, innumerable economic and political crises and profound changes both in the Commonwealth and in the world at large. Only once in the autumn of 1997 did it seem that perhaps her position, indeed even the future of the royal family itself, might be under threat.
This was of course in the aftermath of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in a car crash, when, for a few brief days, Her Majesty appeared to have lost her touch, choosing to remain sequestered in Balmoral Castle despite a tumultuous public clamour for her to return to London and join the unfolding emotional meltdown.
Those close to the queen say she is fairly blase about the milestone, believing it represented little more than the fact she has lived for a long time and that her father, King George VI, died early.
Initially she did not even intend to mark the event publicly, but she bowed to public pressure and undertook an official engagement in Scotland, where she traditionally spends her summer holiday.
Crowds greeted her arrival accompanied by husband Prince Philip, who has been at her side throughout her reign, at Edinburghs Waverley station before she began a journey on a steam train to mark the opening of the longest railway to be built in Britain for more than 100 years.
Its brilliant, said May Marshall, 58, wearing a jacket and hat covered in Britains Union Jack flags. No one else will ever do it. Its testimony to her stamina.
Queen Elizabeth smiled broadly as she boarded the train.
Its inevitable that I should seem a rather remote figure to many of you, a successor to the kings and queens of history, she had said in her first televised Christmas broadcast in 1957.
I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice. But I can do something else. I can give you my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.
The writer is a freelacer
