Reign of Queen Elizabeth II Has Ended
Another moment in History. “Remembering Queen Elizabeth II, Who Died at 96″ | The New Yorker, Rebecca Mead. Informational . . .
Queen Elizabeth II, died on Thursday at Balmoral Castle, in Scotland, at the age of ninety-six. She became monarch in the early hours of February 6, 1952. Famously, she remained unaware of her transmutation for several hours until told. King George VI died in his sleep at the Sandringham estate, in Norfolk, as Elizabeth, his eldest daughter, was more than four thousand miles away, on a safari holiday in Kenya.
“’She became Queen while in a perch in a tree in Africa, watching the rhinoceros come down to the pool to drink,’ Harold Nicolson, the diplomat and politician, wrote in his diary. A member of the royal party later recollected an auspicious occurrence: around sunrise, an eagle had soared over Elizabeth’s head at roughly the moment when the King died.”
King Charles III, the new monarch
BBC – Sep 8
At the moment the Queen died, the throne passed immediately and without ceremony to the heir, Charles, the former Prince of Wales.
But there are a number of practical – and traditional – steps which he must go through to be crowned King.
What will he be called?
He will be known as King Charles III.
That was the first decision of the new king’s reign. He could have chosen from any of his four names – Charles Philip Arthur George.
He is not the only one who faces a change of title.
Although he is heir to the throne, Prince William will not automatically become Prince of Wales – that will have to be conferred on him by his father. He has inherited his father’s title of Duke of Cornwall – William and Kate are now titled Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and Cambridge.
There is also a new title for Charles’ wife, Camilla, who becomes the Queen Consort – consort is the term used for the spouse of the monarch.
Formal ceremonies
It is expected that Charles will be officially proclaimed King on Saturday. This will happen at St James’s Palace in London, in front of a ceremonial body known as the Accession Council.
This is made up of members of the Privy Council – a group of senior MPs, past and present, and peers – as well as some senior civil servants, Commonwealth high commissioners, and the Lord Mayor of London. …
Fred:
Thank you.
The amount of negativity I’m seeing online about QE2 is surprising to me, not that it’s incorrect (I think it is generally based on solid evidence of a variety of “bad things” that happened as the empire dissolved), but that it comes so soon on the heels of her death. The historical reassessment seems to have been held back solely based on respect for an aging woman.
Charles will have a hard time holding onto anything. This is probably the death knell of the UK monarchy.
Opinions vary.
“The vibe of such tweets shifted dramatically over the course of the day. At first, when news arrived of the queen’s “medical care,” simple and snarky tweets abounded, anticipating the official announcement and ensuing fallout.
Those upset at the prospect of losing their queen began Thursday directing their ire toward Americans mocking British grief, but then the bereaved moved on to targeting the much more widespread colonial diaspora. When the acclaimed academic and author Uju Anya referred to Elizabeth II as the “chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire” and wished that “her pain be excruciating,” none other than Jeff Bezos called her out for it, eventually leading to Twitter suspending her account.
Then, as the clock hit 1:30 p.m. and the royal family officially declared the queen’s death, anti-monarchy tweeters adopted an even more serious tone. They doubled down on their lack of grief and highlighted not only the bloody history of British rule, but the queen’s own role in perpetuating it—whether through history-obscuring initiatives, direct orders for violent military crackdowns on colonial dissent in Yemen, and her other efforts at halting the mass independence movements that took place, and succeeded, under her reign.”
“Let the Descendants of Britain’s Empire Have Their Glee”
A bit of Kipling for you all. Are we still so bold?
Take up the White Man’s burden–
Send forth the best ye breed–
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild–
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another’s profit,
And work another’s gain.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
The savage wars of peace–
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper–
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard–
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:–
“Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?”
Take up the White Man’s burden–
Ye dare not stoop to less–
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
Have done with childish days–
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!
Rudyard Kipling
How veddy, veddy quaint, my good man!
Strange. Kipling does not say anything about what the White Man charges for this service.
Among elites the blood of soldiers is a fungible commodity, all procuring for them the stuff of their greatest desires and ambitions.
I read in Kipling an appetite for irony and pathos propelled by the euphemisms of convenient rationalizations taken from peers of his own class. Perhaps my understanding of his writings are lacking in nuance.