It feels like I’ve been told since the dawn of time how special Elizabeth Windsor, Second of her Name, Queen of the United Kingdom, is. How “brilliant” the Queen is and why she represents her realm so well. But when you ask the underlying question of “why?”, you’re met with hostility. To those that espouse this opinion, to ask why is to question something holy. She is literally anointed by God. It should go without saying this near centenarian is special.
She’s the Queen.
With the Platinum Jubilee underway this year, I want to really understand what people keep implying, without saying. Or rather, I want to fully explore what the monarchy is doing to maintain power. Because, within Europe, and especially the British Isles, that’s no mean feat.
England has removed, roughly (depending on your definition of removed) seven monarchs from power since William the Conqueror took the throne. Scotland has removed and ruffled the feathers of a few more. And Ireland just hates them all. There’s a compelling argument that either the Isles are the best at removing Kings, or the most incompetent at it. They do tend to come back like roaches. Regardless, the fragility of the monarchy is something to be taken seriously.
Feudalism relies on a powerful individual, but Monarchies require that same individual inspire public devotion. A lord can lack good qualities, as he only represents himself, but a monarch is the country’s soul personified. Charisma can take a King very far, regardless of public policy. A great example would by Henry VIII, who remains the most iconic of England’s Kings despite (and because of) his awful track record. And I’m not just talking about the wife situation. During his lifetime, Henry raged multiple useless wars, decimated the treasury almost twice, destroyed the religious houses that acted as England’s welfare system, and then died leaving behind a muddled succession act that somehow managed to destroy multiple women and get his grandniece killed. But he was still regarded and remembered fondly.
The England, the Britain, the Commonwealth, that Elizabeth Windsor came to rule was a different one than Henry Tudor had over 400 years earlier. It was theoretically united, practically unsettled. The fall of monarchies through the twentieth century, one after the other, left no doubt as to the need for stability. This was especially true following WWII and the fall of Hitler. Her predecessor had been her father, forced to rule due to the love affair of “alleged” Nazi sympathiser and dickhead Edward VIII of England and his wife, Wallis Simpson (Madonna obsession). George VI’s rule had established an equilibrium that she needed to maintain. Which she did.
But the success of royalty has come at the cost of her and her family’s humanity.
We often turn to the newcomers to the royal family in order to understand the depths of trauma that come from being the type of famous the Windsors are. Princess Diana’s tragic life and death are royal celebrity gone it’s nastiest. Meghan Markle’s public suffering as the first non-white royal in the family is often drawn on the same narrative lines. The toll of being part of the most public family in the world is sharp when you’re not used to it.
The Crown (2016-present) attempts to underscore exactly what this disconnect is. In the first two seasons, you get the story of Elizabeth and Phillip, in the third and fourth, you get Charles and then Charles and Diana. The show initially takes for granted that the royals are necessary for the healing of a country post-war, but over time, that assumption is questioned. Not very strongly, mind you, but it is questioned.
The role of the Queen post-war is as a figurehead. She cannot make any political moves without upsetting the balance of power. Royalty has taken on a purely symbolic role, similar to how the Pope exists for many Catholics. She does what she does because the ceremonies and appearances make people feel safer. But even within that, there is nuance. Elizabeth herself, for example, is forced to recognise the limits of being a neutral person when her sister shows that the old school royal charisma can do much to gain allies during financial struggles. The Princess Margaret’s famous kooky charm (she was famously a bitch, but a fun one) saves the day where Elizabeth’s waving mannequin act can’t.
It hurts Elizabeth that she can never shine the way her sister can, and throughout the show, they emphasise that this jealousy extends to her son. But that same jealousy is also fear. They may have cast a better-looking man than the Prince of Wales, but Charles in the show is just as plodding and self-obsessed as the real man has shown himself to be. His speeches are the type of a man who thinks his opinions matter. That’s a problem because an ego as King is what can topple this whole monarchy.
When I asked at the beginning of this article what makes Elizabeth Windsor special, I left the answer unstated because it’s not necessary to answer. I described her a few sentences ago as a waving mannequin. She’s special because she does so well at doing nothing of note. The show makes this explicit multiple times, and even now, we rarely see her express more than a smile and a dead eyed stare. But she’s a dying breed. Her children weren’t raised in the wake of Edward VIII and his awkward marriage, nor WWII. They were raised in relative stability. We’re about to get a Charles III.
The last two times England ousted a monarch, it was Charles I of England and, later, his son James II. While religion played a huge part in both of their falls (Catholics in a country that hated the Pope), the ultimate fall of both was due to arrogance. In particular, Charles I of England, Ireland and Scotland was the last true autocrat of England. Overconfident, dismissive and generally just a dick, he warred his way through the nation and had his head cut off for it, leaving his wife and children to fend for themselves until the Restoration. Unlike Louis XVI of France over a century later, Charles Stuart had every chance to play ball. He just didn’t think he had to.
Charles Windsor actually reminds me a lot of Charles Stuart. Married to an unpopular woman, with political opinions nobody cares to hear but to which they won’t stop bringing up, children who are more popular in theory but who also don’t inspire much actual hope for the state of this ancient system. The only thing left is a sudden turn to the Pope and some murder.
The incompetence of these men make the current Queen seem so smart. She’s got the emotional intelligence to not piss off a nation (forgetting she has done that; it’s just never toppled over). But part of me wonders whether that’s enough to call her brilliant. If your great gift is being digestible, you’re a snack, not a talent. The show is not necessarily her life, but it is a reflection of what might be her life. Maybe the royals as a collective don’t actually have anything of use on an individual level that outweighs their value in tourism and the dwindling public grace. But what we do know is, as we see a country celebrate their Queen, we’re not seeing someone being celebrated for necessarily DOING anything.
I’m not sure if we’re ever going to see the monarchy fall again, but I doubt we’ll ever get someone as good at smiling and waving as Elizabeth Windsor.