WHEN THE ROYAL ‘WE’ MEANT THE NORMAL ‘US’
Pronouncements and speculation about why Queen Elizabeth II was beloved invariably include her dignity, demeanour and dedication to duty. While all those are valid, I think the simple answer is that even as she conducted herself in a manner to which most of us can only aspire, she was in a subliminal way, perceived as ‘just like us’.
We know without being told that a crown placed on one’s head doesn’t magically end headaches, a sluggish morning after a bad night’s sleep, or just that plain old ‘enough already” feeling, to name but a few of life’s all-too-frequent vexations. We can subconsciously sympathise with the fact that for the Queen, the options of calling in sick, or simply postponing or opting out of humdrum tasks to catch a break or recuperate didn’t exist. Even an inkling of being fed up or out of sorts risked sparking a firestorm of rumour and speculation. The Royal principle of “never complain, never explain” remained paramount and admirable.
Like many of ‘us’, the Queen had children who from time to time and to greater or lesser degree gave cause for worry. We can empathise with the indignity and pain of having their “issues” aired in public, grist for ever-grinding rumour and gossip mills, fodder for professional insulters and critics.
Albeit on a different and filtered level, Her Majesty was as vulnerable as ‘us’ to the near-omnipotence granted to users of social media to taunt, revile and misrepresent. The sensible among us understand that privilege doesn’t ameliorate the pain of insults, gratuitous or otherwise.
NOT-SO-NICE NEIGHBOURS
A sovereign’s subjects are all, metaphorically speaking, her neighbours, which means just like ‘us’, she sometimes had to put up with versions of “the neighbours from Hell”. In the Queen’s case they were in the form of a near-perpetual cacophony of cries that she and her family were at best anachronisms, at worst leeches, heirs and successors to racists, enslavers, exploiters etc and etc. With no recourse to the equivalent of a restraining order, she had to live with them in the knowledge that if their numbers grow, it could pose a threat to all that she pledged to selflessly uphold. Hence, she was denied even the luxury of a cathartic riposte.
It’s no stretch to think that perhaps, like ‘us’, she understood from bitter experience the pithy definition a now-departed friend of mine sported on a tee shirt:
“STRESS: What happens when the mind overcomes the body’s basic urge to choke the living s*** out of some a**h*** who desperately deserves it.”
The only difference between her and ‘us’ on that score is that she couldn’t wear the tee shirt even if she wanted to.
IT ALL HANGS OUT
Few women I know (or men for that matter) relish the idea of aging. Even fewer welcome its signposts. Just looking in the mirror can be depressing. We don’t even want to imagine, but can sympathise with, how taxing it would be to have our ever-multiplying lines, wrinkles, sags and bags immortalised in regular official portraits, photographed by the sharpest eyes using the best lenses money can buy every time we appear in public, then displayed in newspapers and magazines and on TV for all the world to see.
The way the Queen aged with a grace that kept her genuinely beautiful is, I suspect, an example many of ‘us’ envy.
COMMENT IS FREE…BUT…
We all bitch and moan and later often wish we’d been a bit more temperate.
That, I think, is a major reason why the Queen’s reference to 1992 as an annus horribilis, a horrible year, struck an ‘us’ chord.
It was a veiled reference to the relentless press coverage of the collapse of three of her children’s marriages and the publication of Princess Diana’s tell-all memoir, which exposed scandals within the Royal family; the kind of “dirty laundry” no one wants aired in public.
Added to that was a fire that destroyed more than 100 rooms in Windsor Castle. The sight of an obviously distraught Queen watching it while wearing a raincoat moved many. Sympathy waned when it was suggested taxpayers would pay for the repairs. The monarchy won it back with the kind of “when life hands you a lemon, make lemonade” scheme that appeals to the ‘us’. Buckingham Palace was opened to the public for the first time ever on an admission basis to help fund the Windsor restoration.
The Queen in a way spoke for all of ‘us’ when she noted that scrutiny “can be just as effective if it is made with a touch of gentleness, good humour and understanding.”
In that vein I’ll wager there are many among the ‘us’, who believe in freedom of speech, who think that exercising it by protesting the monarchy during events to mark the Queen’s death, oversteps the bounds respect and common decency.
And whatever those who disagree, and see cameras as an opportunity not to be missed may think, they will not make Her Majesty “turn in her grave”, even though they wish it to be so.
She was, you see, much more like ‘us’, than them.
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2 thoughts on “WHEN THE ROYAL ‘WE’ MEANT THE NORMAL ‘US’”
Thanks Allen, a thoughtful & well considered. analysis.
I remember her annus horribilis.
The Queen was an amazing Monarch .
May she Rest In Peace after a job well done
Thankyou awp