London Bridge collapsed. London Bridge collapsed. This protocol-encoded message announces that Queen Elizabeth is dead. After 70 years, 7 months and 2 days, the longest living Empress of the United Kingdom has died peacefully at the age of 96 at her home in Balmoral, surrounded by the love of her son Carlo, who recently visited her every day. Camille’s son-in-law and grandson and new heir to the throne, William, who rushed to Scotland as soon as he learned of his grandmother’s plight. Also present were Harry, who had come there from his tour of Europe, and his other children, Anna, Andrea and Edoardo. At the same time, Kate and Megan remained respectively in Windsor and London.
Just a few days ago, he hosted outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson and newly elected Liz Truss, the fifteenth prime minister (the third woman after Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May) during his long reign, at his summer residence. An absolute and unprecedented novelty that was deemed necessary due to the many mobility problems that plagued Her Majesty last year, who contracted Covid in February without much trouble but came out tired and debilitated. To the extent that the celebrations of the Platinum Jubilee seemed to many to be a great farewell ceremony for subjects with their empress, more and more withdrawn, more and more slender, as if leaning on a cane (the memory of her husband, who died in 2021), but at the same time clear, vigilant and careful to settle family matters and contain scandals, the latest of many being her son Andrea, on trial for sexual abuse and stripped of his titles for it.
When he ruled son Carlo, the eternal pretender to the throne, who today impresses us with the fact that we can determine him, having forced him to preside over the inauguration ceremony of Parliament in May in his stead, he worried that Camilla, too, might finally get an official place, not only at court, once her son succeeded her, but also in the hearts of the people. On 6 February, the 70th anniversary of her ascension, he acknowledged her role as a future queen consort, finally ending her firstborn’s tormented love story, which she herself interfered with by wanting to marry a young, noble and virgin like Diana.
On the other hand, the incessant broadcasts of Harry and his wife Meghan were cut short last year by an educated letter expressing regret and concern over how the former actress lived her years at court while at the same time asking for reflection. y about how memories can change over time, get confused and model ourselves based on our personal beliefs. A style and education lesson that showed how an ancient proverb Never complain, never explain – never complain, never explain – it was more relevant than ever.
Elizabeth never complained, she was destined to rule against all odds. He never shied away from his duties, even in the face of the hostility of his people, as happened after the tragic death of Diana, whose twenty-fifth death anniversary falls this year. One of the moments of the greatest unpopularity of her long reign: convinced that her subjects would have preferred composure and decent silence, she refused to leave Balmoral, where she was on leave, currently with her husband Philip, the queen mother, Charles, and two nephews of William and Harry, for several days he did not raise the Union flag at half-mast over Buckingham Palace (he would have done it in five days) and only under pressure from the then Prime Minister Tony Blair was persuaded to go on television and give a funeral audience to the Princess of Hearts. In the collective drama that embraced his early death, people needed a coffin in which to cry, an image of that young life, broken in the prime of life, to take with them. And the refusal of the solemn ceremony would deprive the subjects of something sacred, a form of compensation for this loss. Elizabeth understood this in time, because she realized that the monarchy, if it wants to survive, must develop, albeit as a sign of continuity.
Born in London on 21 April 1926, she found that she would one day become queen on 11 December 1936 when her uncle Edward VIII abdicated to follow her heart and marry Wallis Simpson. The headshots that Elizabeth always avoided against herself and others afterwards and for the rest of her life: from her sister Margaret, forced to marry a man she did not love and give up her dream of happiness with Peter Townsend due to divorce , his son Carlo and Camilla disowned him for the same reason. It was because of this crazy love between his uncle and Wallis that his loving father fell ill, not wanting to take his brother’s place. When he died in his sleep from a coronary thrombosis at Sandringham Mansion, Norfolk, Elizabeth was traveling with Philip in Kenya, she didn’t even have a black dress with her, but witnesses present at the time reported that “he sat upright, fully accepting his fate.”
More than 70 years have passed since then, and those who have been near the court in recent months know that with the same courage and resilience of that time the queen often repeated: “No one is eternal”knew that the end was near, but he never gave the impression that he wanted to abdicate the throne as life. FROM.with a spirit of sacrifice and an almost forgotten self-denial in our time, the prerogative of saints rather than men, Elizabeth passed decades through world conflict and numerous economic crises.. Under his gaze, the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union collapsed, after decades of the Cold War, he witnessed the miracle of globalization and its recent failure, 9/11, the rampage of Islamic terrorism, the war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Brexit, and most recently the invasion of Ukraine, which more than 70 years years brought the conflict back to the heart of Europe.
It was there that on May 13, 1940, Winston Churchill, in his inaugural speech to the members of the House of Commons and the British people, said: “I can promise you nothing but blood, toil, tears and sweat”; when the parents refused to leave Buckingham Palace during the bombing of London so as not to abandon the defenseless population and when, again Churchill, insisted that the official and permanent residence of the Crown remain in the palace so that the Windsors would be closer to their own people than they raised from ruins of conflict. This was when, under the leadership of the Iron Lady, the Royal Navy emerged victorious from the 1983 Falklands War against Argentina., where her beloved son Andrea also fought, and when, three years earlier, she was the first British monarch to make a state visit to the Vatican with Pope John Paul II. She has met with hundreds of heads of state from all over the world, so immersed in modern history that she becomes a witness to it and becomes part of it at the time of her writing. He painstakingly crossed the millennium, going through what was soon renamed his terrible year, for the death in 2002 of his sister Margaret and mother Elizabeth. For 70 years of her reign, she failed to have even her beloved husband Philip next to her, perhaps more faithful to the Crown than to her queen, but certainly an indispensable life partner.
His death is confusing and leaves everyone speechless. Intimacy and pain multiply and are destined to last for weeks. At Buckingham Palace, a sign warns unanticipated tourists that there will be no changing of the guard today, while BBC programming has been briefing viewers for hours on the details of the protocol to be followed now that “London Bridge has collapsed.” As with all great events in history, it will take time to mourn, realize the scope of his work and cherish his legacy.. What is certain is that in the next few decades Britain will no longer have a queen, but only kings and male heirs – Charles, William and George. That’s why we will miss Elisabetta. And then, for the last time, God save our gracious queen.
Source: Elle