The Queen is Dead -- Long Live the Queen

This story has been making the rounds again, on Twitter and elsewhere. From a war zone surgeon named David Nott.

It's how I thought of her, I suppose.



To her rest.

 

The story told on MSNBC by either Beschloss or Meachem was LBJ pledged not to take any foreign trips his first year in office. After that, they were afraid to set off Vietnam protesters

 

Saw an interesting tweet:

She reigned for 30% of US history.

 

We toured Holyrood Palace when we were in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago (and the Royal Yacht Brittania). There was no threat of a sunburn during our week in Scotland.

 

The next 10 days have been carefully scripted and have been for years.

'London Bridge is down': the secret plan for the days after the Queen’s death — Guardian US

Buried within that, this nugget:

What we think of as the ancient rituals of the monarchy were mainly crafted in the late 19th century, towards the end of Victoria’s reign. Courtiers, politicians and constitutional theorists such as Walter Bagehot worried about the dismal sight of the Empress of India trooping around Windsor in her donkey cart. If the crown was going to give up its executive authority, it would have to inspire loyalty and awe by other means – and theatre was part of the answer. “The more democratic we get,” wrote Bagehot in 1867, “the more we shall get to like state and show.”​

And also, this: “The Queen’s 10 pallbearers will be chosen, and practise carrying their burden out of sight in a barracks somewhere. British royals are buried in lead-lined coffins. Diana’s weighed a quarter of a ton.”

 

That equates to 500 pounds. Heavy, but for 10 muscular guys that shouldn't be overly onerous. Wooden caskets weigh between 150 and 250 pounds, according to a Google search. Put a 250-pound guy in one, and you're not really far off.

 

As someone who is an Anglophile and enjoys all things about the U.K. culture, especially the history, I am looking forward (in a morbid-ish kind of way) to seeing this. A poster earlier talked about how they like the pomp of it all, and I have to agree. I must have spent an hour yesterday (when I should have been grading summer reading papers for my high school seniors) going on Wikipedia and looking up what a Page of the Backstairs is, or a Keeper of the Privy Purse, two of a number of titles I heard for the first time yesterday.

Apropos of nothing, I am not a traveler by any means, but I've told my wife that when the kids are older, we are absolutely going to the U.K. and Ireland. Already have a list of places to go that will probably require multiple trips. If I'm having trouble falling asleep, this guy's YouTube channel is a good watch.

 

I also confess to being charmed by the ostentatiousness of it. Whatever it is, it is very British and that's OK. I can nod along.

 

I went for 10 days in mid-August and it was high 80's-low 90's with direct sunshine for a week. It didn't rain until the evening of day 8 and I didn't see it until the afternoon of day 9.

 

I enjoyed this take from Roger Bennett of Men in Blazers …

I write with fingers saddened by the passing of Elizabeth II. As regular listeners of our podcast know well – I am not a monarchist. Liverpool, my city of birth is heavily Irish, and profoundly anti-royalist. Many Liverpudlians maintain they are Scousers, not English. And besides, I am American now. Despite all that, I still realize the enormous sense of loss the United Kingdom has experienced in the past 24 hours. I only have to pick up the phone and speak to my Mum for that to become abundantly clear. The Queen has been an ever present, even for Valerie Bennett. When you look at Elizabeth’s life, the historical throughline of her arc was remarkable. Her links to the Second World War alone are profound and moving. Ninety-six years of service to the nation in that peculiar, yet onerous, symbolic way a modern monarch serves, stands as a singular life of gilded sacrifice.
We have often joked that all Britain has now in the eyes of the world is the Premier League, the Royal family, and Downton Abbey. The latter is no longer in production, and for many in Britain, their quietly stoic Queen was the best of the Royals, a scandal-plagued institution which will now be plunged into transition, in a post-Brexit Britain that is already buckling amidst chaos. Not for the first time in this newsletter, I type, Thank God for Football.