Fintan O’Toole: Queen Elizabeth showed the institution she embodied could survive with her
Monarch presided over death of her own majesty and replacement of consecrated mystery by sanctified celebrity
Queen Elizabeth II on the balcony of Buckingham Palace at the end of the Platinum Jubilee Pageant, on day four of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations in Britain on June 5th, 2022. Photograph: Chris Jackson/PA
If you walk round the top of that great symbol of Britishness, the Rock of Gibraltar, you come to a clearing overlooking the harbour and dockyards. It is marked by an unintentionally hilarious plaque: “At this spot, HM Queen Elizabeth II and HRH Duke of Edinburgh stood and looked out over Gibraltar during their visit to the rock May 10th-11th, 1954.”
Has ever a monument been raised to mark such a heroic achievement: here a woman stood and looked?
And yet, the monument is in its own way a fitting one for Queen Elizabeth; as its date reminds us, she stood and looked — and sat and was looked at — for a very, very long time. Had the title not already been taken for a satirical novel and movie, the definitive account of her public life could be called Being There.
One of the things we always had to remember about her is that being there, and staying there, was not something she took for granted. She was raised in a multinational family business, some of whose branches came to a bad end. Kaiser Wilhelm of the German Reich was Elizabeth’s grandfather’s first cousin.
Both Elizabeth and her husband were related by blood to the Romanovs — it was Philip’s DNA that was used in 2016 to identify the remains of two of the children of Tsar Nicholas and his wife Alexandra, murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918. (Elizabeth’s grandfather, George V, refused to grant asylum to “Cousin Nicky” and his family, for fear of revolutionary contagion.)
Philip himself was a nephew of the deposed King Constantine of Greece and had to be evacuated from the country as a small child. Elizabeth was never likely to forget that the primary aim of any monarchy is its own survival.
There is a photograph of Elizabeth, taken in 1928, when she was two-years-old. She is barefooted, in a flouncy white dress, perched on a small but definitely thronelike wooden armchair. Her back is completely straight and, eerily, she already wears her official smile, the regal rictus that appears completely unchanged in pictures of her in her 90s.
The Duke and Duchess of York with then princess Elizabeth in 1928. Photograph: Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images
It is not the giggle or grin of a toddler but the expression of a public figure: the mouth open just wide enough to show off the fine teeth, the muscles forming perfectly symmetrical channels from the edge of the nostrils to the tip of the chin. And it is fully reproducible.
You can see it, tooth for tooth and muscle for muscle, as she smiles among the syringa bushes at Windsor in 1941 or disembarks the state coach after her coronation in 1953 or stands on the balcony of Buckingham Palace in 1985, pretty grandchildren at her elbow, her son Charles and daughter-in-law Diana posing beside her in a game of happy families, or as she beams from her official portrait in 1997, defying a surge of popular resentment in a year when Elizabeth had made her biggest mistake by managing to seem more visibly upset by the decommissioning of her royal yacht, Britannia, than by Diana’s death.
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It is a beautiful smile but also utterly impersonal — an unchanging symbolic object like the crown and the sceptre. And it expressed its owner’s view of how a constitutional monarch could survive at the head of a state undergoing immense changes: look pleasant and give nothing away. If it says anything at all it is simply: I will outlast you all. Indeed, she outlasted not just government after government, not just the loss of the empire she was born into, not just the disappearance of a culture of deference, but the vanishing of the one thing that seemed indispensable to monarchy: enchantment.
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The Queen Mother (then the Duchess of York) with her husband, King George VI (then the Duke of York), and their daughter Queen Elizabeth II at her christening in May 1926. Photograph : PA
The Duchess of York, with Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, arriving at Olympia for the International Horse show. Photograph : PA
10th October 1940: Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret (1930 - 2002) making a broadcast to the children of the Empire during World War II. Photograph: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images
Princess Elizabeth, future Elizabeth II, born 1926. Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Seen here in 1945 in the uniform of second subaltern in the A.T.S. From a photograph. Photograph: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Princess Elizabeth learning basic car maintenance as a Second Subaltern in the A.T.S 12th April 1945. Photograph: Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images
Princess Elizabeth, who drove in a semi-state Landau from Buckingham Palace to Guildhall, via the Mall, to receive the Freedom of the City of London. It was the first significant London ceremony which the Princess attended unaccompanied. Photograph : PA
While on board the HMS Vanguard, Crown Princess Elizabeth plays tag with midshipmen. Photograph : Bettmann Collection / Getty
Princess Elizabeth dancing with her fiance, Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, RN, at the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, when a ball was held to welcome the royal family to Scotland. Photograph : PA
Princess Elizabeth and Lt Philip Mountbatten at Buckingham Palace after their wedding ceremony. Photograph : PA
In a traditional ceremony, Britain crowned a new Queen, the Empire's first reigning woman since Queen Victoria. Elizabeth II wearing the bejeweled Imperial Crown and carrying the Orb and Scepter with Cross leaves Westminster Abbey at the end of the Coronation Ceremony. Photograph : PA
Queen Elizabeth II riding on the racecourse before the opening of the third day of the Royal Ascot meeting. She took part in an unofficial 'race' and finished fourth to other members of her party of seven. Photograph : PA
The Royal Family in the grounds of Frogmore House, Windsor. From left: Princess Anne, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Edward, Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles and Prince Andrew. Photograph : PA
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II holding Prince Edward and surrounded by her family, (L-R) the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales and Princess Anne, at Windsor on the occasion of her 39th birthday. Photograph : PA
The Queen and Prince Andrew in the grounds of Balmoral, Scotland. Photograph : PA
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II peers round a corner during a visit to the Royal Albert Hall in London, marking the end of an 8 year restoration program. Photograph : PA
Queen Elizabeth II wears 3D glasses to watch a display and pilot a JCB digger during a visit to the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research centre. Photograph : PA
The Queen who attended the Army Rifle Association meeting at Bisley for it's centenary, fires the last shot on a standard SA 80 rifle at the Bisley Ranges. Also pictured is her Chief Instructor, Small Arms Corps. Lt. Col. George Harvey. Photo: PA
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II at Howe Barracks in Canterbury, Kent with the 1st Battalion of The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders with the Wilkinson Sword of Peace for establishing good relations with communities during their service in Iraq. The Queen also presented soldiers with Operational Service Medals for their service and was expected to meet some of the families of those currently serving with the battalion. Photograph : PA
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II meets students from the Northdown Primary School at the Turner Contemporary Gallery in Margate, Kent. Photograph : PA
Composite of three photos shows Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke Of Edinburgh on their arrival at Casement Aerodrome Baldonnel at the commencement of her historic visit to Ireland in 2011. It was the first visit by a reigning British monarch to the area that is now the Republic of Ireland since the 1911 tour by Elizabeth's grandfather King George V. Photo: Bryan O'Brien / The Irish Times / Maxwells
President Mary McAleese and Queen Elizabeth at the Garden of Remembrance on the first day of the royal state visit in May 2011. Photograph: Maxwells
Queen Elizabeth at the English Market in Cork on the final day of her 2011 visit. Photograph: Valerie O'Sullivan / Maxwells
Queen Elizabeth meeting Ronan O'Gara and other members of the Irish Rugby Team at Hillsborough Castle where she attended a Co-Operation Ireland reception along with the President Mrs McAleese, and members of the Irish Rugby team Photograph: Frank Miller / The Irish Times
18/05/2011 News .. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Taoiseach Enda Kenny pictured at a special State Dinner in St Patricks Hall Dublin Castle in her honour on day two of her State Visit to Ireland .
Photograph: David Sleator / THE IRISH TIMES
Queen Elizabeth II shakes hands with Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland Martin McGuinness watched by First Minister Peter Robinson (C) at the Lyric Theatre on June 27, 2012 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. During the Queen's two day visit to Northern Ireland she held a hugely significant meeting with former IRA commander and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, Martin McGuinness at the Lyric Theatre today. The Queen will also visit the newly opened Titanic Museum and the town of Enniskillen. Photograph: Paul Faith/WPA Pool/Getty Images
Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Louis of Cambridge, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Princess Charlotte of Cambridge, Prince George of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge watch a flypast from the balcony of Buckingham Palace during Trooping the Colour on June 2, 2022 in London, England. Photograph: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images
The Duchess of Cambridge laughs as Queen Elizabeth II gestures while they watch part of a children's sports event during a visit to Vernon Park in Nottingham. Photograph : PA
Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh sit in the stands to watch the England v Wales match at the National Hockey Centre during the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Photograph : PA
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II smiles with the Duke of Edinburgh on Horse Guards Parade during the annual Trooping the Colour parade. Photograph : PA
Queen Elizabeth II takes her seat during the funeral of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle on April 17, 2021 in Windsor, England. Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark was born 10 June 1921, in Greece. He served in the British Royal Navy and fought in WWII. He married the then Princess Elizabeth on 20 November 1947 and was created Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth, and Baron Greenwich by King VI. He served as Prince Consort to Queen Elizabeth II until his death on April 9 2021, months short of his 100th birthday. His funeral takes place today at Windsor Castle with only 30 guests invited due to Coronavirus pandemic restrictions. Photograph: Jonathan Brady - WPA Pool/Getty Images
Queen Elizabeth II waiting in the Drawing Room before receiving Liz Truss for an audience at Balmoral, Scotland. Photograph: Jane Barlow / PA
One of the strangest moments in her reign was surely the rock concert held in the gardens of Buckingham Palace on the 50th anniversary jubilee of her reign in 2002. It was strange in part because of one star who offered to play but was not included: Johnny Rotten, who 25 years earlier had marked the previous jubilee with the magnificent snarl: “God save the queen/ She ain’t no human being.” This time, his desire to be included as a royal tribute act was sincere and unironic, the curled-lip sneer of “We mean it ma’am” in that song having become a completely straight face. Her Majesty had seen off even The Sex Pistols.
But the event was also strange for the arrival of the queen herself towards the end of the concert. She was greeted by the host Barry Humphries in his guise as Dame Edna Everage, an alternative queen, squeaking shrilly: “The jubilee girl is here, possums!”
The next act up was Paul McCartney, who immediately launched into Her Majesty, the cheeky little coda to The Beatles’ Abbey Road album in 1969: “Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl/ But she doesn’t have a lot to say ... She just smiled, of course, perhaps reflecting that this was indeed her secret weapon. She didn’t have a lot to say — even about the fact that other ageing British icons were now presenting themselves before her as her equals, free to engage in good-natured joshing between fellow veterans of super celebrity.
Long before that moment, in 1986, The Smiths had proclaimed The Queen is Dead, and in a sense they were right. Her Majesty presided over the death of her own majesty, the replacement of consecrated mystery by sanctified celebrity. Ironically, she was helped in this by the very woman who seemed to pose the greatest threat to her family business. It was Diana who completed the transformation of the royals from the fortunate cousins of the Romanovs into the precursors of the Kardashians.
Elizabeth ceased to enjoy the glamour of enchantment, but she survived into an age when being famous not for what you did but just for being famous was all the rage. Fame made her invulnerable to the demise of everything she was supposed to symbolise — the continuity of the empire, the serenity of the state, the sacredness of her United Kingdom.
And all the time, history accreted around her. She practised a peculiarly luxurious brand of stoicism, leading a life of extreme privilege yet somehow seeming to embody the virtues of great endurance. She got more and more credit simply for keeping going. Her being there was its own point — she had been there, like no one else had, since the second World War, and here she still was.
She had an answer to The Smiths’ refrain in that song: “Has the world changed or have I changed?” It has and I have not. A more complex and ambitious person would have been ashamed to say this, but Elizabeth always knew that it was what those who needed her wanted to hear. So long as she could extract so much credit from her mere survival, the anachronistic institution she embodied could survive with her.
