One of the mysteries of Elizabeth II is what things she carries in that black bag that looks like a part of her arm. Even in the chambers of buckingham the queen appears with the purse from which she never separates. But the question that travels the world the most has to do with her public image. Both in England Scottish and Welsh, as in the 54 Commonwealth countries, is respected and appreciated. That assessment was exposed on the 70th anniversary of her coronation.
He surpassed the record for duration on the throne held by the queen Victoria, although it will not leave such a strong mark on the social and cultural traits of his time, as the one left by his great-great-grandmother.
will not talk about “Elizabethan era” in the same way that one speaks of the “Victorian era”. His name will not be associated with a moment of imperial splendor and a leap towards industrial and economic development, as was associated with the 64-year reign that began in 1837.
But reaching 70 years of reign places Elizabeth among very few long-term monarchs. She only has Louis XIV ahead of him with his 72-year reign in the 17th century France and to the Thai of the last century Bhumibol Adulyadej, which he will be able to overcome just by remaining on the throne for a few more months.
One of the keys that Isabel II knew how to handle much better than her sister, sons and daughters-in-law, were the rules of austerity and discretion that no royalty in the world should violate, much less in the United Kingdom.
Another key is in the unalterable permanence. In times of dizzying change and profound transformation, British society seeks its identity in what remains.
Victory it was the quiet symbol in the transformative stage that had begun in the eighteenth century. When the Industry RevolutionHe changed everything, the nineteenth-century queen represented the unalterable and generated the feeling that morality and also laws remained immutable.
The paradox of victorian era was to represent change and continuity at the same time. Modernity and tradition seemed to associate their opposing natures.
A Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, Isabel II, also touched an era of transformations. The technological revolution interacted with an amazing cultural revolution. The new technology initiated the permanent transformation of production and work, while pop art, beat music and rock produced a psychedelic revolution. Also the advances in science, in addition to the Cold War and the end of the Cold War, changed everything dramatically. But at Buckingham and at Balmoral Castle everything stopped and stilled.
The 60s and 70s changed clothing, the length of hair and, above all, the perception of the world and society, altering even the idea of family.
But before the vertigo of the transformation, the British found in Isabel II the reference of what remains. She, like her great-great-grandmother, became the quiet symbol of the British spirit.
The wrinkles were covering his face, but his English features and his discreet smile remained as intact as the enigmatic bag that hangs from his arm. His role, that only role he has in British society, is to symbolize what does not change even if everything in the world changes.
The Jubilee of 70 years showed that the level of approval of Elizabeth II is high, at a time when monarchies are seen as expensive anachronisms.
Being the daughter of George VI, the king who had to inadvertently take over the throne due to the abdication of his brother Edward VIII, gave her affection and legitimacy despite the youth and inexperience with which she inherited the crown.
His uncle’s abdication was controversial because, between the crown of England and a divorced commoner American, Edward VIII chose the woman who dazzled him. At least that’s how the official story portrays it.
The fact is that George VI, who had begun his reign by making the mistake of publicly approving the Munich Pact with which Arthur Chamberlain had fallen for Hitler, ended up being admired for his performance, precisely, on the stage of the Second World War. World War.
Even George VI’s stutter ended up being endearing to the British, because he chose to stay in London to face the Third Reich’s offensive, rather than accept evacuation to be safe from the Nazi war machine.
The young daughter who inherited the throne also inherited the popular appreciation of her father. And she knew how to keep it. Many monarchies fell in Europe, while the queen kept the British crown standing, avoiding seismic moments, such as the one that produced the failed marriage of her son, Carlos, with Diana Spencer.
The biggest shock against the House of Windsor came with the death of Lady Di, by then an immensely popular figure in Britain, who perceived her as a victim of her husband’s heartbreak and the icy coldness of her mother-in-law, the queen.
Sabel had no tears or gestures of pain to show at the death of the mother of his grandchildren. That coldness confirmed the callous mistreatment he had meted out to Diana Spencer. No one in that icy family, except for the princess’s children, could even feign pain.
Interestingly, it was a young, center-left ruler who helped her navigate those turbulent waters that put her reign on the brink of shipwreck.
Surrounded by a circumspect nobility in which nobody knew how to handle such a circumstance, she received from Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair the advice she needed to face a sadness charged with indignation.
Elizabeth II managed to weather this storm without sinking the house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, renamed Windsor House by King George V. She reinstated the norm of acting discreetly and regained the appreciation of society.
But there is another component to that appreciation: the suspicion that the crown prince will not know how to conquer the appreciation of society that his grandfather and mother had, therefore he will weaken an anachronistic institution whose only function is to symbolize what remains unchanged in a world changeable.
Also the British state, led from Westminster and Downing Street, doubts the ability of Charles to reign. That is why it is possible that reaching the record of 70 years is not a decision only of Elizabeth II.
The succession that crowns the current Prince of Wales is getting closer and generates vertigo at the heights of power.
