"The Queen:" A Monarch's Guide to the Throne

or... what to do when a dead blonde chick steals your thunder.

July 27, 2022

Early on February 6, 1952, King George VI of England was found dead in his chambers. He had been ailing for years, partly due to heavy smoking that eased the stresses of being monarch. His brother, Edward VIII, abdicated the throne 15 years before to marry an American socialite. George was not supposed to be monarch, nor any of his children.

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On that day, approximately 4,200 miles away in Kenya, his eldest daughter, Princess Elizabeth, enjoyed an African vacation with her husband, Prince Phillip. She awoke that morning the daughter of a king. She left Kenya hours later fatherless, but Queen.

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Contextualizing the next 70 years is an exercise in many things: celebration, rumination, condemnation, introspection, and retrospection. We marvel at a woman who has observed and endured more history than most see in a lifetime and with a deeper intimacy than most can imagine: the Korean, Falklands, Persian Gulf, Bosnian, and Iraq wars; the Suez Crisis, the Troubles in Ireland, and various uprisings and revolts throughout the UK’s Middle Eastern and African nations. She began her reign as head of state for 33 countries; over half have seceded from the Commonwealth since 1952. Fourteen prime ministers have served under her, from Winston Churchill to incumbent Boris Johnson. She saw her country embrace the rampant conservatism of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 and the repudiation that saw Tony Blair win in a landslide nearly 20 years later.

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We watched her suffer through her annus horribilis in 1992: the separation or divorce of three of her children’s marriages, a shocking tell-all book detailing her son Charles’ troubled marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales, a probe into the monarchy’s finances that saw the Queen become responsible for income tax, getting egged by protesters on a state visit to Germany, a fire at Windsor Castle, and a lawsuit against The Sun for publicizing the annual Christmas message two days before the broadcast.

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We have respected her as a representative of values that seem a world away: poise, grace, resilience, class, elegance, regality, duty, responsibility, and selflessness. We have also questioned the necessity of monarchy in a heavily modernized world. We have pondered the value of tradition in a time intent on surging forward, one reinventing the wheel more quickly than any period in history. We deny deference to an institution that protects an accused child sex predator and resist a monarchy whose treatment of the "people's princess" remains heavily criticized.

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Elizabeth II's reign has gotten subjected to the same controversies as many monarchs, whether the criticism was forced into silence or allowed to see the light. She tended to the nation when a spoil tip collapsed and overran the Welsh village of Aberfan, though subject to controversy: it took her eight days to pay her respects in person, despite the deaths of 116 children. She alleviated the people’s grief after the passing of their adored Princess Diana, though, again, subject to controversy: the royal family remained in seclusion at Balmoral and refused to fly the flag over Buckingham Palace at half-mast. It took six days from Diana’s passing for the monarchy to issue a public statement; the Queen spoke to her nation in a live, televised address, the sincerity of which, while questionable, was embraced by the public.

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The Queen thus takes on a difficult task: juggling many spokes on the wheel of reality. It is a situation in which everyone is both right and wrong; duty and principle must shift from unshakeable notions of proven ideology to malleable concepts decided upon by the moment. It is a story of a woman honor-bound and beholden to tradition, watching the people for whom she has sacrificed so much show loyalty to a woman who felt none to her.

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It is also the story of someone who, while deeply flawed and petulant, had much to divulge about the nature of monarchy and how it unjustly shapes the lives of those tethered to it. It is a tale of irrational attachment and a disregard for sense, logic, or reason. It is an accounting of the role one woman must play in keeping calm and carrying on while getting forced to acknowledge that the very people for whom she must do that do not want her to do it at all.

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It is a slice of modern history that challenges everyone involved and condemns our allowing sentiments to control narratives. It espouses insanity, displays its propensity for damage, and refuses to ignore the response of those who mishandled that damage.

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The Queen must choose whether it wants to dissect the philosophical debate driving the film to unearth the human truth within or settle for letting the concept of diametrical opposition create and develop the drama. It chooses wisely.

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Blair never abandons his principles, nor does the Queen. A modern man for the modern age cannot ignore the need to forgo tradition in troubling times, but a woman shackled to what she’s always known cannot pretend she has not always known it. The tighter the dialogue, the more pointed every argument made, the more we feel compelled to jockey between these differing perspectives. No one wastes a syllable making their point, nor fails to add one when needed. The battle can never seem tedious because everyone has just as much substance as resolve to stand firm, whether that means being delicate or acidic.

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It is the cross those we look to for guidance must bear, whether they sought our election or attained their status solely by birth: we cannot resolve all conflicts, and we cannot change overnight. The people’s fury is born only from a desire to have Diana back. Expecting an immediate shift in monarchical values is foolish: alas, when has the folly of expectations ever stopped people from having them?

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Ordinary people can ignore what is right and embrace what is easy. The attachment they bore Diana was deranged; no sane person could claim sleeping on the streets in tribute of a total stranger is a justifiable practice, but people are not reasonable. There are no wrong feelings. We cannot control what happens or how we feel. We can only control our reactions.

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It is not human nature to meet demands. Introspection births renewal, but it can never get forced. Everyone must come to things in their own time and in their own way. It is the easy path for an artist because artists crave what comes easily. The Queen does not enslave Elizabeth II to antiquated ideals; she does not refuse to bend for the sake of being intractable. She is a woman who truly believes she is right. The Queen trusts her knowledge and wisdom but has also given 45 years to the Crown. No one knows the English people as she does.

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If one asked those lining the gates of Buckingham Palace, few would have believed the sight just a week before. The most passionate responses are often the most unexpected. The Queen knows her people, but rarely can we know someone in a way that they do not know themselves. The great duel between the monarch and parliament seems like a battle of archaism and modernization but is a classically unwinnable struggle of belief. Neither is entirely wrong, but neither is wholly correct.

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Yes, the Queen is a woman who clings to a dying car because she has had it for so long. Yes, she overextends to embrace propriety, banning the use of guns on the Lord’s day; yes, she eyes the prime minister and his wife to ensure they adhere to protocol as they slowly depart the initial meeting.

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But she is also a woman who has known nothing but the value of these traditions, who watched deviation from that tradition kill her father, a man who never saw her children grow. She has watched it survive many attacks from within and without. She has seen many great modernizers come and go; the monarchy has remained. No matter how often she wonders if there is some merit to the contrasting opinion, she cannot forsake the truth she trusts.

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As Blair and the Queen sit in a room, the same one in which they met months before, the tables have turned in a way that can never get undone. Despite his apologies, the Queen half-heartedly assures Blair she did not feel handled or managed. He does not see the actual issue, but she does, “diminished respect” aside. Initially, he was a hesitant supporter but became a loyal ally as the war between Queen and country raged on. After all, he saw those headlines and thought, “One day, that might happen to me.”

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She was right. It did happen; “quite suddenly and without warning.” The two end on a note of furtherance: the Queen understands she must accept that the people are what they say and need what they demand, and one “must modernize.” Blair, though his arrogance somewhat shields him, momentarily ruminates. His downfall will come, and so it will always be that those we once adored will see their reputations crumble unless death spares them. The Queen manages a right hook of truth in a short dose of reality. It understands that for all our repudiation, there is something to get mourned when we discard tradition. From the Queen's perspective, the British people once carried themselves quietly and with dignity. The monarchy was the foundation of that quiet dignity, and rejecting it is rejecting what has made them respectable. We crave stability but often devalue that which grants it to us in favor of disrupting the established order. New life should get breathed into old institutions, but we should also never forget the value of holding dear that which is familiar.

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It makes The Queen’s display of modern journalism insightful, understanding the symbiotic relationship between writer and audience. A newspaper can, by nature, stoke a flame, but it cannot boil still water. The people had spent the decade questioning the nation’s oldest institution; a sharp-tongued writer is advantageous and little else. Alistair, Blair’s campaign director, cracks jokes at the Queen’s expense, ignorant of the truth Blair unleashes on him (and thus the audience) when his acidity corrodes too deeply. Diana was not perfect, and the Queen is not inhuman for not praising that. What inspires adoration from the public need not necessarily earn it from those more intimately attached.

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Diana was an all-consuming figure, and we become just as aware of how deep that truth runs outside the palace walls as it does inside it. She got offered the world she wanted and turned it away when it proved different than what she thought. Diana left something that brought her unhappiness and risked much to do it. In that way, she is what we all strive to be; perhaps seeing those experiences play out on a divine stage inspires such attachment. It seems that way as sobbing mourners line the streets wailing about the tragedy and the remorse they feel for refusing to grant her solitude. Charles said it best: the Diana the public mourn and the one the royal family dealt with are two distinctly different people. Thus, the perception of her passing on the streets contrasts with the one brewing inside the royal household.

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As the funeral preparations take shape, the organizers realize they haven’t had time to prepare a procession for Diana. The Queen’s press secretary informs her and the Queen Mother that the latter’s funeral plan will get used. The “spirit” of the occasion will be different, but the substitutions that allow for such a shift are insulting. An ailing woman’s public mourning has gone to another out of inconvenience. The dignity of her death got taken without so much as a consultation. The Queen can only look on as Diana, even from beyond the grave, controls that which she should not. Duty first; self second.

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The Queen understands that its story is, more than anything, a discovery of what that means. In that final meeting with Blair, she asks whether he believes the respect people once held for the monarchy has evaporated but hesitates, remembering it is not about people’s feelings towards her, only her position and what it represents. The Queen has never had to wonder that nor been allowed to feel about it one way or another. After all, she was only a girl when her father died, even though it has taken her 45 years to realize it.

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We are always mature to ourselves. In adolescence, we believe we grasp the world and its endless machinations; in early adulthood, we reflect on our younger selves and scoff at our delusions, having worked out the universe and its many complicated puzzles. As we age, we become more self-assured regardless of whether we have earned it, even as the occasional shake-up rocks our foundations to the core. It so often takes another to put things into perspective. After jetting across the globe, grappling with armed conflicts, seismic shifts in economic and social sentiment, familial dramas, and the waxing and waning of monarchical support, she finally has a moment to understand what it has meant to place duty first and self second. In many ways, it has meant forgetting she has a self at all.

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It is a slow journey of discovery, not just on a quiet hill as she shoos away a hunted stag or a sobering walk along the palace gates to greet her mourning subjects. It is within herself, as she thinks back to the day her father died and who she was and thus had to be to become who she is now. The film set it all in motion from the beginning when a portraitist discussed the impending election. The Queen pondered the beauty of being partial; by film’s end, after shielding tradition and clinging to the dying values she holds most dear, she understands. She has always been partial. Her coronation oath decrees it. It is not for her to decide what is best for her people, only to safeguard the government they elect to serve them. The dispute is between salvation and ruin. She must trust her people to bring greatness to England and be partial to their choices no matter what.

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In that final walk in the garden, 100 minutes of philosophical dueling has given birth to a truth we can accept. Blair was right when it mattered most, as was the Queen. We must modernize but remember that there are 52 weeks in a year, now over 3,600 since she became Queen. Time heals wounds, sometimes so much that we forget we got wounded in the first place. Legacies take decades to build, seconds to crumble, but a simple acknowledgment can make them whole again. The Queen has learned a valuable lesson but has not forgotten that she advises Blair. Everyone can be right; a million things that seem conflicting can hold some unifying truth and thus all be true at once.

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A film can balance many perspectives, from the hysterical public to the archaic royals, the exploitative press to the opportunistic parliament, and justify lending each one as much credence as folly. It can seem ludicrous to complicate a funeral with talk of “precedents,” even more so to hint that your mother's safety is less important than yours. It can feel heartless for a monarch to stand firm in defying what seems apparent and short-sighted for a modernist not to realize that what he’s forcing on the Queen is what the world will ultimately force upon him.

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The important thing is accepting that we cannot control what storms we will get forced to weather or what havoc they will wreak. The only controllable variable is how we respond: sometimes quietly, sometimes with dignity, sometimes with support, sometimes with affection. Elizabeth II has done her duty, and done it well, but now she knows what it truly means to be the Queen.