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Her Majesty and His Highness remembered Reward For Two Years In Jamaica With VSO

The LORD said unto my LORD, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The LORD shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth. ~ Psalm 110: 1-3

Bruce Oliver Newsome, The Last Great Briton: Queen Elizabeth II is dead. She should be known henceforth as the second Elizabeth the Great. Her greatness goes beyond her heritage, her longevity, and her titles. She was great in her duty, service, humility, stoicism, and self-control. She was great in her character and behavior. Her inheritance was wealthy but not easy. She did not necessarily inherit the throne. She could have renounced it, as had her uncle, Edward VIII, in 1936. She accepted the throne 15 years later, still mourning a father who had died too young and quickly, while she was visiting Kenya, in transit to the Antipodes.

She was four years into her marriage. She had two young children. She had just turned 25. Yet she had already accepted the responsibilities of head of state to millions of Britons and hundreds of millions of Commonwealth subjects. She was of an age that treated her age as mature. Look at the 25-year-olds around you today. Can you imagine them facing the responsibilities of imperial rule? Now imagine a 21-year-old today pledging, on camera—with God-fearing sincerity, as she did in 1947, “that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.” Princess Elizabeth returned from an empire in retreat to a nation in debt.

Yet her coronation accelerated a decade that was happy and glorious. Queen Elizabeth excelled in a role that became less forgiving and less rewarding. She remained constant while her nation declined and politicians failed. She reigned for 70 years and through the tenures of 15 prime ministers. Queen Elizabeth held her tongue through socialism, permissive society, terrorism (including plots against her directly and the murder of her third cousin, Lord Mountbatten), family breakdowns, entry into the European Economic Community, exit from the European Union, dishonest wars, uncontrolled immigration, transnationalism, antimajoritarianism, multiculturalism, wokeism, de-policing, COVID-19, lockdown, the administrative state’s growth and disengagement, Chinese imperialism, Russian aggression, energy insecurity, inflation, and the collapse of sterling. [-]

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DGH: Try to grasp the concept of a modern monarch. Not allowed to govern, they can’t start a war or levy a tax or make anyone wear a face mask or keep foreign invaders from moving in next door to your mother. They’re symbols of their nation, not impotent symbols, but traditional symbols, important to their subjects as a person everyone can support without political backbiting and habitual nastiness. Now, think Joe Biden for a moment, where there’s no similarity between a president and a monarch. And just who is the impotent one – no offense to Mrs. Biden regarding dementia-riven Joe. Just who’s the figurehead in America?

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Bruce Oliver Newsome: The queen had self-discipline and good genes. She was always going to live a long life. She achieved the longest reign ever. I expect her record never to be broken. She could have lived beyond 100 years, like her mother. The queen’s decline was foreshadowed by the death of her husband in April 2021, a couple of months shy of his 100th birthday. Much of Elizabeth’s greatness was made by Philip’s. Philip’s sense of duty complimented Elizabeth’s. To forego any suspicion that he would supplant a British monarch, he renounced his foreign titles (including Prince of Greece and Denmark) and accepted an unadmitted demotion (Duke of Edinburgh).

He was an inspiration. He refused to be bitter for being dumped in British schools by parents he hardly saw. He once responded to an interviewer’s probing with an emphatic “you just get on with it.” Teachers today would probably call him “repressed.” No, he was stoic. Philip was patriotic for his adopted land. He fought with the Royal Navy (against Germany, the nation that his sisters had adopted by marriage). He gave up a promising naval career when his wife was called to the throne. Philip dedicated his life to supporting the queen. Like her, he excelled in his chosen role.

She once publicly spoke of him as her “stay.” Yet Philip was no passive bag-man. He advised. He created. He was a patron. He institutionalized a ladder of outdoor challenges as the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme. This “Scheme” became a coming of age for myself and millions of other teenagers. Philip was self-reliant. He had expectations. He was outgoing and funny, yet proper. Like Elizabeth, I cannot think of Philip without thinking of the inferiorities of social norms today. From the 1980s, left-wingers misrepresented his traditional values and utterances as militaristic, sexist, and racist. Kings College London (one of my alma maters) apologized for the “harm” caused by publishing a portrait to mark his passing. [-]

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DGH: The Queen was a great holder of tradition, as yours truly – like many thousands of others – was very aware, especially-so in her ability to trace the origins of her family back to around AD 770 (and potentially earlier) with the birth of King Ecgbert of Wessex, Alfred the Great’s grandfather. Despite the Norman takeover, the Anglo-Saxon House of Wessex joined it during the reign of the Norman King Henry 1 when he married Matilda of Scotland, a descendant of the House of Wessex. Elizabeth, and now Charles, can claim both William the Conqueror and Ecgbert as royal ancestors.

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Bruce Oliver Newsome: Philip underlined his virtues beautifully in his own funeral, for which he had chosen the music, readings, and transportation (a Land Rover reconfigured as a bier), without mentioning himself once. On the day of Philip’s death, I wrote that he was “a great man of the greatest generation.” Elizabeth, too, was of the greatest generation. Elizabeth also contributed rather than rode for free. She was 13 when World War II began, 19 when it ended, and a veteran of the Blitz and the Army’s Auxiliary Territorial Service.

As a driver-mechanic, Elizabeth broke gender roles without denying her gender. Margaret Thatcher identified with the queen as a woman who could be strong without feminism. Liz Truss—whom the queen welcomed as prime minister three days before death—stressed the queen’s influence in her first reaction. I realized during the calamitous 2000s that once the queen dies, Great Britain dies—not Britain, but Great Britain. [end]

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DGH: There is a marked distinction between ruling and governing. Queen Elizabeth II understood what ruling means and didn’t confuse it with governing. She possessed dignity, class, intelligence, obvious patriotism, fairness and a love and respect for her subjects. The UK had someone we can all admire and the UK and the Commonwealth are the poorer for her passing – by all accounts she personified a life well lived. Still, there is an endless fascination with the Royal Family here in America – and given the head of cabbage supposedly occupying the White House, it isn’t hard to understand why.

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The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries. He shall drink of the brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up the head. ~ Psalm 110: 4-7

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Face of Jesus by Richard Hook

Soli Deo Gloria!

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