The “great imperial family”, which she also promised to serve on that occasion, has long gone, transmogrified into the Commonwealth, and Britain has changed enormously – but throughout it all, the Queen has been there.
As Tommy Lascelles, George VI’s private secretary and the man who actually drafted that speech, observed, she “never spares herself in that exhausting part of royal duty”, and she still doesn’t, decades beyond most people’s retirement age. She is vastly popular, with approval ratings as high as in 1952, a level that most politicians and members of other institutions can only dream about. Even committed republicans hesitate before suggesting she step down.
But should she? How long Elizabeth II can keep going is the unspoken
As Tommy Lascelles, George VI’s private secretary and the man who actually drafted that speech, observed, she “never spares herself in that exhausting part of royal duty”, and she still doesn’t, decades beyond most people’s retirement age. She is vastly popular, with approval ratings as high as in 1952, a level that most politicians and members of other institutions can only dream about. Even committed republicans hesitate before suggesting she step down.
But should she? How long Elizabeth II can keep going is the unspoken