Opinion: Public sympathy is with the Queen. But the British monarchy may need more than... - 0 views
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I remembered that fan as I watched mourners arrive at Buckingham Palace to lay flowers for Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II, whose death was announced Friday. My thoughts were also with the new widow whose quiet sorrow already dominated global news. The grief that attaches to public figures is no less real for distance. Public lives provide markers and milestones for others, and few more so than the Queen and her consort, who have spent more than seven decades in the public eye.
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The Queen has always modeled one response to this situation -- seen, but rarely heard, her feelings and opinions jealously guarded. Shortly she is to face TV cameras to talk about the worst thing that has ever happened to her. There is a poignancy to this most reserved of women being forced to grieve in public. There might also be, in sharply polarized responses to the unfurling pageantry, an intimation of mortality for the constitutional monarchy she has headed for 69 years.
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The monarchy is the ultimate exclusive club, the sovereign born to reign over subjects, not citizens, hardly the most obvious of qualifications for performing the key role of a head of state: to unify. The Queen has nevertheless largely succeeded in this function, popular and, in decade after decade and poll after poll, trusted, rarely faltering but for a few famous missteps, her delays in leading public mourning for the dead after a mining disaster in Aberfan, Wales and, later, for her daughter-in-law Diana.
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