70 years. That’s a long haul. No doubt she was no stranger to long halls. The castles she has haunted are full of them. Now she will haunt them all. Not so much on her feet as from her heart. Not that she was heartless in life. Now it is all that is left of her. She was Royal. All Royals also know all too well just how to Roil. I wonder about her and how she got on, and what she got up to, when she was in the mood to Roil around. Stir things up. Disturb the well settled sediment beneath her feet. I imagine she could unravel the nerves of any Night of the Round Table with one silent stare. Roil in “deed and name.” She was inimitable.
When I saw old news reel footage of her wedding, I felt for her. She was 25 when she was coronated. No matter her pedigree surely that is too soon for any mere mortal to be elevated to such precarious heights. I would think it might encourage in a young soul to kick up some dust. To make a fuss. What does a beautiful young woman like her sacrifice for the fate of a nation? So, I wondered about her on her wedding night. Was it really hers. Of her own desire and choosing? From what I could glean from that short glance in the film footage, he did not seem particularly well suited to her. So, I wept for her. Perhaps I am wrong, but it roiled me.
I bet she was a card. Aren’t all Queens? Perhaps more so in private than in public. But a card none the less. Even cloaked in the vail of dry British humor. I quite imagine she could Trump any one she pleased. Oh, to be “a fly on the wall” in that chamber.
And what now of her children. Or are they just Heirs? A new king. The queen is dead long live the King. What a peculiar perpetual motion machine. They’ve been stuck spinning that hamster wheel for centuries. Though of course of late there have been the infamous cracks in the realm and precipitous departures. That sure roiled up some ire!
I was disgusted when I heard the reporter find it necessary to actually say out loud,
“ … whose wife is half Black.”
What an ass hole. Just couldn’t resist the cheap shot. The needling petty preoccupation with disruption of anything sacrosanct, simple because it was not his.
I would have left that Country, that Kingdom and prison too. More power to them. Welcome to California! Let’s do lunch. Vegan of course.
I wonder if Elizabeth’s husband called her Betty? Or for that matter what his pet name for her was. Did he call out to her in the candlelight, “Come here my little toot-toot-Tudor…” Ya’ know because she might have been prone to Queenly Queefing.
I truly hope they had a ridiculously happy life. She certainly had a long one. I thought she was 102. I was wrong, but close enough.
When she took that 40-minute-long horseback ride with President Bush It would have been nice if they had been able to take along a picnic basket and find a quite stream to sit beside and just listen to the water ripple while the birds flutter and chirp. Nibbling on water crest sandwiches and sipping mead. It would have done them both a world of good. And the rest of us too, I’m sure.
I’m sorry she had to live through the embarrassment of “Boris” but at least she was rewarded with living long enough to see his dismissal. And oh, how wonderful she decided to choose a Woman to replace him. Nice move “Betty”
My partner came home from teaching last night. She was the one who told me. So we watch some coverage on the tube. I don’t know much about the situation in England. Sadly, I probably know more about the Royal linage from watching Netflix. Aint that America. And I smugly consider myself a well-rounded over educated man. Just goes to show. I know bub-kiss. Maybe that’s why the historic review in the news footage of her actual life spoke to me. It wasn’t a show. Or was it? That’s always the question. What is real and what is perfunctory. God only knows she was committed to playing her role. That’s enough to roil up anyone.
And I imagine a soft dissolve into a long hallway scene. A little girl running and laughing, twilling her layered skirts round and round, humming and singing. Then sticking her little tongue out at the frigid portraits of her long dead assertors hanging on the cold walls of the castle halls. Her name bouncing of the stone, a distant echo of someone calling after her … Elizabeth, Elizabeth… Come back now, you hear… Elizabeth, come back. Her name, the echo, growing faint. She too dissolves. Come back Elizabeth … but no more. Now. Now she is a Ghost.