AT PENPOINT
The death of Queen Elizabeth II marks the end of an era, just as that of Queen Victoria in 1901 of her ancestress Victoria marked that of another. She had many affinities to Victoria, one of them being that she was the only British monarch to reign longer. Whereas Victoria reigned for 64 years, Elizabeth reigned for 70. She came close to breaking the record set by Louis XIV of France of 72 years, for the longest reign in history. That record, by the way, was set because Louis succeeded at the age of five, and died at 77. Elizabeth was 96 when she died.
It is perhaps a coincidence that both Queens began the reigns under Prime Ministers who were old men; Victoria’s first PM was Lord Melbourne, who was 58. The Queen was only 18, and Lord Melbourne only left office in 1841, after she got married, in 1840. Elizabeth’s first PM was Sir Winston Churchill, then 78, who remained in office long enough to oversee her coronation.
Victoria became Queen only because her uncles (seven of them) could not produce an heir between them. Even her father, the Duke of Kent, had married a German aristocrat late, and then died after fathering her, leaving her as the heir to her uncle, William IV. She lived to 80, and managed to define an age.
Elizabeth cannot really be said to define an age. It is unlikely that the world will talk of the Elizabethan Age. First of all, the Elizabethan Age is associated with Elizabeth I, when Britain, not yet UK, began the foundations of an Empire.
That Empire reached its full glory under Victoria. The celebration of her Diamond Jubilee, in 1897, was actually a celebration of the Empire. And perhaps the best symbol, remembered even today, was the culmination of that celebration, the great naval review of Spithead, at which the naval might of the Empire was on display. There were two lines of ships seven miles long, formed by 170 ships, including 50 battleships. After all, a huge navy was needed to cover an empire including about a quarter of the world’s surface. In contrast, Elizabeth’s 2002 Golden Jubilee Fleet Review was cancelled because of the cost, and there was no talk of reviews after that.
Elizabeth cannot really be said to define an age. It is unlikely that the world will talk of the Elizabethan Age. First of all, the Elizabethan Age is associated with Elizabeth I, when Britain, not yet UK, began the foundations of an Empire.
However, perhaps the apogee of her reign was not the Fleet Review, but her being given the title Empress of India in 1877, 19 years after the end of the Mutiny, the abolition of the East India Company, and the assumption of India by the British Government.
Actually, it was hardly revolutionary. The Company had been separate for a long time, but once it was used to underwrite the British national debt, a process which meant that the looting of India would benefit the British government, the foundation was laid for the creation of the Board for India, whose President not only was appointed by the government, but had a seat in the Cabinet. The abolition of the Company merely meant the President was redesignated the Secretary of State for India.
Elizabeth II did not see the end of the Empire; her father did, for George VI proved to be the last Emperor of India, when it became independent in 1947. That year was memorable for Elizabeth for another reason: she got married in July, while India became independent in August. When her father died in January 1952, she became Queen of Pakistan, a title she retained until 1956, when it became a Republic.
Elizabeth learned of her father’s death in Kenya, and it was Africa that proved to be the focus of the earlier part of her reign, as Britain carried out the decolonization exercise of the 1950s and 1960s. This was not any sort of recognition of the need to end the empire, or any sort of acknowledgement of the evils of colonialism, but a realization that the UK could simply not hold on. The exhaustion caused by World War II was a major reason. The rise of the USA was also instrumental, as ir allowed the UK to make way for its reduced role.
The USA’s main opponent in these newly independent states was the USSR, and the UK was reduced from the metropolitan power to the sidekick of one of the two main competitors for dominance in the world. The USSR has given way to China, but the USA remains, and the UK remains its sidekick.
Even though it has been loyal in both the Cold War and the War on Terror, iit has not got much of a reward. At the end of the decolonization process, the Empire was reduced to a Commonwealth. That had little value, as it did not stop the former British colonies looking increasingly away from the UK, and towards the USA.
Elizabeth saw the UK enter the EU, and then leave it. However, during this attempt at becoming a European power, symbolized by the construction of the Channel Tunnel, which connected the UK, all along alone is its island security, to Europe by a land route. For all this, Elizabeth remained a symbol of the country’s colonial past. Not only was she head of the
Commonwealth,, she was the Queen of 15 of its 56 members, with them all now reconsidering whether to retain Charles as monarch.
Apart from various Caribbean and Pacific islands, there are such states as Canada and Australia. There is even a small republican movement in the UK, though no one is proposing the fate of the first Charles ( beheading) for the present King.
There is a view, held in those republican circles, that the Queen was head of the ‘establishment’, a loosely defined group which ruled England, ruled the world when the UK had an Empire, and now ruled the UK again. She had inherited a dissolving Empire, and her son has succeeded to much less than she did, when he became heir apparent.
King Farooq of Egypt, that country’s last King was overthrown by the Free Officers (of the Army) led by General Naguib and Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1952. He went into exile in Europe, mostly Italy. He was something of a comic-opera figure, being immensely fat and also very tall, dressed always in suits surmounted by a Turkish fez, as a tribute to his Egyptian origin. While in exile, he said, “All kings will be thrown off their thrones. In the end there will be only five kings left; the King of England, and the four kings in the deck of cards.”
It should not be forgotten that Egypt had been under British and French rule for a lengthy period which included the early years of his reign. He had also seen the proliferation of Arab kings after his father Fuad I had declared himself King in 1920, when the break-up of the Ottoman Empire had led to Kings being declared in Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Also, it was at that time that Egypt declared itself independent.
When Farouk made his statement, England had just got a queen. It has been 70 years before it has got a king. Indeed it seems that the King of England has no more power than the kings in a deck of cards. Charles has waited all his life to inherit a position of pomp, but no power.
