When an inexperienced young woman was abruptly thrust on to the throne in 1952 – “only a child” fretted a tearful Winston Churchill – Britain was still scarred by an impoverishing world war and struggling to come to terms with its diminishing status on the planet. Churchill, the first of her prime ministers, performed an artful piece of oratorical manipulation when the aged titan spun the ascension of a 25-year-old Queen as the beginning of a “new Elizabethan age”. Her 15th prime minister, who was sworn in at Balmoral by a visibly ailing monarch just two days before her death, tried to do something similar. Liz Truss’s tribute included the declaration that the Queen was “the rock on which modern Britain was built”.
Rock she was, perhaps even to a fault, but how robust is the kingdom inherited by Charles III and how modern? There are fears lurking within the establishment that, deprived of the cohesive glue that his mother provided, our country could fly apart. The closure of a reign of unprecedented duration sees Britain once again uncertain of its place in the world and menaced by gathering storms. This invites reflection on both the record of the Queen and the performance of the country over which she reigned for 70 years.
