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Queen Elizabeth 2

Arn

Arn

Well-known member
Looking very much like her reign is due to end imminently.

All her children and grandchildren have been summoned to Balmoral where she has been staying.

Her Drs have released a statement suggesting they are very "concerned" about her health.

The BBC has interrupted and suspended all normal programming on BBC1 and the presenters are now sporting black ties.

I suspect the announcement is imminent.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62836057
 
It's interesting watching the coverage. Obviously they're trying to balance the newsworthiness of the goings on with the human reality of this being a person with a family who's probably near the end of her life. Nobody can come right out and say what I think they're all dancing around(that we wouldn't be getting the statements we were getting if there was a real chance of recovery) and so we're sort of getting a lot of nothing while they wait for something they all seem to know is coming.
 
There's quite a strong theory going round that chances are the inevitable has already happened and they're just awaiting the arrival of all the family members for the announcement.

Not sure I buy into that one, but it is definitely as you say a sense of inevitability.

It's an interesting watch as we obviously haven't ever had this level of media coverage of such an event either.
 
not a fan of the Royal family per se, but I do have a lot of affection and respect for the Queen.  I suppose it's inevitable that she'll pass eventually but it'll be a sad day when it does happen.
 
Going to be very weird having a new head of the royal family. Will be the first change in many people's lifetimes.
 
Deebo said:
Im surprised at how sad this has made me.
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Maybe it's not quite the same but I do find it making me think of a lot of things in my own life and the connections to her. My grandfather, who's been gone for more than 20 years, used to always note she was born two weeks after him. My grandmother, who's been gone for 5, was of English stock and was fairly big on the monarchy, still held a grudge against her uncle for the abdication and so on.

This is a major generational change a clear severance from a lot of links to our past, even if you're not directly invested much in the monarchy.
 
Deebo said:
Im surprised at how sad this has made me.
Click to expand...

I think whether you?re in favour or against monarchies as heads of state, she was actually quite a strong, dignified woman who kind of managed to transcend that debate. The fact that she has been around for basically the full lives of everyone we all know also have it that sense of continuity.

It?s a historic moment to live through and experience too, especially as someone living in and very closely associated with the United Kingdom.
 
Nik said:
Deebo said:
Im surprised at how sad this has made me.
Click to expand...

Maybe it's not quite the same but I do find it making me think of a lot of things in my own life and the connections to her. My grandfather, who's been gone for more than 20 years, used to always note she was born two weeks after him. My grandmother, who's been gone for 5, was of English stock and was fairly big on the monarchy, still held a grudge against her uncle for the abdication and so on.

This is a major generational change a clear severance from a lot of links to our past, even if you're not directly invested much in the monarchy.
Click to expand...

I missed this writing my reply above, but yeah I think this is a lot of it too. She served in world war 2. The British Empire and British power and influence was still a thing when she took the throne but has waned over the course of her reign.

She presided over the Commonwealth which was a thing she kind of drove as a bit of a replacement of the Empire.

I can see a lot of that stuff really fully and more rapidly disappearing and passing into the history books with her passing.

It?s a literal end of an era and the start of a potentially less stable era.
 
Arn said:
I missed this writing my reply above, but yeah I think this is a lot of it too. She served in world war 2. The British Empire and British power and influence was still a thing when she took the throne but has waned over the course of her reign.

She presided over the Commonwealth which was a thing she kind of drove as a bit of a replacement of the Empire.

I can see a lot of that stuff really fully and more rapidly disappearing and passing into the history books with her passing.

It?s a literal end of an era and the start of a potentially less stable era.
Click to expand...

Even just directly, given the age breakdown in the vote in the Scotland's independence referendum you wonder how many older voters voted to stay because of a sort of nostalgia for the Empire days that she represented. You wonder if Charles, being substantially less popular, might have even the opposite effect. Obviously the NI situation is different but there too if a border poll does come up.
 
Arn said:
It?s a historic moment to live through and experience too, especially as someone living in and very closely associated with the United Kingdom.
Click to expand...

Though I never lived in the UK, I am an overeseas citizen by way of my dad living there for 13 years. My mom ended up there as a refugee in 1972. We had lots of family there so I have been there 8 times now I think.
 
Deebo said:
Im surprised at how sad this has made me.
Click to expand...

I feel the same. I guess it has to do with someone being around since the day your were born and suddenly being gone, leaving a void, whether you knew them personally or not.

You also have to respect someone who took on that much responsibility at such a young age and did it for 70 years. I wouldn't want it.

Plus, for Canadians, she's been on our money all of our lives. How weird would it be to suddenly have Charles' face on all of our coins?

Sad day.
 
Arn said:
She presided over the Commonwealth which was a thing she kind of drove as a bit of a replacement of the Empire.
Click to expand...

Just putting a nice ?civilized? fa?ade over centuries of colonial atrocities, plundering, and reshaping history into the WASP image.
 
herman said:
Just putting a nice ?civilized? fa?ade over centuries of colonial atrocities, plundering, and reshaping history into the WASP image.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I do think that's a good thing to keep in mind. As much as the natural inclination is to be respectful towards her as a person, a lot of the coverage attempted to do that by talking about the institution she served and what it represented and looking favourably on either of those things requires some pretty heavily rose tinted glasses. The nostalgia for the era she was a link to is at best a complicated thing and I don't think it's at all unreasonable for people on the wrong end of Empire to feel very differently. There's really no denying that even at its most benign the Monarchy is a relic of a class system that's not just anachronistic but actively malicious at a time when the story the Queen's death is bumping off the papers is about how the poorest people in the country where she owned multiple castles in might have to choose between food and heating this winter.

I get people don't want this to be "political" but there's really no avoiding it if you're talking in glowing terms about empire or Churchill or the idea of someone being chosen by god to rule over others.
 
Yup that?s fair. I think that the commonwealth was probably an effort to ?modernise? and make it more of an even relationship? But obviously yes its roots are what they are.

I think we?ll see a lot of those nations now move away from that (a lot of them specifically have Queen Elizabeth as their head of state and would require constitutional or legislative change to convert that to King Charles, so why not just? convert it to nobody when you?re making the legislative change?)

I think there is an element of the fact that the Queen as a person managed to transcend the idea of being a monarch that Nik touched on in terms of the impact she individually had on issues relating to Scotland and Ireland that also extend to many of the Commonwealth nations. I can see that particular group shrink rapidly now.

British identity is a bit of a strange one and a lot of it is definitely still tied up in the power of having an empire and I think a lot of British people see QE2 passing as the end of that and a step down in Britain?s global standing on top of being sad at her death.

Edit: I?ve just read this which covers it much better than I?ve tried to above.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/09/how-the-queen-was-the-beating-heart-of-the-commonwealth
 
I think this from Bruce Arthur gets it mostly right:

The British Empire cast long, dark shadows, but the monarchy allowed Brits to feel like they were still connected to a glorious past, and what for England was less grubby days. Now the nation is a perpetual parody of upper-class rot, all Brexit and Bojo, a careless pandemic and idiot PMs. As Sam Knight once wrote in The Guardian of the plans for the Queen?s death, ?It will be 10 days of sorrow and spectacle in which, rather like the dazzling mirror of the monarchy itself, we will revel in who we were and avoid the question of what we have become.?

It all felt like watching the end of the empire, and everyone affected is allowed to mourn or celebrate accordingly. She was admirable even if the institution wasn?t, and that?s better than most places, these days.
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https://www.thestar.com/news/world/opinion/2022/09/09/queen-elizabeths-death-feels-like-the-final-moment-in-the-end-of-the-british-empire.html
 
That seems well stated.

I honestly feel nothing about her passing. She was a very elderly person who lead a life of fairy tales and died peacefully of old age. No tragedy, no personal connection.

Despite any feelings about the monarchy as a whole, I can say for certain that I feel any tie of Canada to the crown is absurd. I also think King Charles is an absolute buffoon and think Canada should ditch them as soon as possible.
 
If there is a hell, I hope she burns in hell with the rest of her kind and a pox on any and all who show her and the instituition she presided over anything other than disgust.
 
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