Monarchy

2022 - 9 - 9

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Image courtesy of "Worldcrunch"

How Elizabeth II Reconciled The Monarchy With Modernity (Worldcrunch)

The function Charles III inherits today is widely different from what it was when Elizabeth II was crowned 70 years ago. With the “new Elizabethan age” ...

The Queen’s death is bound to prompt Britain’s reflection on its past, its present and its future. The Queen was believed to have acted inappropriately, failing to respond to public grief and “represent her people”. By the time of Tony Blair’s “Cool Britannia” years at the turn of the new millennium, the Queen was an older woman. The Express, for example, published the headline “Show us you care: mourners call for the Queen to lead our grief”. The cartoon promptly instigated 600 letters of criticism for being in “bad taste”, and drew attention to contrasting political ideologies. The Queen succeeded to the throne during a period of radical political transformation. Like the rest of the world, the monarchy now has an account on most major UK social media platforms. These interviews really did expose the inner-workings of institution, and ruptured the visibility/invisibility balance. It gave us intimate glimpses of domestic scenes, such as family barbecues, and the Queen taking infant Prince Edward to a sweet shop. The colonial history of the Commonwealth is reproduced in the values of Brexit, and related nationalist projects which suffer from what Paul Gilroy calls “postcolonial melancholia”. [royal image has always been mediated](https://worldcrunch.com/blog/queen-turns-90-poses-with-her-favorite-subjects), from the monarch’s profile on coins, to portraiture. Television was a new technology at the time, and it was feared that televising the ceremony would be too intimate.

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Image courtesy of "Forbes"

Queen's Death Reignites Calls To Cut Ties With British Monarchy In ... (Forbes)

The ascension of Charles III to the British throne has triggered calls for cutting ties with the monarchy as commonwealth nations reflect on the legacy of ...

Some member states [questioned the decision](https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/commonwealths-royal-succession-stirs-unease-among-caribbean-members-2022-06-24/) that Charles should succeed his mother as the head of the organization following her death. [became](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-59470843) the most recent country to remove the British monarch as its head of state and become a Republic. This issue came to head earlier this year at a meeting of the heads of states of the Commonwealth of Nations—a geopolitical association made up of former British colonies and the U.K. [poll conducted](https://angusreid.org/canada-constitutional-monarchy-queen-elizabeth/) by the non-profit and non-partisan Angus Reid Institute in April this year. A ceremony marking the transition was attended by the then Prince Charles who addressed the “appalling atrocity of slavery” that the Caribbean island faced under British rule. [began the process](https://www.thenational.scot/news/20198822.jamaica-british-monarchy-ditched-2025-marlene-malahoo-forte-says/) of transitioning into a republic in June and is expected to remove the British monarch as its head of state sometime before its next general election in 2025.

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Image courtesy of "Rutgers Today"

After Queen Elizabeth's Death, Will the Monarchy Continue? (Rutgers Today)

The fact that Queen Elizabeth II died almost universally beloved and respected is one measure of her personal achievement, says historian Alastair Bellany.

One distinctive feature of the modern British monarchy is its appetite for ceremonial, its use of ancient and ancient-looking rituals and pageants as a primary means of communicating what monarchy means, and what it means to be British. It is interesting that among the Queen’s final public duties was to accept the resignation of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister and to ask Liz Truss to assume the job in his stead. But the task of creating a thoroughly modern monarchy remained a challenge, as the friction between the Royal Family and Harry and Meghan makes clear. At various points, Elizabeth allowed attempts to modernize the monarchy while still preserving the trappings of the past. Queen Elizabeth staged grand, ancient-looking, royal pageants but also allowed them to be broadcast on the new mass medium of TV. The monarchy has survived, but it has had to change, and it has lost some of the automatic deference it once inspired.

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Image courtesy of "The Conversation AU"

Queen Elizabeth II: a moderniser who steered the British monarchy ... (The Conversation AU)

Gossip and scandal surrounding the younger royals turned into divorces for Prince Andrew, Princess Anne and – most damagingly of all – Prince Charles. The Queen ...

The Christmas message adapted over the years to new technology, but it was unchanging in style and content, reflecting the monarchy as she shaped it. In 2014, her carefully worded appeal to Scots to think carefully about their vote in the Independence Referendum was widely – and clearly rightly – interpreted as an intervention on behalf of the Union. Even her closest family were not to be allowed to undermine all she had done to protect and preserve the monarchy. This not only reflected her work and engagements over the previous year, but it reaffirmed, with greater frankness and clarity than many of her ministers seemed able to summon, her deeply held Christian faith. The Queen could act to very positive effect in international relations, often providing the ceremonial and public affirmation of the work of her ministers. These were the result both of her years of experience and of her diligence in reading state papers. His close involvement with the convicted American paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, led to the unedifying spectacle of a senior member of the royal family being accused in an American court of underage sex; he made his own position immeasurably worse by agreeing to At his funeral, which was reduced in scale to meet the requirements of COVID regulations, the Queen cut an unusually lonely figure, small, masked and sitting alone. The extent to which she quickly regained public support was shown by the enormous, if unexpected, success of her 2002 Golden Jubilee, which was ushered in by the extraordinary sight of Brian May performing a guitar solo on the roof of Buckingham Palace. It was a remarkably intimate portrayal of her home life, showing her at breakfast, having a barbecue at Balmoral and popping down to the local shops. It was followed in 1981 by the enormous popularity of the wedding at St Paul’s Cathedral of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer. Elizabeth’s reign was a delayed result of the abdication crisis of 1936, the defining royal event of the 20th century.

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Image courtesy of "Economic Times"

Obit: Queen Elizabeth II transformed how people saw the monarchy ... (Economic Times)

Queen, a moderniser, steered the British monarchy into the 21st century.

It was a remarkably intimate portrayal of her home life, showing her at breakfast, having a barbecue at Balmoral and popping down to the local shops. FILE - Britain's Princess Elizabeth, a Junior Commander in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, receives a clock presented to her by her old associates at the camp where she received her early training, during a ceremony at the No. The Christmas message adapted over the years to new technology, but it was unchanging in style and content, reflecting the monarchy as she shaped it. Even her closest family were not to be allowed to undermine all she had done to protect and preserve the monarchy. The shock of the interview was followed quickly by the death of Prince Philip, her husband of 73 years, a few months short of his 100th birthday. In 2014, her carefully worded appeal to Scots to think carefully about their vote in the Independence Referendum was widely - and clearly rightly - interpreted as an intervention on behalf of the Union. The Queen could act to very positive effect in international relations, often providing the ceremonial and public affirmation of the work of her ministers. This hurt was compounded when the Sussexes accused the royal family, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey which was watched around the world, of treating them with cruelty, disdain and even racism. These were the result both of her years of experience and of her diligence in reading state papers. In 2020, as the COVID pandemic descended, the Queen, in sharp contrast to her prime minister, addressed the nation from lockdown at Windsor in a calm, well-judged message. The extent to which she quickly regained public support was shown by the enormous, if unexpected, success of her 2002 Golden Jubilee, which was ushered in by the extraordinary sight of Brian May performing a guitar solo on the roof of Buckingham Palace. It was followed in 1981 by the enormous popularity of the wedding at St Paul's Cathedral of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer.

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