Opinion/Stead: Queen Elizabeth II was a single unifying governmental figure

Years ago, Dorothy Sayers’ sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey, was watching the funeral procession of George VI with a visitor from France. The visitor shook his head and said, “You are a very remarkable nation. You permit a casual crowd to arrange itself with the help of a few unarmed policemen. Then you take your new king and all the male heirs to the throne, throw in the crown of England for good measure, collect them into a bunch you could cover with a handkerchief and walk them slowly for two miles through the open streets of the capital. Who is to say I had not a Bolshevist fury in my heart or a Mills bomb in my pocket?"

"This is just a village funeral," said Peter. "Nobody would dream of making a disturbance. It is not done. When it comes to a public ceremony, precautions will be taken. But not when we are private."

We saw the truth of this last week upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II. She was a remarkable personality who managed the world stage with a subdued manner and a wicked sense of humor. We have all been reminded of the story of the address she gave in a quavery voice as a girl in her twenties, “I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service …”  

She could not have known at the time that she was pledging herself to a shift of duty that would last for 70 years. Her nation joined the European Union, and left it. It went from being an important industrial nation to a rockier society in the 21st century. The empire she inherited became a more loose Commonwealth. When her husband died, she sat alone in the vast cathedral where her own funeral would be held, wearing a mask due to the COVID epidemic to show that there were no exceptions in an emergency.

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In watching the ceremonies this past week, the reciprocated devotion of her subjects — if such a word has meaning in times when a sovereign cannot order a beheading for annoying them — was awe-inspiring. For three long miles afoot, the parade continued. The crowds were literally hundreds deep, yet there was a quiet broken only by gentle applause — if even that much noise. They threw flowers at the passing hearse, improvised from the queen’s designs from a Jaguar Range Rover, in the royal claret color, and the blossoms clung to the top as the cortege moved slowly forward.

Crowds stood quietly, with nobody crashing the gates or climbing a tree for a better view. The closest to pushing and shoving there was were people who hoisted children onto their shoulders, often holding cellphones, to record the procession as it went by.

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Can you imagine any event in the U.S. where hundreds or thousands of people congregate without a single sign, or counter-protest, or opportunism to promote their own particular cause or idea?  The closest I saw was a gentleman with a T-shirt saying "Birmingham – 2020" but all of Britain seems to appreciate a soccer fan.

We have nothing like it. It isn’t a matter of inborn national gentility — anyone who has watches Question Time with the prime minister being roasted by the opposing politicians and some of his or her own will quickly have that myth of politesse dismissed. It is, rather, the idea that there is a single unifying governmental figure that continues beyond politics, beyond issues, beyond spite, beyond victory.

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We are a free people, free to oppose, to question, to strum and drang. But it can be tiring to never have a consensus or a universally accepted figure like the queen to respect and to be calm and carry on.  She was the institutional memory of her society, from working on jeeps during World War II to having her platinum Jubilee portrait painted by an artificial intelligence robot artist, Ai-Da, whose carburetor she still might have given a check. Having a central respected and unifying figure is not what we chose as a nation, but the comforts of it cannot be denied.

The rainbows that appeared over Buckingham Palace as the national mourning began was the kind of fairytale detail that every princess should have, even when she was the queen. There was a little bit of halting as voices sang "God Save the … King." But we’ll muddle through just as we always do. Rest in peace, and thank you.

Cynthia Stead is a columnist for the Cape Cod Times and can be contacted at cestead@gmail.com. 

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Queen Elizabeth II was a respected and unifying governmental leader