I am in a state of shock. I woke up on the morning of Thursday, 8 September 2022. It was like any other day, until the news which came a little after midday of Her Majesty’s illness. Then the senior members of the Royal Family assembled at Balmoral, the family’s Scottish estate, before the announcement came at 6:30pm, of Our Sovereign Lady’s death. My emotions ranged in a few hours from fervent hope and prayer she would recover, to moist-eyed distress at her death, and now, to just, well, empty numbness. 

Elizabeth’s departure, though not unanticipated at her age of 96, still came as a jolt. However, the well-oiled and rehearsed machinery of state, the military and the BBC has effortlessly started the processes which will result in a state funeral, and — a long way off — a coronation. It is a time when the nation should be grateful that it has a state broadcaster, in the form of the BBC, able to commentate with gravitas and deep knowledge. Operation London Bridge, the main plan for the Queen’s passing (similar preparations for her mother were known as Operation Tay Bridge), will run in parallel with Operation Unicorn, the arrangements for her death in Scotland. It will be a massive logistical exercise with precise choreography to organise, but one where the nation’s military and police forces will rise to the challenge with flair, reverence and skill. These will be followed by Operation Spring Tide — the coronation of King Charles III — which will be several months distant, probably next spring, as the title betrays.

The national outpouring of grief evident on social media and television can be most likened to that in France, on the death of their uncrowned king, Charles de Gaulle, in November 1970, or the passing of America’s 32nd President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in power for over 12 years when he died in April 1945. The pair had dominated the political landscape of an entire generation, successfully steering their nations through turbulent times and both died unexpectedly. In these countries, where flags are at half-mast out of respect, and generous words of sympathy have been forwarded to Charles III, there have been spontaneous gestures. On hearing the news, the clientele of a Parisian restaurant rose as one, for a minute’s silence. Toasts were reportedly drunk in the late monarch’s honour in many an establishment across the United States. Public buildings throughout Europe have been floodlit with the Union Jack. 

In Canada, Justin Trudeau announced, “In a complicated world, her steady grace and resolve brought comfort and strength to us all. Canada is in mourning. She was one of my favourite people in the world. I will miss her so”. Your humble scribe is writing this in the midday heat of Croatia. Here, my friends are likening the sense of national loss to that which accompanied the departure of President Tito of Yugoslavia in 1980. My own mind is cast back to the first memory I have, that of the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill on a freezing Monday in January 1965. These are reminders that heads of state may come and go, but only a few cast lasting ripples, not just from their longevity in office, but from their sense of duty, decency and international humanity, values epitomised by Queen Elizabeth II.

She was (past tense, can’t get used to it) the only monarch I have ever known. Her Majesty was the figurehead of every institution through my life, from School, Sandhurst, military service, and latterly as a lecturer in military academies. My disbelief that she is no longer with us will be echoed by hundreds of millions around the globe, for “HM” was the head of state of fourteen other realms besides the United Kingdom, including Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, St Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. She possessed delightfully archaic titles such as the Duke of Lancaster, and also of Normandy (for the benefit of the British Channel Islanders) and others besides, as well as being titular head or patron of numerous regiments, organisations and charities.

In return, the Queen acted as a sort of confessor

The job of being monarch may sound glamorous, with a public purse to dip into, and cocooned as she was with staff, large houses and estates (Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Sandringham and Balmoral). Then there are the endless receptions, garden parties, parades, unveilings and openings to attend, speeches to be given, fine wines to be drunk and banquets consumed. Failure to sparkle in small talk, evoke empathy or stir the imagination is not an option. I met Her Majesty on several occasions, and the first thing that struck one, was how incredibly well-briefed she was. Whether it was a school, charity or regiment, she knew their history, what they had been doing, who its key individuals were. This was the result, not only of an assiduous staff, but immense and hard personal study. There was no sense of aloofness or entitlement. She understood people and understood what they did. 

The job description of a latter-day British monarch, with an appointments diary stretching two years into the future, three to five functions to undertake every day, including dinners, the mastery of a foreign language (she spoke fluent French), greeting each new ambassador and high commissioner of the 190 accredited to the Court of St. James, investitures for honours and awards, the daily examination of government papers and weekly meetings with her prime ministers, would challenge most mortals. Harold Macmillan wrote of his astonishment “at Her Majesty’s grasp of all the details sent in messages and telegrams”. In return, the Queen acted as a sort of confessor: “They unburden themselves to me or tell me what is going on. One is a sort of sponge.”

There was all the exhaustive national and international travel, performed with dignity, grace and personal knowledge of the recipients, their countries or organisations. Her encyclopaedic knowledge of traditions, of the endless array of badges and colours sported on blazers, ties and headgear, and adoption of hobbies as varied as horseracing, pigeon-fancying, livestock breeding and stamp collecting (one of the most comprehensive in the world and managed by a staff of six) are evidence of the most retentive of memories and enquiring of minds. I once visited Balmoral and sauntered down to Ballater, the nearest village, to meet a friend in the local hotel. The landlord and most of the staff were former royal servants. Most of the shops bore the “By Royal Appointment” sign. They all described the feeling of working for the royals as being part of a “happy family”. The Windsors treat their people well, with respect and affection. By extension, the Queen looked after her nation in similar fashion.

I can attest that she also remembered names and faces when she had no cause to do so and was incredibly aware of how overwhelming her presence could be. Her Majesty didn’t like to be crowded or touched (there were strict instructions about “personal space”), but she was very good at reaching out to others. There was an instinctive ability to put those on the receiving end at ease, somehow removing her celebrity status, and converse as one human being to another. This was also a trick of her husband’s, the late Duke of Edinburgh, although his methodology was different. His legendary gaffs and jokes were his way of putting those around him at ease, and it worked every time.

This empathy is a skill that few heads of state, be they monarchs (there are a mere twenty-six left in the world), presidents, chancellors or prime ministers possess. It was born of her parents visiting the blitzed cities of their kingdom during the Second World War. The British historian Alexandra Churchill in her recent book, In the Eye of the Storm, King George V and the Great War has shown that it was actually the Queen’s grandfather, George V and his consort, Queen Mary, who initiated the process of accessibility and visibility to their people during the 1914-18 war. They were assiduous visitors to those caught up in the conflict on the home front, pioneering the then unknown concept of public relations, establishing the House of Windsor in 1917 and creating a blueprint for the modern monarchy that is still followed today. 

Churchill also calculated that the Sovereign took less time off than an ordinary private soldier during 1914-18, and asserts it was George V who established the whole ritual of post-conflict remembrance. “He played a key role in the introduction of the two minute silence and the unveiling of the cenotaph, was chief mourner at the burial of the unknown soldier and became the first war tourist when he visited the Western Front. Modern battlefield pilgrims walk in his footsteps.” Such was the legacy Elizabeth inherited from her grandparents, which plays out each year on Remembrance Sunday.

In recent years, it was often discussed whether Queen Elizabeth should retire from her role, and abdicate in favour of her eldest son, Charles. This was impossible for two reasons. Her deep Christian faith, inherited from her father, meant that she believed she had been put on earth to lead her nation through good times and ill, and that this was an irrevocable pact made with the Almighty. “I find that one of the sad things is that people don’t take on jobs for life, they try different things the whole time”, she said in the 1980s, underlining her belief in her sacred calling.

The second reason was that the word “abdication” meant only one thing to her: the betrayal of the country by her uncle, Edward VIII, who in December 1936 chose his love of Wallis Simpson over his duty to Britain and her Empire. The abdication crisis of that year, which saw her father assume the throne, nearly broke the monarchy and by the late 1930s, many had lost faith in its relevance. The institution was rescued by her father, who reprised the example of George V, leading his nation in the 1939-45 war and re-inventing the role of the Crown. A Labour MP at the time wrote that “the abdication crisis of 1936 did more for republicanism than fifty years of propaganda”. Later, George VI wrote to his brother Edward that in the aftermath of the abdication he had reluctantly assumed “a rocking throne and tried to make it steady again”. However, this endangered the fragile health of the wartime king, and he died in February 1952, aged only 56. To George’s spouse, Elizabeth, and their daughter, the future Queen, the cause had been Edward VIII’s playboy lifestyle, lack of devotion to duty and weakness for women.

Thus, Queen Elizabeth’s punishing work ethic. When there is disaster, catastrophe or accident, the royals are early on the scene, offering comfort to the bereaved, the rescued and the rescuers. I am old enough to remember the Aberfan disaster of October 1966, when coal slurry engulfed a South Welsh mining village, killing 144, most of them children in the local school. Despite the magnitude of the calamity, it took the Queen eight days after the disaster to survey the damage and speak with survivors. The criticism of her tardiness was a lesson she never forgot. Nearly four decades later, in 2002, the Queen said that not visiting Aberfan immediately after the disaster was “her biggest regret”.

It is a reminder that the modus operandi of “The Firm” (as the Royal Family call themselves) is constantly evolving. Another step in this process was the death of her divorced daughter-in-law, Diana, Princess of Wales in August 1997. The Queen was on holiday at Balmoral, where she would die in 2022. She kept Diana’s two sons, Princes William and Harry (now the Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex), with her and away from the intense media interest so they could grieve in private. However, the royal family’s silence and seclusion caused public anger. Alive to the national mood, the monarch returned to London and addressed the nation in a live broadcast on 5 September, expressing admiration for Diana and her feelings for the two young princes. Fully aware that indifference to public opinion had brought down both Louis XVI in 1791 and her distant relative, the Tsar, in 1917, with quick learning, good advice and a willingness to adapt, Elizabeth again modernised the concept of royalty, and much of the public hostility evaporated.

Elizabeth had inherited a crumbling Empire on her coronation

Throughout her reign, Elizabeth gradually dispensed with the dressing-up box of history, so beloved of Victoria and Edward VII. Old titles and ornate dress uniforms, mostly invented in the 19th century and heavy with braid, spurs, swords and feathers, adorned with what could only be described as eccentric headgear, were gradually dispensed with, as was the idea of the Court, and the notion of debutantes (society girls) being “presented”. Indeed, she ordered that the royal family itself be shrunk in size. Some vestiges of the old order will remain. As a legal mate of mine observed, “I am just changing my letterheads and e-mail addresses from QC (Queen’s Counsel) to KC (King’s Counsel). It’s a tiny thing, but a reminder that the tectonic plates of state are changing.” The postage stamps bearing Her Majesty’s likeness, coins and banknotes, will gradually need to be replaced. Future passports will read “His Britannic Majesty requests and requires”. “On Her Majesty’s Service” government stationery will change, as will — presumably — all the crowns on crests, badges and buttons. The Elizabethan crown which featured on all these devices was unique to the Queen. That of the new King will be different. The brand of Britain has changed.

Elizabeth had inherited a crumbling Empire on her coronation of 6 February 1952 and oversaw its evolution into the 56-member Commonwealth of Nations. Although recognising the former British Empire states as free and equal, it has no formal legal ties. Rather, the bonds are those of history, culture, sport, the English language and shared values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. The Commonwealth was her own personal project, and it was entirely due to Elizabeth’s tireless commitment that fourteen member states retained her as head of state, whilst thirty-six other members are republics, and the remaining five have different monarchs. Her willingness to undertake tours of the Commonwealth and hundreds of state visits to other countries, promoting wider British interests, have done more to keep the United Kingdom in the world’s eye, than many of her politicians would like to admit. The Queen did not “do” politics, domestic or international, but brought subtle influence to bear, with a charm that rarely failed.

She had two key advisors. The first, on whom she leant heavily for daily guidance, was her father’s spouse, titled Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. She was a Scottish aristocrat, possessed of much common sense, who lost a brother in the Great War, and whose home, Glamis Castle, had been turned into a military hospital, which Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon helped to run. On the Queen Mum’s death, aged 101 in 2002, the Queen was left with her own spouse, Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, whom she married in 1947, as her principal confidant. Philip Mountbatten, a foreign-born prince of Greece and Denmark, also came to the royal family as an outsider, and possessed the same common sense of his mother-in-law, in the way he advised Elizabeth throughout their strong, 73-year marriage. 

In retrospect, Philip’s own death in April 2021 dislodged the last pillar on whom Her Majesty could rely for objective and impersonal advice, and it is no surprise that she followed him seventeen months later. Elizabeth Windsor brought the British monarchy from the 19th century, well-remembered by her first prime minister, Winston Churchill, born in 1874, firmly into the 21st. She just managed to appoint her fifteenth prime minister, Liz Truss, born only in 1975. During seventy years, spanning fourteen US presidents, and twelve French ones, Her Majesty oversaw an institution that altered radically, but almost imperceptibly year by year. All was driven by the force of her strong character. Now that concentrated essence of Britishness has gone. An era that was slowly changing has just ended. 

The Queen embraced the new — from TV-broadcasting to “Cool Britannia”, even indulging in television skits. Who could forget her partnership with Daniel Craig, playing the James Bond 007 figure, leaping out of a helicopter to open the 2012 Olympics in London? Or, more recently, starring with an animated Paddington Bear for tea at Windsor Castle in a sketch for her 2022 Platinum Jubilee. In it, Paddington concluded, “Thank you, Ma’am, for everything”. A sentiment we might all echo today.