Headley Thorne — Elizabeth, Paddington Bear, and a Corgis (on the model of Phiz’s drawing of Mr Micawber in David Copperfield)
Dear Friends and readers,
I feel this blog should observe the passing of Queen Elizabeth. I’ve spent my life as a student and teacher and writing upon British literature. and Elizabeth Windsor stood for a group of values and norms imbricated across British art, books, music, craft. John Major, a high member of the board of the present Trollope Society issued an eloquent statement about her death, which I link in here: she devoted herself to the service of our nation and its well-being.
If I may, in simpler language, I’d put it Elizabeth II was an embodiment of duty. She obeyed and expressed moral norms, e.g., her speeches on the commonwealth were all for respect and equality (even if what was done was far from that). She can be taken to symbolize an era, including especially the time of World War Two, but she was also a modernizer. The coronation on TV started a tradition of TV and radio & other “ordinary person” appearances. She kept up a fairly busy schedule of public duties enabling worthy causes, and she did meet with PMs perhaps with more effect when she was younger (though what her political views were exactly on any particular issue I know not).
I find tears coming to my eyes when I see and listen to some of what is being said about her, or old tapes and photos. Among my first memories of a larger world was watching TV when I was about 7 and seeing on the TV the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. So she’s wrapped up in my life story. A friend, Diana Birchalls, another lover of Jane Austen tells me she too remembers as a very early memory watching the coronation on TV. She was a central media figure across many many countries and touched the lives of all those who participate in public life (as we all do, will we nill we) at some point.
I watched and very much enjoyed the Netflix series, The Crown, twice through, writing blogs faithfully On Seasons 1 & 2, Elizabeth and Philip, 1947-1955, and then Seasons 3 (1964-74) & 4 (1975-90), The Price of the Crown (1) and A Story of Charles and Diana (2).
While I preferred Claire Foy as Elizabeth to Olivia Coleman, now that over the last two days I’ve been seeing all sorts of photos of Elizabeth herself, I have to say she looks herself best. I like her smile here during her Silver Jubilee, smiling and listening to people lined up along a parade-way
Reading amid flowers (a photo opportunity):
And here she is with her dogs:
She’s not what people might think of when they want to imagine a feminist figure, but she was a women who held onto power for 70 years, wearing it gracefully, with gravitas, and intelligence and as much humanity as was allowed her and she understood.
I’ll end this brief tribute with an essay by Maya Jasanoff, professor of history at Harvard, who contextualizes Elizabeth’s life with what actually happened across the British empire (not so much within the states of English, Scotland, Wales and Ireland), that also needs to be remembered: Mourn the queen, not her empire [on colonialization].
Nevertheless, I found Charles’s speech very beautiful and hope it augurs a future for the UK with a good king:
Ellen
Reveries Under the Sign of Austen, Two 