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 
When you said:
“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.”
[there is so much to say on those points eg: grace; gravitas; intelligence; humanity and how we allow and understand it in our public lives and figures – and how this makes and breaks feminism].
And I remember that Olivia Colman said Elizabeth was the “ultimate feminist” – especially the way she tried to play her in the CROWN.
[I would add – advocate and activist … those are strong key motives/motifs].
“Will we nill we” – is that the older expression where “willy-nilly” comes from? [it does have that mix of positivity and negativity?]
When I mourn the Empire – I mourn the loss of potential and the carnage – and the discrimination direct and indirect.
Elizabeth R supported 600-800 charities. Have tried to look up some of these through the Third Sector and the Big Issue UK websites.
Twenty years ago was not a good year for the monarchy – with Margaret and Bowes-Lyon dying. But then there was the Golden Jubilee.
And then the nominations for the Olympics for 2005 [to be executed in 2012].
I had seen the John Major speech. [a general speech not a Trollope speech].
The Trollope speech is a great example of a five-paragraph essay [in a country and a Commonwealth not known until recently for such teaching of writing].
Also Australia’s High Commissioner for the United Kingdom Alexander Downer [he informed various aspects of presentation and content when it came to foreign policy and international studies].
Finally: I would like to say “imbricated” is a great word.
[as might be the EAL slip/concretising – “imbrickated”].
I did come to political consciousness around the years of the Annus Horriblis [and indeed to constitutional awareness] – some years before that I had come through Spencer and Ferguson and their children.
[and in January 1996 I wrote letters to both those women – the previous six months Children in Crisis had engaged me in the wake of Bosnia and the Dayton Accord].
Then there was Edward and Sophie and Louise. The only Royal Wedding I have watched in full – June 1999.
I did/do have some healthy respect for the Princess Royal and her outdoor and sporting life as well as her philanthropic work where it touched.
Thank you for this beautiful reply. I don’t remember where “will I nill I” comes from. I just looked it up on the google engine: it comes from the obsolete phrase will I, nill I, or “I am willing, I am unwilling.” The original definition, “whether one likes it or not,” gradually evolved into today’s meaning. I don’t know what they mean by “today’s meaning,” but I did mean “whether we like it or not.” I’m glad to be told that’s what Olivia Coleman said. I love her performances as an actress. The queen was super-rich; it was my husband’s view she should pay taxes; he was glad when she finally had to pay and felt it was wrong when that was stopped. So her money for charities is an off-set as it were — the right and good thing to do. I hope she supported abortion services. I was born in 1946, and the TV was possibly my father’s sister’s (my aunt) next door to us. I did watch a good deal of Harry and Meghan’s wedding. I find myself liking Princess Anne very much. Ellen
The Google engine does have a way of telling us things – or giving us pointers.
[My pointers are variously the Apple dictionary application which uses dictionary; thesaurus and Wikipedia – and there was another word of yours I wanted to look up in reference to the CROWN. It was an M-word – some other pointers I use are Cambridge; Collins; Oxford Lexico; Macquarie and Australian National University diaries].
Was able to detect the whole:
Whether we like it {being in public/having a public life} or we don’t – and then I think of “null” and “nil”.
I do quite see that Jim would think this way [about taxes and the Civil List].
Here is the “ultimate feminist” remark in the context where I most recently knew it [that has been repeated over the past three years – since THE CROWN has been on Netflix].
Journalist and proprietor of BAD MOTHER MEDIA, Kate Halfpenny, quoted it in her article “When Queen Elizabeth took the Saudi Prince for a drive”.
https://amp.smh.com.au/world/europe/when-queen-elizabeth-took-the-saudi-prince-for-a-drive-20220628-p5axf1.html
That does segue into what we are talking about – from women being able to make decisions about vehicles they may own or rent or indeed pay taxation on to the “vehicle”/”carriage” of their bodies.
I do know [can imply and infer] that the Queen supported judicious family planning – and also “be fruitful and multiply” [which was a tenet of her faith that she professed] – at least for herself and those members of her family who could reproduce.
Whether she had the nous about reproductive justice and reproductive freedom – and whether and how those ideas informed her queendom – the practicalities too.
[If she supported organisations like Tommy and the Birthday Trust and these which tend to protect antenatal/perinatal/neonate interests and/as opposed to natalist interests …]
[An example of protecting neonatal interests would be preventing newborns under six weeks old from getting herpes as it tends to have deleterious consequences on their hearing and sight and other neurological developments. Source: Wonderbaby.org in Boston – an article I read about differentiating between baby acne and herpes – by independent contractors under the auspices of the Perkins Institution].
[And there is the aspect of keeping the caregivers safe too].
One way we could see this would be through the fruit.
Remember that she spent two years in Malta [1949-1951].
Obsolete “will and nill” – it must have come from Middle English or very early Modern English.
[had seen something like a previous discussion on Tumblr in the past decade and so from someone who knew hir Saxon and had a “Seshat” feel for language – Egyptian deity for writing and scribing].
An offset – I understand! Like the carbon credits and debits which are being played a mischief on.
Other people who asked the “feminist” question about QEII in the context of the Colman quote and more widely over the course of her career:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/09/queen-elizabeth-feminism/
https://ph.news.yahoo.com/queen-elizabeth-ultimate-feminist-090047699.html
And talking about what a public figure did not think or say – well, it is like atheism [and lots of other a-concepts]. We cannot prove a negative – we can use scientific method to approach it. And we can divine through art.
At least 2 strains of feminism: liberty feminism and equity feminism.
[or, ahem, liberal and radical].
Another distinction: where gender is marginal or tangential to the issue[s]; and when gender is at the centre or close to the centre. Proximal is the philosophical word for what I want to say.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/08/queen-matriarch-power-elizabeth-ii [from Gaby Hinsliff]
https://metro.co.uk/2022/09/08/lilibet-to-hrh-how-queen-elizabeth-ii-became-the-ultimate-feminist-15493955/ [Emmie Harrison-West – Platform Columnist for the London Metro].
The Accession Committee moments with the members and people signing. For example: Penny Mourdant. The Lords Spiritual and the Lords Temporal; and Archbishops of Canterbury and of York.
NB: The tenth good thing about Elizabeth (alluding to Judith Viorst): the last two days I have not seen one photo, not one of Trump. She seems to have been the only public figure capable of wiping him off the world’s stage.
Catriona Hall: “Certainly a relief.”
Tyler Tichelaar: “No Trump is a relief, though he did have nice things to say about her when he heard the news. On recent news coverage they said he seemed to be a bit in awe of her and respectful, one of the few people he acted
that way toward when he went to London.
I cannot recall the coronation – 19 years before I was born. My first real memories of the royal family come from Charles and Diana’s wedding when I was 10. I was in England in 1993 when the 40th anniversary of her
coronation was held and bought a commemorative coin of the event.
I’m a bit of a coin collector and also have the coins from her 25th and 50th anniversaries and a beautiful Canadian coin commemorating her 90th birthday. I was in London in 2000 and bought a little plate with the Queen Mother on it to commemorate her 100th birthday and postage stamps that year commemorating Prince William’s 18th birthday. I also have a set of coins and stamps commemorating Diana after she died.
Tyler
I was going to say I have no keepsakes of Elizabeth or the Windsor family, but if you count books and my 3 disks from The Crown (Seasons 1-3, I didn’t buy 4) I have a good deal. One of the books is about the Edward VIII crisis, the other the companion to the Crown series. It is filled with beautiful photographs of the actual Royals, their mansions, land, and distinguished diplomatically between what we are shown in the series and what was the accurate reality. My book does not cover beyond around 1980 — end of Season 3 and Season 4. So no problem about what was the reality of what happened between Charles and Diana.
But I remember things as they hinged on my life.
The 1980 wedding coincided with Jim and I moving to Virginia so I saw the panels of distinguished people (talking heads) but never watched the wedding.
Jim was not a fan of the monarchy. But he would today remember as I do the night we came from the theater a bit early and one of put on the TV news (1997 before the astonishing spread of news on the Internet) and there was that smashed car in the tunnel and the news of a terrible accident Diana had been in, chased by these photographers. And Jim said something to the effect no one survived that. In fact the driver did because he had on a seatbelt I see her not wearing a seatbelt as symbolic of her recklessness and (I’ll say) idea she was special. To me the idea she’s a people’s princess is ludicrous. Privileged, self-indulgent, probably ignorant, publicity seeking but also mentally disturbed (think of her bulimia, the every other week enemas), twisted by the group she was brought up in, so very much used too
Then recently I did watch the whole of Harry and Meghan wedding — a 2 hour special on PBS. Something personal there too. For the 2nd time since Jim died, my computer died and I needed a new one so I watched the wedding on WETA passport on my laptop. There was another wedding that day — a couple who were targets of the racist Charlottesville riot; at that wedding was the mother of the girl that was killed by a car. Amy Goodman covered both weddings equally
As to Trump’s decent words, since he has been on this “social media” and has access to more characters and since I saw those revealing out-takes from the Jan 6th commission I have been convinced his usual tweets using a 9 year old’s vocabulary are an act. Read some of the language of the recent tweets; take look at the adult syntax and complicated thoughts they suggest. He is a knave not a fool and these tweets of his, the way he acts in public when in the spotlight, are calculated performances he offers the world — why he is successful politically. I would not believe for a moment he had any respect for Elizabeth Windsor — why should he? he probably resented he was not invited to the palace (and the Obamas stayed there) and despises her as a controlling elite woman.
Ellen
According to Jim Kincaid, a great Trollope scholar, someone named Kareem wrote a “brilliant (and gentle) take on American nostalgia for the miserable and vicious British royals. https://tinyurl.com/5dt4pve7
I replied:
The whole of yesterday’s segment on the Death of the Queen at DemocracyNow.org very much worth the watching and listening to. https://www.democracynow.org/2022/9/9/uk_queen_elizabeth_ii_dies_96
Had fallen out of the habit of listening to DEMOCRACY NOW. [it was syndicated in various spots and stations which could be broadly called public interest and Community Radio].
It became a habit in late 2018 when I would listen to a socialist radio station.
And I probably stopped listening due to COVID-19.
[I would save interesting elements of DEMOCRACY NOW into Apple Notes before the programme became unwieldy and a memory hog. I was not so efficient and effective as I would become at this point in 2022].
THE WORLD TODAY [ABC Radio National’s early afternoon program] had had a sequence/special on the Queen.
Thank you for the pointer regarding Kareem.
Brilliant and gentle was probably exactly what was needed.
And in some ways – probably no more miserable and vicious than we would be in the same and similar situations – at least individually.
I do find that vice and misery tend to hang in groups – particularly ones with relatively closed lines of influence and modelling.
Patterns of response and of reaction.
The politics of envy being quite prominent.
So “Kareem”+”Trollope scholar”+”miserable”+”vicious”+”nostalgia” would be good as a query.
Stammer pitch perfect and Teresa May a gifted after-dinner talker: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/09/starmer-pitch-perfect-on-love-and-grief-as-commons-meets-to-pay-tribute-to-queen?CMP=share_btn_tw
Sir Keir Starmer?
And the Commons tribute.
There is something in the whole genre of after-dinner speeches and the balance of informality and formality.
Good that May was able to strike that balance in the hearts and minds of the tribunes.
What I’m doing now is making this blog a sort of record of what was said by “significant” people yesterday. That was from The Guardian.
Jane Austen on the side of queens because they are women and when they are victimized (Elizabeth II was never):
A letter to Martha Lloyd written on February 16, 1813:
“I suppose all the world is sitting in judgement upon the Princess of Wale’s letter. Poor woman; I shall support her as long as I can, because she is a woman and because I hate her husband. But I can hardly forgive her for calling herself “attached and affectionate” to a man whom she must detest, and the intimacy said to subsist between her and Lady Oxford is bad. I do not know what to do about it, but if I must give up the Princess, I am resolved at least always to think that she would have been respectable, if the Prince had behaved only tolerably by her at first.”
How far people can go and get if they behave “only tolerably […] at first”!
A Georgian woman of my blogging acquaintance has written “Expect more; be more” specifically in the context of marriage and the contingencies involved in this commitment.
Too often – SOFT bigotry is STILL bigotry and we do ourselves and our world a disservice if we forget this.
On those grounds I may say that I was “attached” – but NOT affectionate [unless in the very general sense of inspired or exposed feeling].
Specific and concrete acts of AFFECTION I could not own. [if the relationship had that kind of imbalance].
There is much merit in moderating and managing our expectations – and Austen does show us the reality gap in this correspondence with Maria Lloyd.
[I had seen a shorter version of the quote in a Maggie Lane book by Carlton Press – ‘because she is a woman; and I hate her husband’].
[and the Maggie Lane book had the capitals in Woman and in Husband].
The very next {and closing} sentence in Lane’s commentary says:
“How it must have galled her, two years later, to be obliged to dedicate her lovely Emma to him”.
[Lane 1996: JANE AUSTEN’s WORLD {67} in the two-page spread about THE ROYAL FAMILY which is the section containing SOCIETY AND THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE – that runs all the way to page 94 and then we come to the VISUAL WORLD].
[This is reminding me that I have picked up HUMPHRY CLINKER by Tobias Smollett in its Penguin Modern Library edition and it has so much about Bath in it from the perspective of fashionable and semi-fashionable young ladies].
Linda: “The irony of it all- Tonight we’re going to see Hamilton with its great send up of George III while we have nonstop coverage of his great…..grandaughter’s death. I’m curious to see if there is any reference to the queen’s death in some way.
I was too young to remember the coronation. I’m not even sure my parents owned a television at the time. But I have strong memories of having a 3d Viewmaster (remember those?) and one of my cards was of Elizabeth’s coronation. I’m assuming I was still very young, maybe 3 or 4.”
My reply: “Ah. Yes she is the many times descendant of the Hanover groups brought over from the German protestant states. My parents didn’t own a TV either. 1953 TVs had not yet spread to most houses. We (as my memory tells me) are in someone else’s house and my guess is my aunt next door had a TV. Very small — not in some massive furniture. As I’ve just told Tyler, I somehow relate these public events of this Royal family to things happening in my life at the time.
As Linda knows, I’ve been telling myself I will get a dog when I can no longer travel. I have just read that Corgis are affectionate creatures and like to cuddle. So maybe I’ll get a corgi when I’m ready.”
Now the cortege from Balmoral to Edinburgh:
https://tinyurl.com/38t9tw9h
Still adding. Last night I watched an hour long version of this video of Elizabeth II’s life: tone reverential esp at first but there are many interesting comments & photos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTkC8xLHMrc&ab_channel=SkyNews
The history of Kenya, the barbaric imperialistic practices, how what was extracted helped re-build the UK after WW2: the barbaric realities of British colonialism. It was not a repeat of last Friday but brought 2 new people who knew about Kenya – -I did not know that detention camps were set up in Kenya and huge numbers of people imprisoned, tortured, harassed until they left off Mau allegiance. How much would the Queen have known? I suspect she knew more about this kind of thing than she ever said where she could or would be recorded.
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/9/12/queen_elizabeth_dead_british_colonialism_africa
The commonwealth should be dismantled — is it helping keep the upper class in the UK rich (like those Tory MPs we saw give speeches) today?
Spokespeople from Antigua, Barbuda, Jamaica; the monarchy an institution a front for centuries of enslavement, colonialism, brutal and repressive structures; time for them to make reparations in the form of money for development, education, healthcare, repatriation https://www.democracynow.org/2022/9/13/british_colonialism_caribbean_antigua_barbuda_jamaica
And now Eamonn McCann on the paradoxical attitudes of different politics in Irish people: if you think Sein Fein is antagonistic to the queen, think again. The monarchy has
been for a united Ireland (this man says) from early on in the 20th century:
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/9/14/queen_elizabeth_iis_legacy_ireland_northern
A list of episodes from The Crown that reveals truths or events from life of queen or monarchy . Bethonie Butler (Style Section of Wash Post: From Bethonie Butler, a writer for the Washington Post (Style section):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/09/14/queen-elizabeth-the-crown/
Seven documentaries:
https://tellyvisions.org/2022/09/14/7-must-see-documentaries-celebrate-life-queen-elizabeth-ii
Now the queue. Live-stream video which probably won’t play here. 25 minutes from The Telegraph: William and Charles “working” the crowd. It’s very touching to me, poignant, comic, and moving this astonishing behavior. Sleeping with blue blankets all night. Sandwiches and tea given out (like Dunkirk). The Westminster Abbey room, an ancient one, the windows, tall, vast, silence as the crowd slowly goes by: each person having her or her moment.
Another valid serious POV: racism & colonialism still rule the world. The monarchy stands for present system. Kehinde Andrews offers a history of Jamaica, the Caribbean, and Africa. On British TV the last 10 days there has been not one word of dissent. https://www.democracynow.org/2022/9/19/why_black_britons_wont_mourn_queen
I regret this is behind a paywall: I know that Fintan O’Toole is correct: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2022/09/20/fintan-otoole-monarchy-is-a-bad-habit-up-the-republic/
The queen’s funeral still: I agree with this take: Sarah Kaufman, “funeral a production of power:” Very alert observations on the choreography
https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/09/19/monarchy-queen-elizabeth-funeral/
It does not seem to be behind a paywall.
Diana Birchall: “the bagpipes were particularly beautiful at the end of the Westminster ceremony, when the Queen’s Piper played “Sleep, Dearie, Sleep.” The piper (who woke the queen with his music every morning) walked away down the passage creating the effect that the music gets quieter…and quieter…and fades out, like the end of life. People were weeping.”
Tyler: “It really was a grand show. I did not realize there would be services both at Westminster Abbey and St. George’s Chapel on the same day. It must have been exhausting for everyone, especially those guards who were
carrying the casket. The queen was heavily involved in orchestrating the entire thing. The images are unforgettable and I am sure they bolstered the monarchy. That people waited in line so long to see her is amazing, especially given that nothing bad happened – no terrorist attacks or
protestors or anything like that. She was much loved and I don’t think we’ll see anything like this again in our lifetimes.”
My reply: DemocracyNow.org was the only news show to specify the security measures: Goodman said for about a mile away for all events where possible sharp-shooters and military were poised on roofs. Also groups were poised out of sight (the BBC and all news outlets cooperated) as the procession moved slowly through the two cities and into and out of the abbeys. Vague references to a few incidents that were “mild” or in which “nothing much” occurred were referred to in the Wash Post. Signs like “not my king” and also protests against the price of the funeral and no money for heat this coming year for average people.
Those who protested persistently in the queues were taken out and removed — arrested and then let go. Vigilance over
this was quick.
Yes I read the queen was involved in the planning and choice of music. I agree it’s unlikely we’ll see anything like this again — perhaps Kennedy’s funeral came closest to it here in the US. That was theater.
[…] up, take notice, watch the official 10-days mourning of “a nation” and then see put on a spectacular ritual aired everywhere in the world on TVs, internet, cinemas, as a kind of last gasp of the Raj in spirit. And few as they were, we read and heard the voices of […]
[…] want to record the passing of two more important women in our era (Elizabeth Windsor was important for what she was), these two important for themselves as individuals, Mantel for her […]
A more sophisticated attack.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/9/14/the-queen-cannot-be-separated-from-the-crown
Queen Elizabeth is not innocent of the Crown’s crimes.
The late queen faithfully served the British imperial project.
Priyamvada Gopal teaches in the Faculty of English at Cambridge University. She is the author of Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation and the Transition to Independence (2005), The Indian Novel in English (2009) and Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent (2019).
Reply: I’ve gotten her book on the Indian novel in English; it looks very good and will help me teach another course on what I had called Anglo-Indian novels not next but the following spring — if the OLLIs are still going and I still teaching at at least one of them.
A 15 minute programme by Michael Morpurgo, a well-known author, whose book called “Warhorse” – about a horse involved in the First World War – was made into a successful play and television programme. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh once went to see it at the theatre, privately, trying to avoid being seen. Michael Morpurgo was later invited to lunch at Buckingham Palace, and found himself sitting next to her.
In the course of conversation, he asked her if she remembered what it was about horses that she loved so much. [She was famous for engagement with racing, and it was a place in which she could just be herself. One person said, everybody was looking at the horses, not at her.] Michael Morpurgo says, “She thought about it for a while, and then told me about the day she was introduced as a girl to her first, big, proper horse; how fine he stood above her, and when she reached out and stroked his neck, it felt like warm velvet. She was living that moment as she talked.”
The broadcast is here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p09mdl42 with some others.
Radio 4: Reflections on Majesty:
Eight novelists, historians and scholars describe their experience of, and relation to, the reign of the Queen. Morpurgo is near the bottom of the page.
Dr John Sentamu was Archbishop of York from 2005 to 2020. He was born in Uganda, but had to escape in 1974 after speaking out against Idi Amin. He came to England.
Dr Sentamu said in an interview now online, that the Queen had a formidable knowledge of hymns, psalms and scripture. “Woe betide you if you were a preacher and you misquoted.” “The Queen would graciously say, ‘Were you meaning to say this?’ or ‘Were you in the right book?'”
He suggested the Queen was herself an effective preacher and evangelist. She was so immersed in scripture she would “just evangelise naturally”. “She often used scripture as a way of comforting and reassuring,” he says. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62942772
He spoke of how the Queen comforted him through prayer when he went to ask for permission to step down as Archbishop of York in 2018. He said: “I went with a huge burden of matters that maybe one day will be revealed.
“I knelt down, and I said ‘Your Majesty, please pray for me.’ So I put my hands together and she put hers outside mine, and we were silent for three minutes. At the end she said ‘Amen’. “When I got up, the burden had lifted.” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62946724
These people are witnesses.