The Death of Queen Elizabeth: Beneath the Robes of Royalty Lies a Human Being
Flesh and blood, bone and frailty, “for dust thou art unto dust thou shalt return” [1], this singular reality leaves even the greatest among all monarchs subject to death. And each of us as well.
The reign of Queen Elizabeth II, longest in British history, extended over 70 years. During that time, 13 American presidents and 15 British prime ministers came and went, and countless world rulers have exited the stage of history.
This image shows some world rulers during her 70 year reign. Her picture underneath them all, as if looking up, made me think of The Lord of the Rings. Only in this case, “One Queen to rule them all.”
In the span of my lifetime, Queen Elizabeth remains great and greatly to be praised for her character, her humility, the principles she maintained and actually practiced, as well as the stability she gave to people throughout the world in times of crisis.
Sadly, Her Majesty gave way to being mortal.
Pearls, a hat, and a handbag
Her Royal Highness (HRH) had an image recognizable everywhere. Underneath the pearls, the hat, and the matching handbag, she carried herself with dignity. A wave, a handshake, a smile and eyes shown, reflecting light from within.
Elizabeth made no secret of her belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ, confessing trust in God’s power to sustain her by his grace. She worshiped God on Sundays and prayed every day.
“I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all, to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honor and my blood, even in the dust.”
quote from The Palace Papers (2022), 494
Few people were privileged to know the person who wore The Crown. Her sister Margaret, who died in 2002, was Elizabeth’s only peer, both living “in a world where everything around them was controlled by the thermostat of royalty.” Their mother died five months later. [2]
Pictures of Elizabeth from childhood to days before the end of her reign.
Her husband of 73 years, Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh had died April 9, 2021. Seated alone in a pew because of COVID restrictions, ” . . . the Queen’s frail liege man found heavenly release from his life of service. Gently, and with love, she let him go.” [3]
In the Queen’s public remarks following 9-11, she wrote one of her most memorable lines:
“Grief is the price we pay for love.”
And now the world grieves Queen Elizabeth’s death and awaits her state funeral on September 19, 2022.
A Book about the Royal Family
Currently reading, before and after news of Queen Elizabeth’s death, this book was recommended by Dr. Burke, a quintessential Brit, who knows I am an anglophile. In Sunday School, he asked me several times, “Have you read The Palace Papers yet?”
Incredible timing, I remind myself, “A book is only as good as it is timely.”
Published earlier this year, the author Tina Brown pieces together composite portraits of the Windsor royals. Well-researched, organized, and well-written, the book describes privileged lives beyond fairytale imagining.
The Divine Right of Kings (and Queens)
“The Divine Right of Kings” asserts that kings/queens derive their position and authority from God. Was Elizabeth born to become “Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth Realms?”
I don’t know the answer to that question. I can say, Nobody could have reigned better––leading and serving her people, keeping promises she made as a young woman, age twenty-six to her death at age ninety-six.
In Scripture, when Israel asked for a king in order to be “like all the other nations,” kings and kingdoms had surrounded Israel, friends and enemies alike. Alliances could strengthen or weaken a nation as wars continually waged over territory in order to establish the preeminence and power of a ruler––or a conqueror.
Eventually, God gave Israel what the people wanted. When the prophet Samuel had given warnings saying a king would take, not give, God said that the people would cry out to him but he would not listen because their desire for an earthly king revealed their rejection of God as their King.
So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.” But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king . . . warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights . . . But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”
1 Samuel 8
It comes as no surprise that people then (and now) prefer a ruler they can see to a God they cannot see. Yet the sovereign God ultimately reigns over all the rulers of the earth. (See Isaiah 40).
Why We Care
Tina Brown offers this summary.
“The fascination of monarchy is that its themes repeat themselves because its protagonists are earthly. When George V rebranded the monarchy as the House of Windsor [1917] and turned it into the emblem not just of the British family but of a sacralized exemplary version of the British family, there was one central flaw: their humanity. There will alway be the rebels, the problem children, and the miscreants, because the Crown rests on a family as fallible as any other.”
The Palace Papers, Tina Brown
We care because we share their humanity––flaws and all.
And now the world holds its breath awaiting how the Queen’s absence will change history.
[1] Genesis 3:19, KJV
[2] The Palace Papers, 111.
[3] The Palace Papers, 489