Yes, she is very definitely "A Good Thing"!

Today we shall witness a very English event as hundreds of boats of a variety of types and makes and spanning a great deal of the 20th century paddle, row, punt (there is a Venetian punt in the parade) steam and chug their way down the Thames to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's Diamond jubilee.  Needless to say, England being England, it will rain, the wind will blow and it will prove to be a highly uncomfortable experience for all concerned - but they will turn out in their hundreds of thousands and thoroughly enjoy themselves.  It was not always like that:

Thursday there had been great heat.  Friday was worse.  The breeze died, the air became moist and heavy.  Flags hung limp and haze spread over the immense fleet anchored in the Solent.  Only when the sun peeked through was it possible to see from the shore that pale outline of what appeared to be an enormous city.  One hundred and sixty five warships of the British navy lay in this protected body of water, three miles across from the sandy shores of the Hampshire plain to the wooded hills of the Isle of White.  Five lines of black-hulled ships, thirty miles of warships, they carried 40,000 men and three thousand naval guns.  It was the most powerful fleet assembled in the history of the world.

And, as Robert Massie reminds us in his superlative book, Dreadnought, all those warships came only from the Home Fleet.  There were other powerful fleets and squadrons in the Mediterranean, the Americas and the Far East and they remained untouched as they went about their business of ensuring the sea lanes remained open for the world's business not just British business.  But that was then - 1897, to be exact - so today we can only ponder on Prospero's words:

These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Of course, there were a couple of cataclysmic encores to be played before the curtain finally fell on the British Empire, and thus it was a tired, bashed, albeit unbeaten and unbroken, Britain that limped into the 1950s as Elizabeth II mounted her throne.  Yet more shocks were to be suffered.  The Empire dissolved, not without bloodshed; rampant socialism had its "hour upon the stage", mass immigration changed the face of Britain forever and Christianity, a pillar whose crucial importance to society is only now slowly being realised, crumbled under the onslaught of new, modern, pagan idols, or perhaps, ideologies is a better word.

Given all that upheaval - and the increasing speed with which the changes hit us - it is quite extraordinary that this (as I guess) slightly dull and somewhat unimaginative woman has with seemingly effortless ease held together the very heart and core of constitutional Britain and this despite the worst efforts of twelve different and mostly useless prime ministers.  I, for one, am deeply grateful to her and later today I shall raise a glass and drink "a health unto Her Majesty".

 

Comments

[Able]

Nicely put!

I suspect Her Majesty (and no I'm not monarchist, just ex-forces) has done so by being/acting in a quintessentially British manner (reserve, understatement, fair-play, etc.). Compare and contrast with the heads of state of other countries (chavs, pederasts, criminals and the corrupt) and even the funding seems relatively reasonable (considering almost all her assets remain the property of the country anyway).

I suspect the real reason she has hung on as long as she has is that she is well aware that it is her persona that holds the monarchy in its place (both tradition and her personal identification as an 'institution'), when whoever replaces her ascends to the throne I suspect it may fizzle out in a short order, the alternatives seen as nothing more than either 'David Icke or Posh& Becks with crowns'.

I feel vaguely unsettled on contemplating Britains decline. Consider now we have more Admirals than ships in the Royal Navy, and wasn't all that intentional? As to the break-up of the Empire, it wasn't just the socialists as you'll be aware (and aren't they enjoying it? soon there won't be a Britain anymore). For myself I have most 'difficulty' with the Americans involvement (increasing the financial problems by 'loaning' us money after WW 11, whilst 'gifting' everyone else. Pushing for independence of the colonies whilst scrambling to take over those and other countries themselves - hypocrites? or just self-interest either way they've [the politicians that is] have never been our friends - special relationship, Pah!). Sorry for the digression.

[Whyaxye]

Hear, hear, DD.

[Furor Teutonicus]

XX Today we shall witness a very English event as hundreds of boats of a variety of types and makes and spanning a great deal of the 20th century paddle, row, punt (there is a Venetian punt in the parade) steam and chug their way down the Thames to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's Diamond jubilee.XX

Aye, well, ther WAS a time when the Royal Navy had REAL ships.

[Jimmy]

Furor. British event old chap. Good article David well done. I will do an additional toast just for you at our annual dinner this September.

[David Duff]

Actually, Able, I am rather more hopeful than you for the future of the monarchy. Charles is moving into his dotage in which he will be looked on kindly as an elderly ecentric - and by and large the English love eccentrics. However, I think Wills and Kate are very definitely of the 21st century. Both are informal but seem to possess the necessary gravitas when required. As for the future of Britain, like you I keep mulling over possibilities and probabilities with which I might bore you later.

'FT', I understand your grumpiness but I'm not at all sure that we need any ships at all these days. Again, I will write on this later.

Come on, Jimmy, do tell - whose "annual dinner" and why?

[backofanenvelope]

Trafalgar Day would be a good date for a dinner. Death to the French!

[Andrew Duffin]

Excellent post, D, many thanks.

Indeed a health unto Her Hajesty!

Long to reign over us, confound their knavish tricks, etc etc (btw wasn't there some rude remark about the Scots somewhere in one of the now-censored verses?).

There's nobody like her.

[Jimmy]

David. RAOC Association Scotland Branch 15 Sep 2012. Our big British bash is in Coventry a week on Saturday.

[Andra]

''There is a lady sweet and kind,
Was never face so pleased my mind;
I did but see her passing by,
And yet I love her till I die.''

Thomas Ford. Popular Aussie Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies said this about ER II when they first met.

[Lawrence Duff]

Reference the "concert" last night, watching the Queen being pushed and pulled around like a prize stage prop by the top floating court jesters of the chav-scum barrel was rather disturbing.

The underclass destroyed the working class by morphing from them, the middle class by robbing them with taxes, borrowing and printing to fund their something for nothing livelihoods and now the upper class by lowering them to the status of X-Factor contestants.

A rot that started at the bottom and has now reached the very top.

As the Bard put it in similar circumstances: -

"Down, down I come; like glistering Phaethon,
Wanting the manage of unruly jades.
In the base court? Base court, where kings grow base,
To come at traitors' calls and do them grace.
In the base court? Come down? Down, court! down, king
For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing."

- KING RICHARD II

SoD

[David Duff]

'Envelope', I may have to report you for 'galloping Frenchism'!

Andrew, they should re-instate the Scottish rudery with immediate efect!

Jimmy, well done, wars are won by supply and the Royal Army Ordnance Corps are, or were, the supplier par excellence. I'm sure their successors in the RLC are equally up to scratch. Enjoy your evening - and your memories.

Andra, such sweetness - and from an Aussie, too!

Christ, SoD, what did you have to eat today? Cheer up, man, er, but don't ask me why!

[Webwrights]

Delighted to see your reference to the Massie book, which is suberb.

[David Duff]

One of the very best, in my opinion, 'Webbers'.