Reflections on the long-reigning monarch of a rapidly changing country.
 | By Louise Loftus Staff Editor, Opinion |
When Queen Elizabeth II died yesterday, a meticulously choreographed plan was set in motion. |
The queen's death was not unexpected. She was 96 and frail, and had stepped back from public life in recent months. Even so, it was sort of extraordinary to watch the sequence unfold: the official statement posted on the gates of Buckingham Palace; the flags at half-staff; the BBC interrupting its regular programming to allow its somber journalists to announce the news; Liz Truss, on her second full day as prime minister, exiting 10 Downing Street dressed in black and giving a prepared speech. |
Regardless of whether you're a monarchist, yesterday felt like a significant day in the life of a country. The end of one thing and the beginning of something else. But just what ended yesterday? |
Maya Jasanoff, a professor of history at Harvard, argues in a guest essay that though "the end of an era" is likely to be thrown around a lot in the next few days, Britain had already changed radically during the queen's long reign. "The queen's very longevity made it easier for outdated fantasies of a second Elizabethan age to persist," Jasanoff writes. "And she was, of course, a white face on all the coins, notes and stamps circulated in a rapidly diversifying nation: From perhaps one person of color in 200 Britons at her accession, the 2011 census counted one in seven." |
And Serge Schmemann, a member of the Times editorial board, writes that what is gone with the death of the queen are "traits inherited from an era when the dignity and role of the throne were still self-evident to many, when Winston Churchill, an early mentor of the young Queen Elizabeth, extolled the sovereign as the 'splendor of our political and moral inheritance.' It is hard to name any reigning royal in the world who still personifies that power, and none do it as graciously and convincingly as Queen Elizabeth did," he writes. |
After 70 years, Queen Elizabeth II's reign has ended. And Britain, already dealing with myriad crises, must face the question of what it is without her. |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
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