Last week was a big week for celebration of the life of Queen Elizabeth II, who died at the ripe old age of 96, almost the exact same age as my grandfather who passed away last year. Perhaps I associate my grandfather and Queen Elizabeth as similar figures in my mind, of people I've known since birth who are a constant source of consistency in the face of a changing world. Through all the ups and downs of my own life, my grandpa had always been the same steady rock who I could rely on to always be there, and I'm sure the Queen played a bit of that role for many people in Britain and around the world; she was everyone's grandmother. But now just like my grandfather, the queen is gone, and a little piece of oneself is taken along with the death of an elderly person; a lot of memories and a general sense of stability.
Sure, the queen had a lot to be criticized for; she didn't get along with Princess Diana, she didn't get along with Meghan Markle, her regime's "colonizing" history has been scrutinized (I've been seeing a lot of that word "colonizer" used by woke activists recently and it makes me a little uncomfortable, especially if it's used perjoratively against any white people for doing anything....doesn't that just become a racist word similar to the N-word?"), and do people in modern times even need a queen anyway? Does the royal family really need all those castles and parades and royal weddings all supported by the taxpayer's dollar (or for the British, the pound I gues) Done well, I think a queen or royalty still has a role to play in society, in an era where too many people idolize bad behavior and make leaders out of people who act badly or are popular for no good reason, we still need leaders who lead by exemplary behavior, not perfect people but at least trying to do the right thing and promoting civility in the world, unlike Donald Trump or various other media influencers who leech off the gossipy nature that we all have in order to promote themselves. Real leaders should be revered for doing the right thing, trying to improve the world and act for all citizens of the world, not just for themselves to get "likes" on social media and promote their own brand. Queen Elizabeth definitely checked a lot of those boxes, no matter what some of her negative record also shows.
Monarchs are also important for trivia purposes and make for good trivia questions, just like U.S. Presidents and the sequential order of presidents, the list of British monarchs is a cool timeline of rulers that combines my interests of knowing what happened in history and when, and important people, except English monarchs have repetitive names and shifting allegiances, families marrying into other families, wars between those families for power, etc., it all becomes very confusing, not to mention who is next in line for succession. And England has had several female monarchs! (unlike America's thus-far patriachal society). The 2 big queens to know of course are Queen Victoria (of the Hanover family) and Elizabeth II, but then there's also Elizabeth I of the Golden Age (daughter of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII), Queen Anne who died without a clear successor leading to the end of the Stuarts, Mary Queen of Scots aka Bloody Mary, and Lady Jane Grey who ruled for just 9 days. Not exactly all exemplary people of course, but all lived during interesting times. It must be hard to be a woman and rule a bunch of men and give them orders despite their reluctance; Britain's queens seem to have had the most success in history. Long Live the Queen! (There probably won't be a queen of England for a long time now, since Charles III is king who will pass down to William upon his death and then William's firstborn son George......and then who knows).
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