Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has died.

On Tuesday she met Liz Truss the new prime minister and I marvelled at how well she looked (below).

She wasn’t well last night, and her family gathered today. She died quietly this afternoon.

At the age of 96 she was carrying out her formal duties, receiving the outgoing and incoming prime ministers, less than 48 hours before her death. Respect Ma’am.

Tonight the newsreader said “The King is at Balmoral with the Royal family…” and I thought, BUT WE DON’T HAVE A KING!

We do now. Pray for him please, he needs it.

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9 Responses

  1. The purest public figure we have seen in our lifetime.

    I was within a couple of feet of her back in 1969 as she boarded a train to Balmoral, security wasn’t as heavy duty as it is today and I remember being surprised that she was actually life-sized. Lovely , sincere smile, radiating warmth.

    I was anti-royalist in my youth but I came to appreciate just what a steadying effect the Monarchy had on the affairs of the world and Elizabeth was the epitome of class and diplomacy.
    So much did I change that I got to the point where I stood up when the Queen gave her New Year’s Day Speech ( even as I lived in Canada, and much to the puzzlement of my friends ) and my admiration for her just grew and grew.

    To say there’s a hole in my heart today doesn’t come close to what I’m feeling, it’s a grief stricken fracture, I’m bereft and the next few days will be difficult to get through without crying.

    I have great confidence in Charles, he’s been taught by the best and although he’s a bit of a rebel I feel that he will use the example his mother set to guide him on his difficult task.

    People think it’s just a life of leisure but it isn’t. Every single thing you do and say is under the microscope and you have to have your wits about you at every moment.

    Let’s all try and get through the mourning period by remembering what a stupendous individual she was and how lucky we are that she passed her talents on to Charles.

    I too pray for him

    1. Brilliantly put, Mr Corden.

      I too am feeeling incredibly moved and saddened by the death of our gracious Queen.

      I am certain that our new King will be a fine Monarch.

      God save the King!

  2. The Nation’s Heart

    The Nation’s heart has passed away,
    A loving grandmother to all.
    And now it’s for her son we pray
    Whom Charles the Third we’ll learn to call.

    But will he fill that vital space
    Elizabeth has left behind?
    For peerless was her poise and grace,
    This pinnacle of womankind.

  3. For ‘purest public figure’ seen in oúr lifetime I would put in contention Mahatma Gandhi and Harry S. Trumán, for purity of purpose performed and personal decency.

  4. I agree, but for the moment Elizabeth holds an unassailable seat.
    I’ve read both of their biographies and the two quotes I remember from each individual have stuck with me all of my life
    1. Harry Truman .The buck stops here!
    2. Gandhi on trial ( taken from his sentencing statement)
    But in the past, non-co-operation has been deliberately expressed in violence to the evil doer. I am endeavouring to show to my countrymen that violent non-co-operation only multiplies evil and that as evil can only be sustained by violence, withdrawal of support of evil requires complete abstention from violence. Non-violence implies voluntary submission to the penalty for non-co­operation with evil. I am here, therefore, to invite and submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. The only course open to you, the Judge, is either to resign your post and thus dissociate yourself from evil, if you feel that the law you are called upon to administer is an evil and that in reality I am innocent; or to inflict on me the severest penalty if you believe that the system and the law you are assisting to administer are good for the people of this country and that my activity is therefore injurious to the public weal.”

    These are people who had principles and stuck to them in the face of adversity .

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