Opinion | Queen Elizabeth Has Died. She Embodied the Myth of the Good Monarch.

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Original Article: Opinion | Queen Elizabeth Has Died. She Embodied the Myth of the Good Monarch.

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Serge Schmemann

Sept. 8, 2022

Credit...“Equanimity 9”; Queen Elizabeth II by Chris Levine (artist), Rob Munday (holographer)/Jersey Heritage Trust 2004

To function in an otherwise normal democracy, a hereditary monarchy requires that the citizenry accept a bit of fiction — namely that one family, standing above politics, can represent the nation and its values.

That takes a bit of doing, especially with that most scrutinized royal house of them all, the Windsors, who reign over the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms. Few families have had as many public scandals and as much tabloid scrutiny. The disgrace of Prince Andrew, owing to allegations of rape and sexual abuse, and the rift between the British royals and Prince Harry and his wife, the American Meghan Markle, are only the latest of the blows the Windsors have endured.

Yet it is the measure of Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning queen ever, that she will be remembered less for any of that than for playing her part so well, with such dignity and for so long. As her country’s greatest playwright once wrote of the finale of another queen: “It is well done, and fitting for a princess/Descended of so many royal kings.”

In a curious way, the many peccadilloes of “the firm,” as the royal clan has been facetiously called, seemed only to bolster the queen’s royal standing. However greatly she must have suffered from the escapades of her kith and kin, she never dropped the stoicism and fortitude that the British like to think of as their trademark stiff upper lip. About the only public utterance that ever betrayed any inner turmoil was her reference to 1992, a year in which three royal marriages collapsed and Windsor Castle burned, as her “annus horribilis.”

For the most part, while tabloids around the world mucked gleefully around through the dramas of her sister, children and grandchildren, the queen seemed to hover above it all. Her popularity rose over the years, as did popular support for maintaining the royal family. It is telling that Prince Harry and Ms. Markle, in their explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey last year about their decision to part ways with the firm, were careful not to accuse the queen of callousness or racism.

In many ways, through her demeanor, propriety, steadfastness and unwavering service — and simply by being there for so many years — Queen Elizabeth came to define the constitutional monarch for Europe and for much of the world. She was the most-traveled monarch in the world: The British newspaper The Telegraph calculated that by her 90th birthday, she had covered at least 1,032,513 miles and 117 countries. The 13 American presidents she met all tried hard to behave properly in her presence.

Part of her appeal was the extravagant — some might say excessive — pomp and ceremony that accompanied her every royal appearance. While Scandinavian countries deliberately decontented their monarchies until their kings and queens could barely be distinguished from normal citizens, Britain proudly maintained the full medieval monty: gilded carriages, bearskin helmets, liveried footmen and volumes of tradition.

It was marketing, to be sure; the royals are central to Britain’s brand and identity. But Queen Elizabeth was prepared to treat it all, from wearing a five-pound crow...

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