Elizabeth II has resisted. Her great triumph has been resisting time and cruelty, standing up and facing storms with the poise of which she believes that the rain from heaven does not wet.
The monarchy is such a cruel institution that the only way to avoid pain is by levitating. Isabel II floated on the events that cause wars, crises and revolutions. All around her time passed more slowly. If she had been a bullfighter, she would have been famous for her mettle. The bull would have gone where she wanted and time would have been more elastic.
Queen Elizabeth leaves her example, which is more than the vast majority of the dead usually leave. The main purpose of her reign was to extend it to the maximum and deliver it to her son, and if she has achieved it, it is because she has known how to be more an institution than a person, a polysemic illusion.
Isabel II began by reigning over a finished empire and has ended up as queen of a nation state in decline, threatened by the ineptitude of its rulers. That Winston Churchill continues to be, 70 years later, the great reference of British political power says a lot about the mediocrity that has passed through number 10 Downing Street.
The queen, supported by monarchical paraphernalia, the essential props to rise as the mystics did, has managed to overcome indifference and mistrust in the prime ministers and institutions.
The staging, the protocol, the liturgy so similar to that of a papacy, has allowed it to strengthen the State and reach the other shore.
Without hardly opening her mouth, Elizabeth II has shown an unattainable authority for politicians who speak at all times and everywhere. She only addressed the nation on Christmas Day, when the turkey was carved. Outside this tradition, he only did it five times: the Gulf War (1991), the death of Lady Diana Spencer (1997), the death of his mother (2002), the jubilee for his six decades on the throne (2012) and during the confinement of two years ago, when he spoke of suffering and resisting because “the good days will return”.
The queen resisted because she could be compassionate. Without empathy or compassion there is no monarchy that can resist the weight of contemporaneity.
While egalitarianism and populism erode political authority in all democracies, the monarchy perseveres despite its hierarchy, the privileges it grants to those of its lineage.
Abuse of privilege is the most common accusation against monarchs. Charles I, for example, lost his head in 1648 for being too autocratic. Elizabeth II, however, has been able to neutralize the privileges of living in palaces and castles, of having one of the main fortunes in the United Kingdom, being an illusion, being close to her town without touching it.
The coldness with which he reacted to the death of Diana Spencer was his worst moment. Only when she finally agreed to walk in front of the sea of ??flowers, drawings and messages deposited before Buckingham Palace did she recover the affection of her subjects, her balance to continue reigning.
It is not easy to live standing up in such an inhuman institution. The crown assigns to its members positions and obligations that they cannot resign. Society, for its part, subjects monarchs and their families to merciless scrutiny. Prince Henry gave up this ordeal to remake himself as a person in California. The queen experienced as a betrayal what was nothing more than the consequence of an anachronism. Who wants to be a prisoner of a crown when he can be free in the promised land?
Elizabeth II has not been free. Her horses offered him spaces of freedom and happiness that were only borrowed. They were also part of a script that she did not write.
The queen has been more character than person. We have heard it more in Hollywood fiction than in the reality of Buckingham, Windsor or Balmoral. She fascinated and entertained precisely because her presence was always dramatized. What was she supposed to carry in her small bags and always matching her wardrobe?
The brightly colored dresses, the small and curious eyes, the frank and peasant smile allowed her to play both sides: on the coated paper of the tabloids and in the carpeted halls of the royal residences.
The monarchy and the press need each other. The media and social networks are the channels that the crown uses to entertain the masses, reinforce the self-esteem and identity of the subjects, make them see that there is no setback that time will not fix.
Elizabeth II knew how to do it because it was a coin in every pocket, a stamp on every letter, a stanza in the hymn sung by patriots and athletes.
In addition to being an institution and a character, the queen also let the British see her as a pet, someone who always gave them back much more than they received. It seemed that she did nothing and she did everything, that she was nowhere and she was everywhere, that she was this and not that because, above all, it was an illusion. Not bad to dream and make live, to resist the time of modernity and the cruelty of the crown.
