Dear Reader,
This summer, on a visit to Edinburgh with my family, I toured the Royal Yacht Britannia. The yacht was decommissioned in 1997 and permanently docked in the port of Leith as a tourist attraction; the new Labour government had decided the cost of overhauling its vintage engine was too high for Britain to bear.
With a guide, we were afforded a sneak peek at some of the private areas of what was at once an ambassadorial vessel—complete with a state dining room that had hosted Nelson Mandela and Ronald Reagan, among others—and also the floating home of a clan who, their extreme wealth notwithstanding, also did regular family stuff. Off the veranda deck, our guide opened a small cabinet in the paneling to reveal a stack of classic board games of the sort you'd see in any vacation rental—Operation, and so forth.
When news came of the queen's passing, I thought about those board games, the unfinished jigsaw puzzle in the living room, the sofas covered in chintz. Here was a woman who ascended to the global stage at the age of 25—mourning her father and inheriting his mantle in the space of a single moment. Her personal life was inextricably bound to her duty to represent the nation. She came of age during the Blitz, and as a new queen met weekly with Winston Churchill; at the end of her life, she took tea with the fictional Paddington Bear.
Who else can lay claim to such a vast cultural reach over a period of such monumental change? Whatever one feels about the monarchy as an idea, the centuries of British imperialism that it still represents, or the various members of the House of Windsor, the death of the queen is a historic event, not least because it signals the end of an era for Britain.
At Vanity Fair, we have covered the royal family for decades, examining their soft power alongside their penchant for strife and scandal. Now, as Charles becomes king, with William in waiting, we bring you more of these signature stories, remembering a monarch's life and looking ahead to the family's next act.
Yours,
Radhika
No comments:
Post a Comment