Thoughts on the Queen of Canada

 May 18, 2022

During my lifetime to date, there have been 13 Presidents of the United States. Also, during my lifetime to date, there have been 12 Prime Ministers of Canada and 11 premiers of the Province of Ontario.

However, in my lifetime to date there has also been only one monarch: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. For those who don’t know, and I am certain there are many, Her Majesty is not only Queen of Great Britain but the Queen of Canada. Her “style” (how she is recognized) officially in Canada is: “Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom, Canada, and Her other Realms and Territories, Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.”

As were my parents before me, I am proud to claim Her Majesty as my queen.

She represents and truly is the greatest single example of public service done right that I can think of. She made this promise, over the radio on her twenty-first birthday: “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.” In the years since, she has always put her duty first. She knows how to put country before self, a lesson that many of today’s so-called public servants (aka elected officials), in any country, would do well to emulate. Any officials, that is, except President Zelensky. He’s got it right.

From time to time through the years when I’ve heard or read of speculation that she might retire, or abdicate, I’ve just shaken my head. No, I would say to anyone who would listen, she will do no such thing. She promised to serve for her entire life. She is a woman of her word.

I really wish there were more people in the arena today who were as steadfast in their word, and as honorable in the keeping of their promises, as is my Queen.

As we were watching some footage of H.M. at the Jubilee Horse show on Monday, I became quite emotional. I felt so very happy that she was beaming and having a good time. She loves her horses, and all horses, and always seems so happy whenever she is pictured near them. As well, the show featured her granddaughter, Lady Louise Windsor, driving the carriage that the late Prince Phillip used to drive in horse competitions. Family—her family especially—is very important to H.M.

She may strip a liegeman of titles and honors for cause, as a Queen is sometimes required by duty to do; but she would never completely turn her back on a son—and rare is the mother who ever would.

Her own mother, who after her husband’s death and the ascension of her daughter asked not to be referred to as the Dowager Queen (as was the custom), but the Queen Mother, also believed in duty and family.  Folks sometimes focus on the wrong thing. One might say of the Royal Family, well, they’ve always had pots of money, haven’t they?

But pots of money did not protect the relative privacy of the marriage and home life of Prince Albert Edward, the Duke of York and his Duchess, Elizabeth Bowes Lyons and their two young daughters. When his older brother, Edward VIII turned his back on his duty—when he put himself before his country—the Duke of York became the king he hoped he never would have to be. Pots of money did not protect the King from succumbing at a relatively young age to cancer. Pots of money do not, in short, protect anyone from the vagaries of fate or the reality of life.

In the end, the sort of person you become has nothing to do with money, or prestige.  It is the result of the choices that you have made through your lifetime. One may choose to follow unprincipled leaders and turn their backs on their duty and even, apparently, on decency.

Or one may make a pledge at the age of twenty-one and still be keeping that promise some seventy-five years later.

It is all of it, very simply, a choice that one makes.  

 

Love,

Morgan

http://morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury