Bruce Arthur: Queen Elizabeth’s death feels like the final moment in the end of the British Empire
There aren't many people left whose deaths can shake the world, but the Queen was one. Flags were lowered in nations around the globe; in Canada and elsewhere, government protocols suddenly changed. In Ireland it was said there were celebratory fireworks, alongside the official message of condolence; in Britain people gathered outside the castles, as Brits sometimes do. There was a moment of silence before the Buffalo Bills played the Los Angeles Rams to kick off the NFL season. Some things are just ... significant.
Queen Elizabeth II was the most famous woman on Earth and now she's died, and it's surreal no matter how you felt about her, or the monarchy, or having to accept that Charles is finally King. Britain had been preparing for the moment in elaborate detail for decades: if there is anything the British can still do, it's ceremony and event management. The Queen was 96. When the family rushed to Balmoral Castle in Scotland, and she wasn't going to hospital, you knew. This was, at some point, expected.
But she had lasted forever, so it was still a shock. The Queen was just always ... there. Her face is on our money and our stamps and in Legion halls across the country, and has been there for longer than most of us have been alive. It was her face we used to squash by putting pennies on railroad tracks, or pushed into slots at the arcade. The British Royal Family is a myth and an industry and she was the first modern monarch, true to her duty, long to reign over us, God save the Queen. You could feel like you knew her, even if few really did. It's probably why her death hit a few people harder than expected.
But now the Queen is gone, and an era dies with her. There shouldn't be much of a debate over the role of the monarchy in Canada, because we set the constitutional bar so high it is unlikely to be reached; no, Charles will wind up on our money for a time, and it won't feel the same. Elizabeth was probably the last royal who feels bigger than the Royal Family, though; from here it's Charles and Camilla, then William and Kate, and god knows where we're at then. It will feel smaller now, less grand. The bonds will weaken.
Because she was one of one, this Queen. The best anecdote that went around Thursday was from the memoirs of British war doctor David Nott, who recalled nearly bursting into tears as she asked about his time in Syria. The Queen noticed, touched his arm, called for dog biscuits, and they fed her corgis and she talked about the dogs until he felt better, and she said, There, that's so much better than talking, isn't it?"
Nott said she reminded him of his mother, whom he had lost. You suspect a lot of people in Britain felt that way. In a way, the Queen was one of the world's great triumph of branding. The modernization of the monarchy was limited to tightly controlled appearances and paying some taxes, but her power as a symbol - who worked, who endured, who radiated a regal sort of importance - burnished the dented, tarnished Royal Family as lesser royals divorced, or died, or had to pay $13-million to one of Jeffrey Epstein's child sex victims, or fled. The royals are a gossip show; the Queen was the institution.
But the symbolism resonated because there was real strength in there, and she held up for all those years, uncomplaining to the end, as the empire slid away. We'll find out more about the extent of the Queen's guiding hand in Britain as the years go on, but the partition of India occurred under her father; the year of her coronation was the first year of Kenya's fight for independence, and Kenya is still the primary source of Britain's beloved tea. Mass decolonization occurred early in her reign in Africa, and the Caribbean, and Singapore and Malaysia, and more: Barbados was the last nation to sever ties completely in her lifetime, in 2021. She did manage to create the idea of the Commonwealth, sure. But the empire has been in retreat for as long as she's been Queen.
Which is probably one reason the symbolism and myth mattered so much to Britain. Colonial history isn't just history: the royal sceptre contains The Star of Africa, the world's second-largest diamond, shipped from Pretoria by the colonial government there in 1902. A group in Kenya is currently suing Britain for up to $200 billion in the European Court of Human Rights for colonial crimes. The Queen's final public statement was a message of condolence to those who lost loves ones in the Saskatchewan attacks, and on the day she died Indigenous leaders on the James Smith Cree Nation called on the provincial and federal governments to do more to curb violence and substance addiction on the reserve; James Smith Cree Nation was established in 1876 in an agreement with the Crown.
The British Empire cast long, dark shadows, but the monarchy allowed Brits to feel like they were still connected to a glorious past, and what for England was less grubby days. Now the nation is a perpetual parody of upper-class rot, all Brexit and Bojo, a careless pandemic and idiot PMs. As Sam Knight once wrote in The Guardian of the plans for the Queen's death, It will be 10 days of sorrow and spectacle in which, rather like the dazzling mirror of the monarchy itself, we will revel in who we were and avoid the question of what we have become."
It all felt like watching the end of the empire, and everyone affected is allowed to mourn or celebrate accordingly. She was admirable even if the institution wasn't, and that's better than most places, these days.
Bruce Arthur is a Toronto-based columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @bruce_arthur