What was Queen Elizabeth's greatest achievement? Being given a pass by the press and public

 

Like probably for most people in the world, Queen Elizabeth II, who passed away this week,  was the only queen (or king) of Britain during their lifetimes. She was never heard to say anything in public that wasn’t carefully scripted, so she at least appeared to the public as a “rock” and an island of “stability” in a world of change—and scandal. In his televised speech following her death, the new King Charles III told us how his mother had devoted her life to the service of “her people.” What does that mean, exactly, outside of doing royal “duties” that were little more than staged pageantry? Most other European countries are ditched the façade—which seems to explain why Elizabeth’s children all married “commoners” because of the lack of available potential suitors of “royal” blood. I recall this line from A Man For All Seasons:

As you stand you'll go before your Maker ill conditioned. He'll think that, somewhere back along your pedigree, a bitch got over the wall!

Whatever went on behind the scenes, publically the Queen remained infallible for the most part in the eyes of the British people, although elsewhere, particularly in the U.S., the royal family was just a bunch of actors paid to stage historical reenactments to entertain the public. The Queen was the lead performer, and she was expected to be a model citizen. But even if she was something else behind the scenes, it didn’t matter as time went on—people just got used to the idea of her and they had not a real choice in the matter. As Noah Cross in Chinatown said:

Of course I’m respectable. I’m old. Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.”

Of course we probably shouldn’t expect the royal family now to be “better” than the rest of us just because they have titles. Britain still passes out “royal” honorifics as if they actually mean something; in most countries, addressing someone as “sir” is a sign of respect (save for the military, where it is an acknowledgment of rank), but in Britain, it is supposed to be an acknowledgment of accomplishment, like being a billionaire or famous actor—although to be honest if someone with the credits of Joan Collins can become a “Dame,” it rather cheapens the title.

But hell, nobody would care at all if the royal family was just a bunch of stiff upper lips who were no “fun” at all. If we examine the past history of the Queen’s family, we find that her line was “accidental.” After members of the ruling House of Stuart was barred from the throne by the Act of Settlement by parliament  to ensure a Protestant claimant to the throne, for over three centuries the Britain has been ruled by two houses that originated in Protestant Germany—the House of Hanover, and the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Queen Victoria was on the Hanover side, her husband Albert from the latter). During World War I, when Britain was at war with Germany, King George V saw it necessary for public relations purposes to change the royal house name to House of Windsor, which it is still referred to this day.

The British royal family’s “fascination” with maintaining its German heritage continued. Queen Victoria insisted on keeping control of the dukedom of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha by forcing her young grandson Charles Edward, the Duke of Albany, to assume the title. Charles Edward tried to be a “good” German, and he made the fateful choice to remain in his adopted country during World War I, and then was an early supporter of Hitler, which suited both Hitler’s desire to be seen in the company of people of “noble birth”…

 

…and Charles Edward’s desire to be “important” again, as Hitler gave him government positions. Naturally all of this made him persona non grata in Britain. But at least he wasn’t acting in a “treasonous” way, like, say, Edward Duke of Windsor, who as king abdicated his throne for “the woman I love,” the American divorcee Wallace Simpson. Both, it appears, were Nazi sympathizers who just wanted Britain and Germany to be on the same side, since, after all, the newly-minted House of Windsor was technically German too:

 

Which of course meant doing the Nazi salute. Who is that girl who is with the soon to be temporary king practicing a Nazi salute in this image, along with her mother?

 

The Duke and Duchess angered many in Britain for their support of the Nazis, and they decided to live in “exile” in France for a time. When WWII broke out, they fled to “neutral” Spain, where they were known to remain sympathetic to the Nazis. Hitler approved a plan called “Operation Willi” in which it was hoped that if Britain was “conquered,” the Duke would be installed as a figurehead king; Simpson was alleged to be “intrigued” by the plan. But Churchill moved to forestall such an embarrassing outcome by ordering the Duke and Duchess to take a position in the Bahamas, where it was hoped they wouldn’t get into any more mischief.

All that was just a precursor of what was to follow flowing from the family bloodline. There was the various sexual dalliances and improprieties involving Princess Margaret (who had an extramarital affair with a much younger gardener), Prince Phillip (allegedly had an affair with the wife of the Queen’s private secretary), Charles and Diana cheating on each other, the failed marriage of “Randy Andy” to Sarah Ferguson, and his finding “comfort” in the arms of young “women” provided through his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. Princess Anne's first marriage broke-up due to mutual infidelities; Prince Edward has been relatively scandal-free, only accused of the relatively mundane privileges of the privileged, like reneging on his pledge to join the Royal Marines after they had agreed to sponsor his questionable admittance to Cambridge, and using his position to make money in the entertainment business.   

Aside from the "Mexit" mess, Prince Harry was accused of “cheating” at Eton, and was known as a “wild child” doing embarrassing things like being busted for smoking pot and wearing a Nazi uniform as a “prank.” Even Prince William hasn’t totally escaped from scandal; there had been rumors that he and Kate had broken up before about William seeing other women, and in the last month the tabloids were again dredging up old stories about this.

The best thing that can be said about Queen Elizabeth is that she lived a long time relatively free from personal scandal. But on the other hand, she doesn’t seem to have been a very good mother, or had much influence over her kin in regard to reining in their bad behavior. She was given a pass by the press and public at large, and that is what probably can be said to be her “greatest” achievement.