It's weird, I've never considered myself a "royalist" but this news has affected me quite strongly. I just burst into tears unexpectedly on hearing this news and I don't quite understand why I feel so very sad. I guess I have grown up and lived my whole life (as a Brit) seeing and hearing the Queen, singing "God save the Queen" etc, and this news made me suddenly feel very old, very nostalgic, with the sense that all things pass in time, which makes my heart ache deeply.
I gotta admit that it is a bit weird to see british royalty being so heavily privileged that they even get special moderation treatment here on HN to protect them (?) from any negativity, or rather stop negativity about them.
I'm not keen on the idea of using this submission to flame the Queen, I obviously agree with the general rule of avoiding flamebait, what I mean is that other HN submissions on the deaths of people certainly didn't get this special treatment. It is also not at all enforced in both directions when looking at the obviously and comically over the top positive comments of low quality which contain no real substance.
Edit: I used the wording "stop negativity" which might be misleading, since (as far as I am aware) no comments are being deleted. What I'm talking about is moderation giving out a lot of warnings and keeping a closer watch on "flamebait" violations than I've ever seen before on any submission.
> From commoners to heads of state, the queen has been known to smooth over embarrassing situations with a gentle quip or two. According to Blaikie, at a Buckingham Palace Garden Party, a woman was chatting with the queen when her cell phone embarrassingly started ringing. “You’d better answer that,” the queen told her. “It might be someone important.”
> Then there was the notorious incident that occurred during Charles and Madame de Gaulle’s state visit to Buckingham Palace. “Somebody asked Madame de Gaulle what she was most looking forward to in her retirement, which was imminent,” Blaikie writes. “Not speaking English much at all, she replied, ‘A penis.’ Consternation reigned for some time but it was the queen herself who came to the rescue. ‘Ah, happiness,’ she said.”
I remember clearly the time when Princess Diana died (1997). For me, it was THE moment when I understood the impact of the Internet. I was randomly browsing the web during the night in Mexico, and suddenly I started to see websites (I think Yahoo and MSN at that time) showing the news. I went to sleep without giving it too much attention.
Next day, all the news in my country were mentioning the death as breaking news. My mind was blown over how I knew about this very important event the night before Mexico TV broke the news.
I had a similar experience. I saw news of her death online and assumed it was some sort of hoax. When I woke up the next morning and saw it on the (TV) news I had this weird “Holy shit! The internet was right!?” moment. It was very surreal. Up until that point I hadn’t even considered that the internet could be used for much beyond screwing around and chat rooms let alone that it could be a platform for breaking news!
> My mind was blown over how I knew about this very important event the night before Mexico TV broke the news.
I've had the opposite experience. It's clear that real-time news is detrimental, and it's better for reporting to wait a bit for facts to come in and analysis to be done.
Early reporting is vague, light on facts, disjointed, facts are hedged, etc. It's really quite worthless.
This is probably the only death of a public figure that has really hit me hard. The Queen was a constant all of my life, all of my parents' lives and, indeed, a good deal of my grandparents' lives. The comfort she could bring to many is not to be underestimated in my view. When Covid-19 was kicking off in the UK, and our lives were changing in ways we couldn't predict, I remember being immensely comforted by her speech.
Her speech early in the Covid-19 era was one for the ages[1]: Short, personal, reflective of history yet with a clear call-to-action for her country. I'm not British and also found it exceptional.
Indeed, it felt like a safe, reassuring voice in a sea of panic. A voice that had been heard for decades and for me at least, represented that “keep calm and carry on” mentality. RIP
Thank you for giving this perspective. I admit my aversion towards monarchy has inclined me to ignore news of the royal family. I also perceive a correlation between tabloid coverage and triviality. I admit neither of these are good reasons to discount the Queen's impact on people, much of which was in spite of a general preference for democratic rule.
Imagine being groomed to do this job from birth, with no real way to opt out[1]. You wanted to breed horses, become a blacksmith or start a business? Get that nonsense out of your head, you're a princess!
Then, when you're 25, your daddy dies aged only 56 and after a rather brief period of mourning you get pushed into taking his job in a pompous ceremony. Now you're going to be doing this until you die. No retirement! I bet there were times where Lilibet just wanted to go to her room and cry.
I wouldn't have wanted her job for all the wealth and power that came with it.
[1] Well, you could make a big scandal about marrying an American divorcee, but that didn't go down too well for the last guy.
Monarchs all over Europe bowed out of this bullshit after WW2, so it can definitely be done. The UK monarchs rebranded themselves as "the royal family", at considerable effort and expense, so that they could carry on "enjoying" their lifestyle. Whatever enjoyment might mean in this context, in terms of the personal enjoument of one woman, who knows, and I'm not sure why I'd care either.
> Now you're going to be doing this until you die. No retirement!
If she had wanted to, at some point, abdicate in favour of Charles, that could have been arranged. It would have required a special Act of the UK Parliament (following the prior example of His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act 1936) [0] – and probably also supporting legislation in the other Commonwealth Realms (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, etc) – but no doubt the governments of the Commonwealth Realms would have obliged. It was her own decision that she did not want that. I would not be surprised if, in another 10 or 15 years, King Charles III makes a different decision, but we shall see. In recent years, monarchs abdicating due to advanced age has become rather common – the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Luxembourg, Japan, among others.
You could absolutely abdicate. You could, if you really believed in democracy, peacefully dissolve the monarchy. I understand that that would have meant losing many members of her family, and I understand on a personal level why she would not choose to do that.
She did go beyond simply maintaining the monarchy - she worked to influence legislation to, among other things, hide her personal wealth, give her and her family an exemption from seatbelt laws, and make it easier to lease land for development. Pretty minor issues all things considered, probably much more mild than the average MP, but it does not sit right with me given that she was unelected and in office for life.
Abdication and eradication of the monarchy is the only thing compatible with human rights and equality she could've done. If she wanted to get a job that's all there was to do.
- She ruled for 30% of the time since the American Revolution
- She oversaw the largest reduction of landholdings of any empire in the history of the world. Notable because it was also one of the most peaceful transitions in history -- Australia, Canada, South Africa, Israel, Egypt, etc.
- She oversaw the loss of Sterling the world reserve currency and the rise of another (the USD, EU).
This lady represents British military violence to millions of black and brown people around the world. I don't understand why people, especially the British, aren't ashamed of this person.
As a Brit I'm not a huge fan of the royal family on principle, but Queen Elizabeth has been such an excellent head of state for us you really can't fault her.
People like to make out her life was easy and that it's not fair that she inherited such a privileged position, but I think the exact opposite. Her life seemed like living hell to me. Every day for the last 70 years she's had to serve this largely ungrateful country, and she did so without complaint. Even in her 90s she took her duties extremely seriously, and I respect the hell out of her for that.
It was only a couple of days ago she invited our new PM to Balmoral Castle to form a government. She was clearly looking weak and it's been no secret that she's been struggling to fulfil her duties as Queen for a while, but even just two days before her death at the age of 96 she put on the performance that was expected of her. And she did this practically every day of her life.
RIP. I doubt anyone will ever live up to her legacy. Despite all the problems I have with the royal family, I couldn't feel more pride that she was our Queen.
I am sad for her passing. Was tuned into the news all afternoon waiting for the announcement even thought the writing was clearly on the wall and the announcement still made me tear up.
But for all the talk of duty, morals, and leadership I saw none of that in the Queen. I saw a figurehead. Shaking hands and listening but what did she contribute? Definitely not morals or direction.
People talk of her speech in 2020 during Covid in which she spoke about WW2 and how we need to stand together. And for me that just makes me feel that she could have made a huge difference in the global struggles that we are going to face coping with climate change. She could have made a real difference last year or 10 years ago. Or 40 years ago.
Her son has been more vocal about caring for the environment. Is it too much to hope that he will spend some of his influence swaying the new UK PM away from her reactionary pro-fossil fuel agenda. As the climate crisis starts to feel more and more like a existential threat is it foolish to hope for an ally.
Queen Elizabeth shepherded Britain through one of the longest periods of peace, and stability in our history. I hope King Charles will continue that tradition.
I always remember this letter she wrote in a old copy of Burke's Peerage, on why she was banning the use of foreign titles.
"As chaste women ought not to cast their eyes on any other than their own husbands, so neither ought subjects to cast their eyes upon any other prince than him whom God hath set over them. I would not have my sheep branded with another man's mark; I would not have them follow the whistle of a strange shepherd."
-Queen Elizabeth II 1926 - 2022
God save the Queen. And protect us all from strange shepherds.
As a Brit who's never really "followed" the Royals - I gotta say this makes me sad. The Queen stood for so much, in such a dignified way. May she rest in peace
> In a statement, Buckingham Palace said: "The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon. The King and the Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow."
Hearing "The King" in this context will take a long time getting used to.
I really feel that Charles should at least consider passing on the Crown to his son William. William and Kate are immensely popular. It would be a good thing for Great Britain, British people as well as for the Royal Family. Charles and Camilla are the opposite in terms of respect and popularity to William and Kate, as far as I understand. If Charles does that, he would write himself into the annals of British history. I am not from GB, so I may be misreading the situation.
I am a republican i.e. very anti-monarchist but it is a historic moment and I feel sad for some reason. The end of an era. A constant throughout the postwar period in this country. Someone my gran loved too and looked up to, so I feel pretty sad as a Brit.
[+] [-] saberience|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 2pEXgD0fZ5cF|3 years ago|reply
I'm not keen on the idea of using this submission to flame the Queen, I obviously agree with the general rule of avoiding flamebait, what I mean is that other HN submissions on the deaths of people certainly didn't get this special treatment. It is also not at all enforced in both directions when looking at the obviously and comically over the top positive comments of low quality which contain no real substance.
Edit: I used the wording "stop negativity" which might be misleading, since (as far as I am aware) no comments are being deleted. What I'm talking about is moderation giving out a lot of warnings and keeping a closer watch on "flamebait" violations than I've ever seen before on any submission.
[+] [-] mcbishop|3 years ago|reply
> Then there was the notorious incident that occurred during Charles and Madame de Gaulle’s state visit to Buckingham Palace. “Somebody asked Madame de Gaulle what she was most looking forward to in her retirement, which was imminent,” Blaikie writes. “Not speaking English much at all, she replied, ‘A penis.’ Consternation reigned for some time but it was the queen herself who came to the rescue. ‘Ah, happiness,’ she said.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/08/behind-queen-elizab...
[+] [-] hn_throwaway_99|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] the_lucifer|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simonswords82|3 years ago|reply
Anthony Eden (1955–57)
Harold Macmillan (1957–63)
Alec Douglas-Home (1963–64)
Harold Wilson (1964–70)
Edward Heath (1970–74)
Harold Wilson (1974–76)
James Callaghan (1976–79)
Margaret Thatcher (1979–90)
John Major (1990–97)
Tony Blair (1997–07)
Gordon Brown (2007–10)
David Cameron (2010–16)
Theresa May (2016–19)
Boris Johnson (2019–22)
Liz Truss (2022 (two days ago) - current)
Quite the reign! Can't help but feel a bit sad really.
[+] [-] ddlatham|3 years ago|reply
(credit for observation goes to Matt Glassman)
[+] [-] missedthecue|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Terretta|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] koheripbal|3 years ago|reply
The regular rotation of power is a feature, not a bug.
[+] [-] timeon|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ectopod|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kesava|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mytailorisrich|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ricardobayes|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xtracto|3 years ago|reply
Next day, all the news in my country were mentioning the death as breaking news. My mind was blown over how I knew about this very important event the night before Mexico TV broke the news.
May the Queen rest in Peace.
[+] [-] elliekelly|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] divbzero|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] axiolite|3 years ago|reply
I've had the opposite experience. It's clear that real-time news is detrimental, and it's better for reporting to wait a bit for facts to come in and analysis to be done.
Early reporting is vague, light on facts, disjointed, facts are hedged, etc. It's really quite worthless.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] racktash|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ath0|3 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-britain-q...
[+] [-] bennyp101|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xpe|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JAlexoid|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sdfjkl|3 years ago|reply
Then, when you're 25, your daddy dies aged only 56 and after a rather brief period of mourning you get pushed into taking his job in a pompous ceremony. Now you're going to be doing this until you die. No retirement! I bet there were times where Lilibet just wanted to go to her room and cry.
I wouldn't have wanted her job for all the wealth and power that came with it.
[1] Well, you could make a big scandal about marrying an American divorcee, but that didn't go down too well for the last guy.
[+] [-] scaramanga|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skissane|3 years ago|reply
If she had wanted to, at some point, abdicate in favour of Charles, that could have been arranged. It would have required a special Act of the UK Parliament (following the prior example of His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act 1936) [0] – and probably also supporting legislation in the other Commonwealth Realms (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, etc) – but no doubt the governments of the Commonwealth Realms would have obliged. It was her own decision that she did not want that. I would not be surprised if, in another 10 or 15 years, King Charles III makes a different decision, but we shall see. In recent years, monarchs abdicating due to advanced age has become rather common – the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Luxembourg, Japan, among others.
[0] http://www.bailii.org/uk/legis/num_act/1936/ukpga_19360003_e...
[+] [-] elil17|3 years ago|reply
She did go beyond simply maintaining the monarchy - she worked to influence legislation to, among other things, hide her personal wealth, give her and her family an exemption from seatbelt laws, and make it easier to lease land for development. Pretty minor issues all things considered, probably much more mild than the average MP, but it does not sit right with me given that she was unelected and in office for life.
[+] [-] vasco|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ClikeX|3 years ago|reply
Queen Elizabeth could've just passed on the throne to her son any time she wanted to.
[+] [-] lm28469|3 years ago|reply
Or lifelong retirement, depends how you see it
[+] [-] Bakary|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thewileyone|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cplusplusfellow|3 years ago|reply
Somehow I think those of us who also feel this way and dear Lilibet had very different experiences doing so.
[+] [-] nextstep|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] citilife|3 years ago|reply
- She ruled for 30% of the time since the American Revolution
- She oversaw the largest reduction of landholdings of any empire in the history of the world. Notable because it was also one of the most peaceful transitions in history -- Australia, Canada, South Africa, Israel, Egypt, etc.
- She oversaw the loss of Sterling the world reserve currency and the rise of another (the USD, EU).
[+] [-] rdixit|3 years ago|reply
India alone had $45 trillion dollars of wealth looted from the country: https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/how-britain-stole-dollar4...
Literally millions of Indians died as a result of deliberate policies of colonization and economic enslavement by the British.
Their history in Africa is too chilling to even recount here.
In 7 decades as a figurehead and leader of her people, she never apologized for these crimes, and continued to quietly benefit from the spoils of war.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-koh-i-noor...
[+] [-] kypro|3 years ago|reply
People like to make out her life was easy and that it's not fair that she inherited such a privileged position, but I think the exact opposite. Her life seemed like living hell to me. Every day for the last 70 years she's had to serve this largely ungrateful country, and she did so without complaint. Even in her 90s she took her duties extremely seriously, and I respect the hell out of her for that.
It was only a couple of days ago she invited our new PM to Balmoral Castle to form a government. She was clearly looking weak and it's been no secret that she's been struggling to fulfil her duties as Queen for a while, but even just two days before her death at the age of 96 she put on the performance that was expected of her. And she did this practically every day of her life.
RIP. I doubt anyone will ever live up to her legacy. Despite all the problems I have with the royal family, I couldn't feel more pride that she was our Queen.
[+] [-] badcppdev|3 years ago|reply
But for all the talk of duty, morals, and leadership I saw none of that in the Queen. I saw a figurehead. Shaking hands and listening but what did she contribute? Definitely not morals or direction.
People talk of her speech in 2020 during Covid in which she spoke about WW2 and how we need to stand together. And for me that just makes me feel that she could have made a huge difference in the global struggles that we are going to face coping with climate change. She could have made a real difference last year or 10 years ago. Or 40 years ago.
Her son has been more vocal about caring for the environment. Is it too much to hope that he will spend some of his influence swaying the new UK PM away from her reactionary pro-fossil fuel agenda. As the climate crisis starts to feel more and more like a existential threat is it foolish to hope for an ally.
The Queen is dead. Long live the King
[+] [-] irthomasthomas|3 years ago|reply
I always remember this letter she wrote in a old copy of Burke's Peerage, on why she was banning the use of foreign titles.
"As chaste women ought not to cast their eyes on any other than their own husbands, so neither ought subjects to cast their eyes upon any other prince than him whom God hath set over them. I would not have my sheep branded with another man's mark; I would not have them follow the whistle of a strange shepherd." -Queen Elizabeth II 1926 - 2022
God save the Queen. And protect us all from strange shepherds.
[+] [-] mzs|3 years ago|reply
https://www.politico.eu/article/queen-elizabeth-death-plan-b...
[+] [-] faxmeyourcode|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deadcore|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] type_Ben_struct|3 years ago|reply
Rest in peace.
[+] [-] paxys|3 years ago|reply
Hearing "The King" in this context will take a long time getting used to.
[+] [-] g42gregory|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmfldn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pigtailgirl|3 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgQpcC-ne64
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rd1v2OX6vE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAD6P_y-ZAo --