On the Passing of Queen Elizabeth, II: Some lighter thoughts (for the most part)

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"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation"

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As is well known, the death at 96 Elizabeth II, "Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth Realms" occurred on Sept. 8 of this year. Much has been written about her, about British Royalty, about the British Empire over which she and her forbears ruled, then presided, for so many centuries now. Certainly, from the left-perspective (which as my regular readers know, I certainly share) there already has been much criticism set forth of British royalty in general, of this Queen in particular, and of the institution of the British Empire, which has done so much evil around the world over the centuries, e.g., the brutal colonizations on the Indian sub-continent, Africa, and the Caribbean, and the wreaking of the so-called Opium Wars on China.

Over the years of I have written on various aspects of this history myself. However, in this column I am going to share some lighter thoughts, on various aspects of my personal history/experience with Great Britain and on British history as well (and yes, on the latter, there are indeed some lighter thoughts). That is until we get to the end of this column. It details a rather dark episode in the history of the British Royal Famil y, one which lead directly to this particular person becoming Queen, an occurence that in no way was foreordained when she was born. But for now, let's get on to the lighter stuff.

I am a Quarter English (sort of)

Yes, indeed, my maternal grandfather, one Jacob Kyzor, always regarded himself as English, as least originally. Whether the "English" regarded him (or would regard him) as English is another matter. Actually, his parents were Russian Jews who somehow managed to escape the Pale sometime in the 1860s and made their way to London, where they settled into the "East End," home in those days to many formerly European Jews. Although Grandpa Jacob liked to tell stories from his youth in London, and his time in the United States after an older brother helped bring him over at the age of 19 in 1895, he did not talk to me about parents (and I must admit that as a boy, I never asked).

But one story he liked to tell me about himself was that as a lad, on Saturday evenings, he and friends, without shoes, would run up from the East End to the theatre district on Shaftesbury Ave. (a distance of 4-5 miles) to, when the theaters let out, stand behind a hansom cab, and when it had collected a fare then run behind it until the passengers' distance was reached, and then run around to one door or 'tohter hoping to get a farthing (a quarter of a Penny) tip for their efforts. On my many trips to London (for some years now I have said that I am lucky enough to have been to London more times than I can remember), when in the Theater District I would visualize Grandpa Jacob doing just that.

I do have to say that despite the Imperial History, I have always had a great fondness for England and the English, and was lucky enough to have been able to spend two years in London on a post-doctoral fellowship at the University College of London and then the London School of Economics, 1963-65. It was my year at the LSE that set me on the road to the career in preventive medicine/public health (with some history and politics thrown in) that I have enjoyed so much. My first wife, with whom I am still good friends, is English. Although she has lived in this country for many years, she still has close family in England, and of course, the accent never goes away(!) And I still have a few friends in England with whom I stay in touch on occasion.

I do have to mention that when my first wife and I came to this country (me returning, she immigrating) in the summer of 1965, we crossed on the Cunard Lines' first Queen Elizabeth. It had been named after Elizabeth II's mother, also a Queen Elizabeth, the wife of the Elizabeth's II's father, George VI. It was a pre-World War II vessel, slightly larger than its forebear, the Queen Mary, which was named after the wife of George V, Queen Elizabeth II's grandmother. As to who was who among Mary and the Elizabeths, when the younger Elizabeth became of Queen of the United Kingdom, her mother became the Queen Mother and her grandmother (still very much alive) the Dowager Queen Mother. (Yes, politics aside, I just love this stuff!)

Just a further note on the names of the liners of two major English steamship companies from the 19^th century (other than the then two, now four, Queens). Those of the Cunard Line ended in "ia," and those of the White Star Line ended in "ic." One of each of course came to a tragic end, the "Titanic" and the "Lusitania." Beginning in the 1930s, the White Star Line was gradually merged into Cunard, the process finishing up in 1947.

The British Constitution and The Role of the Monarch

Let us begin with what many regard as the end of any controlling governmental power lying in the hands of the English Monarch. And that would be in late 1917, during the First World War, when the then Prime Minister David Lloyd George wanted to make a provision for the Russian Czar Nicholas I, just overthrown by the Russian Revolution, to be offered a safe haven in the United Kingdom. Fearing that that move might look very bad for himself politically, George V overruled the P.M. and prevented his own cousin, the last Czar, from finding refuge. And that was the last time, as far as I know, that any English monarch tried to play a direct role in any governmental decision. They could offer their opinions (at least up to Elizabeth II) but they no longer had any decision-making authority.

It has been said that power and authority in what became Great Britain has been in transition in fits and starts from the monarchy to Parliament and its predecessors since the Magna Carta was agreed to by King John (and, by the way there has never been another English King by that name) in 1215. Without going into any of the details here, one major waypoint was the Glorious Revolution of 1688, in which the Stuart (Scottish) James II, a Catholic, was deposed in favor of his daughter Mary, a Protestant, and her husband, a Dutch Protestant and ruler-in-law of Holland, William III of Orange. That marked the (slow-to-be-sure) beginning of the end of any Royal authority (with a few exceptions like George III), leading down to George V's exerting his authority over a major (sic) matter: keeping his royal cousin from coming to Great Britain for refuge.

And so, Elizabeth II certainly had no Constitutional or legal power/authority. But for many Britons she, shall we say, somehow "embodies the nation," and its nationhood. The modern English monarch simply has a role to play --- that one. In the view of many including myself, Elizabeth II played it extremely well, right up until the end of her life. And for this, I consider her to have been the greatest actress of the 20^th century.

My Personal Experiences with Queen Elizabeth II

No, I never did meet her, I never even came close. But I did hear and see her at important times when she was a young girl and I was a younger lad. In October, 1940, following the end of the Battle of Britain on September 15 of that year and the gradual intensification of the "Blitz" (German bombing) of England which began on September 7, as the children, especially of London, were being evacuated to the countryside, Princess Elizabeth gave a speech over the radio to those children, exhorting them to be brave. (Interestingly enough, while Prime Minister Winston Churchill wanted the Royal Family to go into exile in Canada, George VI refused and they stayed in Buckingham Palace throughout the War.)

It is possible that I heard the October, 1940 speech (I was three). Although I don't remember hearing it, the radio in our living room was tuned to the news constantly during the day in my parents' apartment in New York City and the speech was certainly broadcast/re-broadcast in the U.S. So, I likely did hear it, just as I almost certainly heard Edward R. Murrow's famous broadcasts from London during the Blitz starting just a month later.

I definitely recall seeing the newsreels of Elizabeth and her younger sister Margaret on the balcony at Buckingham Palace during the war, both wearing Ladies' Territorial Army uniforms. Elizabeth eventually became an automobile mechanic.

What's in a Name

The new King is of course Charles III. I must say that I find this choice odd, especially since modern Great Britain is a Constitutional Monarchy. The first Charles, a Scot descended from the Stuart rulers of Scotland, had a tempestuous relationship with Parliament and many of the English people. He firmly believed in the Divine Right of Kings, Parliament firmly did not, he was eventually deposed by a parliament led by Oliver Cromwell, and lost 'is 'ed in 1649. The Stuarts returned to the throne in the person of Charles II in 1660 (bringing with him those wonderful Stuart spaniels, the "Queen's Corgis" equivalent of the time).

Charles II died in 1685, succeeded by his brother, as James II. (Charles had tons of children, but none were legitimate and thus eligible for the throne.) James had a stormy relationship with Parliament and was overthrown in the above-mentioned Glorious Revolution. But he had a son, the famous "Bonnie Prince Charlie" (of "Over the Sea to Skye" fame). He would have been Charles III if he had succeeded in overthrowing the Hanoverian monarchy (imported like that of William of Orange) which started with George I in 1714, a quest undertaken over many years that ended in 1746 at the famous battle of Culloden.

So, why choose "Charles?" Who knows, except that I suppose that he didn't like any of the other three names that he could have chosen upon ascending the throne: "Philip, Arthur, and George." By the way I am hardly the only one who has wondered at Charles' choosing of that name, given its tempestuous history.

Finally: How Elizabeth became Queen; One of the Ugliest Chapters in English History

As is well-known, Elizabeth's father, George VI, became King only because her uncle, a previous Prince of Wales who had inherited the throne upon the death of his father, George V, had fairly quickly abdicated that throne in favor of George VI. The common story behind the abdication is that he was head-over-heels in love with an American divorcee (twice) one Wallis Simpson (who had had as one of her lovers not too long before she became the mistress of the future Edward VIII, a then-future Nazi Foreign Minister, then Ambassador to the Court of St. James, Joachim von Ribbentrop). But that was hardly it. The true story is here, drawn (with sources, from a previous column of mine.

Like many members of the British aristocracy and industrial ruling class as well, in the 1930s the Prince became quite attracted to Nazi Germany and fascism. This attraction was both for how it controlled its working class at home and how, it was hoped, it would eventually lead to the destruction of the hated Soviet Union abroad. In fact, after his abdication, in Nov. 1937 the Duke had a private meeting with Adolf Hitler that lasted for 50 minutes. There is no extant record of what was discussed at that meeting. But when he was still the Prince of Wales, as the war clouds began to spread over Europe once again in the mid-1930s, he had made it quite clear that he was sympathetic to the "German way of doing things."

The English political ruling class, dominated by the Conservative (Tory) Party at the time, was split on the subject. They were concerned with German rearmament and Hitler's increasingly aggressive foreign policy on the one hand, but on the other they thought too that he might be able to be focused in what he had called the "Drang nach Osten," the drive to the East, to destroy the jointly hated communists and the Soviet Union. At the same time, despite that hoped-for "Drang nach Osten" (to get Hitler to focus exclusively on it was the real purpose of the Munich Agreement of 1938), many in the British ruling class thought that the U.K. might once again be facing a heavily armed Germany on the European mainland.

While this was going on, they faced the possibility of having a King who was at some level a Nazi-sympathizer. Then Edward bailed them out. (In my view, he was pushed out). George V died on January 20, 1936. The Prince of Wales became Edward VIII. He insisted that as King he would marry Mrs. Simpson. And so, publicly, it all had to do with Mrs. Simpson and, shall we say her "complicated" past (complicated further by the fact that she was U.S.). She was a) once divorced, b) still married to her second husband with a divorce-in-process, c) a commoner, and d) a U.S. to boot. And so, publicly again, Edward "gave up the throne for the woman he loved," abdicated on December 10, 1936, and became the Duke of Windsor.

As the Duke he of course continued to be a right-winger, who thought that fascism had a lot to offer to the Western nations struggling through the Depression. He was rabidly ant-Soviet. In terms of dealing with Germany and Italy he was actually a pacifist until September 3, 1939 when the United Kingdom declared war on Germany following its invasion of Poland. But even after that he plumped for a separate peace settlement between Nazi Germany and the U.K., especially following the Fall of France in June 1940. And then going well beyond the pale, that summer whilst still at his villa in the South of France, through intermediaries he consorted with the Nazis, and after France's abject surrender, then in Spain and Portugal as he and his wife were slowly making their way out of Occupied Europe.

As it happened, in the summer of 1940, before and during the early days of the Battle of Britain, a German invasion of the U.K. seemed a certainty and a then-German victory almost inevitable. During that brief period, Hitler and the Nazi High Command actually envisioned either restoring Edward to the throne of a conquered nation or converting it into a Republic with Edward as President. It is certainly unclear to what extent Edward bought into this idea and how much of it was discussed with him through the Spanish and Portuguese intermediaries as he dallied on the European mainland before getting back to the UK. Did he ever buy into the idea, did he listen intently, did he reject it out of hand? Which alternative is not known. But he certainly was pursuing having the U.K. engage in peace negotiations with Germany during that summer.

How do we know all this? Well, detailed files from the German side of what went on in Portugal and Spain at that time between the Duke, (to re-emphasize, through intermediaries not directly), and the Nazis, those files called collectively by the Germans "the Windsor file," emerged after the War (despite the best efforts of both the Tories and the post-war Labour government to keep them hidden if not destroyed). But it has never been clear what exactly happened in that fevered time. As Andrew Morton said in his book "17 Carnations," was Edward a "Traitor King or a Duped Duke?"

In my view then, however much he was in love with Wallis Simpson, the Duke, who had had many lovers over the course of his life (as had she), did not abdicate because of his love for her. I believe that: A) he didn't want to be King with no power as the British Constitution would have required him to be, B) he really thought that things might change in that regard should there be a war that Germany could very well win, and alternatively C) he didn't really want to be the titular leader of Great Britain in any prolonged war (which of course it turned out to be). To be sure, in the above-noted negotiations, he was always VERY careful to make sure that his representatives never actually said what it was he wanted and what he might accept. Whatever that might have been, he certainly did not want to become the first English former sovereign to be executed for treason since Charles I.

And oh yes, Winston must have known all about this. For why else would he have sent the newly minted Duke of Windsor (with the former Mrs. Simpson) to be, for the duration of the war, the British Consul, in (wait for it) --- The Bahamas?

And so, that's how Elizabeth actually came to be Queen of England. Her famous uncle was at least flirting with, not only Mrs. Simpson, but also with the idea of becoming a traitor to the English throne. Not, in fact, a fun fact. And with that fact, 'tho there is much more to tell, we shall end it here.

(Article changed on Sep 15, 2022 at 8:47 PM EDT)