Today They Said Prince Philip Died
Change has happened, the Queen is now alone.
Today we live in a different country, who knows what tomorrow may bring.
This is not the passing of a President or a Prime Minister, this is the passing of a century. Prince Philip's parents attended Queen Victoria's funeral, at the very dawn of the 20th century, before humankind knew how to build aeroplanes, before Potemkin, when Russia was still an unassailable monarchy. As his sisters supported Nazi Germany, Prince Philip served his adopted country during WWII in what would become his future wife's navy, as his future wife served in the uniform of her father's Empire facing the very real dangers of the home-front.
He celebrated with us his wife's coronation as Everest was conquered for the first time in human history, as her Empire was dismantled and humankind began to reach for the stars; her silver jubilee in the same year we lost Elvis and Star Wars was released; and her diamond jubilee as it became certain she would be the longest reigning monarch in our long history of monarchs, stretching back to the Caesars of Rome. He will not be at her side for her platinum jubilee, and his passing reminds us all of the mortality of our own precious old-folk, be they aunts and uncles, parents, grand-parents or great-grandparents - and that of the Queen too. Nobody under the age of seventy will remember another monarch on our throne, another face on our stamps, or on our currency, another consort seated beside the monarch.
They coined the term 'New Elizabethans' in those heady, optimistic days after the war, when the cold war was new, but officially the future was still bright with atomic promise. We're not that yet, but we will be one day - and as that first Elizabeth stood famously alone, this Elizabeth will always be associated with that paid-up member of the awkward-squad, the prickly, gaff-prone and steadfast Duke she relied on as her stay. On whom does she lean now?
It is not unexpected to hear of the passing of a man who has reached ninety-nine years of age, but long after the tabloids have reduced serious questions about how we treat each other into vapid footnotes in history about who said what to whom in the palace corridors of the early 21st century, who now remembers why the Tsar, doppelganger cousin to King George V, was not whisked to safety from the clutches of the coup-makers as the infant Prince Philip was by a British warship, these remain the moments upon which history turns.
And turn it has, perhaps more gently than during the wars and revolutions that vexed the history of this country during the 20th century. But change has happened and a new era of history creeps uncertainly upon us.
Today we live in a different country, who knows what tomorrow may bring.
This is not the passing of a President or a Prime Minister, this is the passing of a century. Prince Philip's parents attended Queen Victoria's funeral, at the very dawn of the 20th century, before humankind knew how to build aeroplanes, before Potemkin, when Russia was still an unassailable monarchy. As his sisters supported Nazi Germany, Prince Philip served his adopted country during WWII in what would become his future wife's navy, as his future wife served in the uniform of her father's Empire facing the very real dangers of the home-front.
He celebrated with us his wife's coronation as Everest was conquered for the first time in human history, as her Empire was dismantled and humankind began to reach for the stars; her silver jubilee in the same year we lost Elvis and Star Wars was released; and her diamond jubilee as it became certain she would be the longest reigning monarch in our long history of monarchs, stretching back to the Caesars of Rome. He will not be at her side for her platinum jubilee, and his passing reminds us all of the mortality of our own precious old-folk, be they aunts and uncles, parents, grand-parents or great-grandparents - and that of the Queen too. Nobody under the age of seventy will remember another monarch on our throne, another face on our stamps, or on our currency, another consort seated beside the monarch.
They coined the term 'New Elizabethans' in those heady, optimistic days after the war, when the cold war was new, but officially the future was still bright with atomic promise. We're not that yet, but we will be one day - and as that first Elizabeth stood famously alone, this Elizabeth will always be associated with that paid-up member of the awkward-squad, the prickly, gaff-prone and steadfast Duke she relied on as her stay. On whom does she lean now?
It is not unexpected to hear of the passing of a man who has reached ninety-nine years of age, but long after the tabloids have reduced serious questions about how we treat each other into vapid footnotes in history about who said what to whom in the palace corridors of the early 21st century, who now remembers why the Tsar, doppelganger cousin to King George V, was not whisked to safety from the clutches of the coup-makers as the infant Prince Philip was by a British warship, these remain the moments upon which history turns.
And turn it has, perhaps more gently than during the wars and revolutions that vexed the history of this country during the 20th century. But change has happened and a new era of history creeps uncertainly upon us.