by Otto English at Politico
Like Oscar Zoroaster, the eponymous Wizard of the fictional land of Oz, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, who has died aged 96, led a curious double life.
On the one hand, she played the part of Queen Elizabeth II — a revered figure who donned crowns, opened parliaments and asked people who they were and what they did at garden parties. It was she who stared out Mona Lisa-like from banknotes and who became head of state to 150 million people, from Papua New Guinea to Canada, and one of the most famous people of her time.
The queen was an icon, in the literal sense. She inspired Andy Warhol screen prints, tea towels, Beatles hits and the risible efforts of poet laureates from John Masefield to Simon Armitage.
“God save the queen!” the Sex Pistols sang in 1977. “She ain’t no human being!” And they made a compelling point.
Lauded globally — she stood alongside the Dalai Lama and the pope as one of those rare definite articles who seemed to be above scrutiny. So much so that even die-hard republicans would temper their calls for an end to the monarchy by saying: “But the queen has done a fantastic job.”
She succeeded at that job, in no small part, by making a virtue out of silence. She stubbornly refused to be interviewed, examined or subjected to scrutiny. While younger royals broke the fourth wall of monarchy, the queen remained quiet and immutable.
Indeed, it was by keeping her official alter ego as vague as the unwritten British constitution, and her private persona hidden away altogether, that Elizabeth II became the most successful sovereign since Victoria, bringing relevance to a feudal institution that was 200 years past its sell-by date.
But because of that, in writing the story of her life, it is almost impossible to find out who she really was beneath the hats and robes and jewels.
The queen was an abstraction: a role, like any other — and it was the person behind her, Elizabeth Windsor, who expertly played the part.
The world’s papers will be full of obituaries of the queen today.
This is the life of Elizabeth Windsor.
* * *
She was born by cesarean section on April 21, 1926, to her mother…
Continue Reading