My sainted mother was a Newfie of pure Irish descent, with fiery red hair and a tempestuous, but lovable, temperament to match. She had small use for the British monarchy except for the current reigning monarch who she adored. My own fondness for Queen Elizabeth dates from the following:
Queen Elizabeth after 9-11, breaking with royal protocol, ordered the playing of The Star Spangled Banner at Buckingham Palace:
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Yuck. Hasn’t been a monarch of England worth a bucket of warm spit since the fall of the Stuarts. Still anti-Catholic, still anti-Irish freedom. Wonder how they’ll fare under the coming British caliphate?
Actually Queen Elizabeth throughout her reign has forged closer ties with the Vatican than any British monarch since Henry VIII. As for anti-Irish freedom, by the time of her birth the Irish Free State was in existence. If the Brits would leave Northern Ireland, the result would be a war with a somewhat expanded Ulster state as the result. As for a British caliphate, judging from the collapse of Catholicism in the former land of saints and scholars, and the bitter pro-Palestinian sentiment there against Israel, I would not bet against an Irish caliphate coming into existence far sooner than a British one.
Her Majesty is a pillar of old-school devotion to duty, bless her. At 90 she
keeps a schedule that would probably have our golfer-in-chief Obama
curled up in the fetal position and crying.
I like her, too– reminds me of my grandmother. (Who also had little use for the English… along with pretty much every group that wasn’t the same group of Scottish protestants, and not many of them while you’re at it. Somehow almost everybody was an exception. 😀 )
My sainted mother also approved of Her Royal Highness. She is a fine public figure. Today, the number of such virtuous luminaries is very small.