Essays in Idleness

Today is the “Platinum Jubilee” of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II — some seventy years on the Canadian throne (as also incidentally on that of the United Kingdom, Australia, Tuvalu, and other countries). She is the first Britannic Monarch to achieve this. We should pause from all trivial events, and unnecessary thoughts, to celebrate this unprecedented anniversary. Her subjects are blessed, and have for so long been blessed, with a fine and adequate ruler. She has seen them through an incomparable ring of years and changes.

Not every nation of the British heritage deserves such a monarch, and indeed many have broken the royal connexion in displays of tawdry narcissism. Members of her own family have also failed her, and the governments over which she has presided have been a constant source of embarrassment. Yet Her Majesty, and the late beloved Prince Philip, have borne all these modern indignities with grace and extraordinary patience.

Thy choicest gifts in store,
On her be pleased to pour:
Long may she reign!