Queen Elizabeth II: The One Constant in an Inconstant World

She did not complain. She did not call in sick. She did not descend into self-pity. She did not deviate from tradition, at least not if she could help it. She did not show her emotions in public. When her beloved husband, Prince Philip, died during the dark days of Covid, she adhered to government guidelines by sitting apart from everyone else at his funeral, the picture of stiff-upper-lip stoicism and rectitude in black mourning clothes and two face masks.

Queen Elizabeth II was an analog celebrity in a digital age, perhaps the most famous, and famously inscrutable, woman in a world more inclined toward oversharing reality TV stars and internet influencers. Discreet, reserved, impassive of expression and reticent of manner, she embodied traditional British values and was as remarkable for the things she did not do — in service of her sense of duty and self-discipline — as for the things she did.

Even before she became queen at the impossibly young age of 25 — the newly elevated King Charles III, her son, is 73 — Elizabeth set the tone for her reign by declaring, in effect, that the job was bigger than the person.

“I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong,” she said on the occasion of her 21st birthday.

As it happened, her life was very long, indeed; her family is known for its longevity. (Her mother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, died in 2002, at the age of 101.) And as the years went on, she became a symbol of nothing so much as continuity, an immutable figure in a constantly changing world. She provided a link to a simpler time in a Britain that seemed increasingly fractured, fractious and uncertain of itself or its role in the world.