A Queen for Today!

By 

Michael Henry Adams, Contributor

Writer, Lecturer, Historian and Activist

May. 22, 2009, 05:12 AM EDT | Updated Dec. 6, 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still reigning, still smiling, after 70 event-filled years!

 

 

The Glorious Queen Elizabeth Rose

 

Who has worked with more fidelity, harder or better, and for so long, at a tiresomely thankless job, and done so little wrong? It is the lovely Queen of England, HM Elizabeth!  She exhibits perhaps not the showiness of John Donne’s metaphysics nor John Keat’s lyric lines, but is as sustaining as the great John Milton’s prose, with an elusive omnipresence like the fragrance of a rose? April 21, 2022, was Queen Elizabeth's 96th birthday, (as opposed to her "official birthday", celebrated on the first, second or third Saturday, in June, not in April, never in May! But that is not date we celebrate today! Her Majesty succeeded her father King George, IV, ascending as Elizabeth, II, seventy years ago and was crowned at Westminster Abbey June 2, 1953.  Her Majesty’s accession, inaugurating a reign of seventy years, is a anniversary that some, describe as “Platinum”.  

 

All her life the Queen has worn memorable hats

What on earth might one get, to recognize someone held so dear, someone special who, for all intents and purposes, I fear, already possesses everything fit to set before a queen?

To edify her regal deeds, she's many ropes of luscious beads, enhancing equally, silk, fine linen, velvet or tweeds, no matter what she wears. No long blond wigs, or weaves, or rats, the Queen has many lovey hats. Hats, which from in her early youth, she's worn throughout the year in truth, to lend events, at which hats ought to be worn, a jolly spot of cheer and dash an appropriate amount of the Royal panache. Handsome handbags also, it's most excellently clear, are indispensably favored as the proper queenly gear.

 

 

In 1949, then Princess Elizabeth, and Prince Philip Mountbatten had been married for two years and already produced, 'an heir and a spare', Prince Philip and Princess Anne.

 

 

Though devoid of Greek ancestry, and without a Golden Fleece, she wed her distant cousin, a Royal Prince of Denmark and of Greece. As with any other mother, as with any other bride, her young family and smart Clarence House, were sources of great pride.

Neither squandering her pounds nor holding tight her pence, Her Majesty has had, as it were, so many mansions since. Each boast iron gates decked out in gold, and there are fully four all told. With its Rockingham, and Sevres, with old Minton and fine Spode, oh so elegant, Buckingham Palace is officially her abode. It was embellished by Sir William Chambers, Robert Adam and John Nash; he was sacked in favor of Edward Blore, for, expending so much cash. Refaced by Sir Aston Webb, minus putti playing at the top, deemed a grievous French flamboyance to which, King George, (V), put to a stop!

 

 

 

Set on Green Park quite alone finely faced-with Portland stone, at the summit of the Mall, stands this still unbroken spell, that's so well and widely known as the setting of the throne. Here, on any viewing day, all are free to come to pay and how happily some roam, thinking how they'd like to stay. But her silken standard flying, means there is no use denying, Her Majesty is in residence, so, one knows to go away. One would hardly wish to roam, when it's plain the Queen's at home!

 

She has guards with scarlet tunics and bearskin hats behind her gate, who assure the best security

 

for vast splendid rooms of state.

 

When the ballroom's used for banqueting, displaying Royal gold plate, guests assemble in a drawing room, the sovereign to await, (her timing is impeccable, the Queen is never late, she knows all who are coming and she even knows the date! ). She appears from behind a looking glass that's atop a French commode, and greets all as she processes through the room of white and gold.

Sequestered beyond grand ante-rooms, where the family seldom dwells, are intimate apartments where heating never fails.

 

 

Balmoral is in Scotland, a stout realm of Godly deeds and

 

Sandringham is in Norfolk, in its gardens without weeds.

 

Behold the Goya tapestry, what splendid Faberge, from ever-lasting flowers, to hard-stone pets at play.

Mrs. Keppel gave grand presents, she was such a dear old thing, her cigar case with pave' diamonds, shows a serpent, serpentine and biting its tail. See it slither in blue enamel, with a luster that won't pale, as each picture tells a story, every present, tells a tale. There's a rooster and a chicken, with a chick beneath her wing,

 

Gifts to King Edward VII, the Queen's great-grandfather, from his mistress, Alice, Mrs. George Keppel, included the dog Caesar, shown following his master's coffin in 1910

 

there's a little crystal vase and a small dog on a string. The inscription on his collar might even charm an austere scholar who reads, "My name is Cesar, I belong to the King." In short, at Sandringham her Majesty has put out all on display a most glittering array of everything by Faberge!

 

 

Queen Elizabeth has also always had dogs, her family of Corgies is famous

 

 

Her Majesty delivers her Christmas message to the Commonwealth from Sandringham

 

 

Great Windsor is a castle, with a tower, on a hill, and sterling silver furnishings like the SunKing’s adorn its chambers still! 

Nearby is Royal Ascot, where the Queen too, owns the course, and she sometimes backs a winner as she often runs a horse. Spectators always wear their best, resplendent in Royal style, and the Queen, so complemented, always smiles her warmest smile.

 

 

 

She has her dogs and she has horses, and she’s got a golden coach. Nor does she want for necklaces, in parures of great price! 

She sports the smashing sort of brooch and that’s always awfully nice. And then there is the apogee of splendor and Royal grace, when magnificent tiaras surmount the sovereign's face.

 

 

 

 

Such ornaments of olden-days, before our days of haste, are unparalleled in great delicacy, unequaled in good taste, usually.

 

As Barack and Michelle Obama

assuredly did so very well, who knows what unsuitable Levantine adornments the Queen might concede to consign for sale?

Ah yes, I know, I know, like so much melted dirty snow, many had hoped, with President Obama, for us malcontents to cheer, never, never, ever again to have to stop to consider or to hear of reparations! But recalling the marvelous fun that I had giving presents on a birthday past, I dared muse what wonderful joy it would be if the wonderful Queen were at last, to apologize? Might Her Majesty to pay into a special fund to elevate and allay, to compensate a little, descendants of many Africans all along the sullied way, where her Royal ancestors issued patents, stealing blacks without their say? Would a few 100 billion pounds be so much then, to try to atone, for a toxic taint of slaves and empire which still compromise the throne? 

 

A misbegotten dream, to someday toast the health, of a good and gracious contrite queen, and a diverse but forgiving Commonwealth? A progress that’s as bitter, but as redemptive too, as each station of the cross, where the once enslaved are made as whole as slave holders were, for all we’ve lost? Is there any healing that’s more glorious to be had for such a trifling cost? 

 

For a long time, disturbed that so much exquisite architecture in America was marred by slavery, I looked to England as an earthly paradise of beauty. How naive it was of me to absolve the originators of the colonial empire that most caused the African slave trade to flourish. Many, many of Britain's stately houses are as closely derived from slavery and misery as any Southern or Caribbean plantation house.

 

Coat of arms of a merchant grown rich from 'the trade', emblazoned with an appropriate crest. 

 

The ultimate status symbol, pet-like exotic, dressed-up slave pages were conspicuous announcements of their owners' wealth and high status. 

How beguiled I was by Houghton with its corner domes and 'more mahogany used in its interior than any house to that date, 1722-1732'. Duly impressed, where did I imagine that mahogany, and the money to buy it with, had come from?

 

 

A portrait of Sir William Young and his large family shows a picture of 18th century wealth in a fashionably bucolic setting. A "conversation piece", this depiction was meant to tell a story. The artist, Johann Zoffany, helped develop this type of piece, positioning the sitters as if they are actors.
The family is wearing a type of fancy dress, 17th century costumes inspired by century-old portraits by Sir Anthony Van Dyck . This type of nostalgia was extremely popular in Britain around 1770. Like the dress and music-making the enslaved servant is a prop in the Young's elegant play-acting.  

 

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who invented the 'picture hat' which she is wearing. ( from Chiswick House), writing to her mother, circa 1790, 

 

'Dear Mama, George Hanger has sent me a black boy eleven years old and very honest, but the Duke don't like me having a black.... if you like him instead of Michel I will send him, he will be a cheap servant and you will make a Christian of him and a good boy; if you don't like him they say Lady Rockingham wants one.'

 

 

 

 

 

Because, just as I'd expected, good-looking William Beckford was Gay, naturally one never suspected that his fortune was obtained from West Indian sugar plantations. As late 18th century England's richest man, there was little else that was as profitable in his time. 

At Beckford's fantastic house, Founthill, the tower collapsed spectacularly, shortly after he sold the estate.

Jean Marc Nattier's portrayal of Mademoiselle de Clermontat, at her bath, is just one among many indicators of the universal fashion for enslaved servants during the 17th and 18th centuries.