The end of an era

I have waited a few days to put my thoughts in writing since the death of Queen Elizabeth.  I'm not what you might call a dyed in the wool monarchist, after all I fight for Parliament when re-enacting the Civil Wars.  That said I'm not exactly a republican either, the thought of yet another job for politicians to screw up doesn't exactly fill me with glee.  What I do recognise is that for my entire adult life the same person has been Head of State.  Not having a huge personal effect on my life and yet managing to be a huge presence within it at the same time.  The ER II on post boxes (in England at least, she was Elizabeth the First in Scotland), the head on money and stamps, the person I swore allegiance to when I joined the TA.  Yes, there in so many aspects of daily life.

I think the suddenness of it all has been the most peculiar aspect of it all.  Greeting the incoming PM on Tuesday and dead two days later.  No time to get used to the idea.  Now it will be a new head on coins (looking in a different direction), a new set of words the National Anthem yet for most day-to-day purposes it is business as usual.  Others have given tributes in the media that sum up a life of service albeit one with few financial worries and a guarantee of continuing employment (although that was also a promise of dropping in your traces as well) but not a life without cares.  Looking in from the outside it is hard to know what sort of person she really was, but to me at least it seems clear that she cared about the role she filled and its continuation and the clincher to me she stood head and shoulders above the dirty mess of day-to-day British politics.  I might not be huge fan of hereditary monarchs, but I like the alternatives even less.

I have lived my life as a New-Elizabethan and from Tuesday teatime I'm now a something else.  What that will be called I'm not sure, Carolinian perhaps?  It really is the end of an era and the start of something new.