One of Queen Elizabeth II’s first official duties in 1952 was to receive her first prime minister, Winston Churchill. One of her last, two days before her death on Sept. 8, was to receive her 15th prime minister, Liz Truss. The splendid obsequies for Elizabeth Windsor, some of them ancient but some surprisingly modern, culminate in Britain’s first state funeral since Winston Churchill’s send-off in 1965. Meanwhile, Mary Elizabeth Truss has quietly accomplished the less spectacular Georgian ritual of assembling a new Cabinet.
These images of continuity belie the shock of the royal transition and the challenge of the political one. The British have a new monarch and a new prime minister at the same time. If precedents for this exist, they are so far back in the medieval mists as to be irrelevant. Never mind the Wars of the Roses, most Britons cannot remember the imperial era before Elizabeth. While the prime ministers came and went, her 70-year reign set a new record, exceeding even the 64 years of her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria. The new King Charles III also sets a record: At 73, he is the oldest new monarch in British history. Only the most senior of his subjects can clearly remember the days when they were the New Elizabethans and Britain still believed itself to be a first-rank global power.
