Posted on 06/04/2012 8:39:48 PM PDT by rmlew
Those of us who pay attention to such things will have noticed a difference between the BBC coverage of the Golden Jubilee in 2002 and of the present Diamond Jubilee. Ten years ago, the coverage was adequate, though reluctant and even a little stiff. This time, it has been gushing and completely uncritical. There are various possible reasons for my observation. The first is that I was mistaken then and am mistaken now. I do not think this is the case, but feel obliged to mention it. The second is that Golden Jubilees are rare events, and Diamond Jubilees very rare events, and that extreme rarity justifies a setting aside of republican scruples. The third is that the BBC was taken by surprise in 2002 by the scale of public enthusiasm, and does not wish to be caught out again. The fourth is that, while not particularly conservative on main issues, we do now have a Conservative Government, and this is headed by a cousin of Her Majesty. There may be many other reasons.
However, I believe the chief reason to be that the new British ruling class has finally realised what ought always to have been obvious. This is that, so far from being the last vestige of an old order, dominated by hereditary landlords and legitimised by ideologies of duty and governmental restraint, the Monarchy is an ideal fig leaf for the coalition of corporate interests and cultural leftists and unaccountable bureaucracies that is our present ruling class. The motto for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee was “Sixty Years a Queen.” The motto now might as well be “Sixty Years a Rubber Stamp.” If, during the six decades of her reign, England has been transformed from a great and powerful nation and the classic home of civil liberty into a sinister laughing stock, the ultimate responsibility for all that has gone wrong lies with Elizabeth II.
Now, I can – as Enoch Powell once said – almost hear the chorus of disapproval. How dare I speak so disrespectfully of our Most Gracious Sovereign Lady? Do I not realise that, under our Constitution, Her Majesty reigns, but the politicians rule? How, in all conscience, can I shift blame for what has happened from the traitors who actively worked for our destruction – Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, Tony Blair, and the others – to a woman without executive function who has always devoted herself to our welfare? The answer is that, if she never projected the theft of our ancestral rights, it was her duty to resist that theft, and to resist without regard for the outcome – and it was in her power to resist without bringing on her head any of the penalties threatened or used against her subjects. But she did not resist. At no time in the past sixty years, has she raised a finger in public, or, it is probably the case, in private, to slow the destruction of an order of things she swore in the name of God to protect.
Let me explain the true functions of the English Monarchy. Many foreigners have looked at all the bowing and kissing and walking backwards, and thought England was some kind of divine right despotism. Others have looked at the assurances of Walter Bagehot, and believed that England was, to all intents and purposes, as much a republic as modern France or Germany. Anyone who believes either of these things is wrong.
The function of the Monarchy is to express and to sustain our national identity and all that stands with it. The Monarchy reminds us that our nation is not some recent arrival in the world, and that the threads of continuity between ourselves and our distant forebears have not been broken. England and its Monarchy exist today, and five hundred years ago, and a thousand years ago, and one thousand five hundred years ago. And, as we go further back, they vanish together, with no sense that they ever began at all, into the forests of Northern Europe. And with the fact of immemorial antiquity goes the idea of indefinite future continuation. Any Englishman who studies his national history finds himself uniquely in a conversation across many centuries. What an English writer said in 1688, or in 1776, or in 1832, is not alien to us now, and still has some relevance to our understanding of what kind of people we are.
Her Majesty has discharged her expressing function. However, since all this needs, at the most basic level, is for her to occupy the right place in her family tree and know how to smile and wave, she deserves as much praise as I might claim for having two legs. If, like the Emperor of Japan, she never said or did anything in public, she would still express our national identity. The problem is that she has done nothing to sustain that identity in any meaningful sense.
By law, the Queen is our head of state, and Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and Commander in Chief of all the armed forces. She appoints all the bishops and judges, and all the ministers and civil servants. She declares war, and all treaties are signed on her behalf. She cannot make new laws by her own authority and impose taxes. To do either of these, she needs the consent of Parliament. On the other hand, she can also veto any parliamentary bill she dislikes – and her veto cannot be overriden by any weighted majority vote of Parliament. These are the theoretical powers of an English Monarch. Except where limited by seventeenth century agreements like the Petition of Right and the Bill of Rights, she has the same legal powers as Henry VIII.
During the past three centuries, though, the convention first emerged and then hardened, that all these powers should be exercised in practice by a Prime Minister who is leader of the majority party in the House of Commons. He may be called First Minister of the Crown. He may have to explain himself every week to the Monarch. Where things like Royal Weddings and Jubilees are concerned, he mostly keeps out of sight. But, as leader of the majority party in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister draws his real legitimacy from the people. No Monarch has dismissed a Prime Minister, or tried to keep one in office, since the 1830s. No Monarch has rejected a parliamentary bill since 1708.
Because it is unwritten, and because its various conventions are in continual flux, the English Constitution can be rather opaque. It is, however, based on an implied contract between people and Monarch. This is that, in public, we regard whoever wears the Crown as the Lord’s Anointed. In return, the Monarch acts on the advice of a Prime Minister, who is accountable to us.
But, like any other agreement in a common law country, this implied contract is limited by considerations of reasonableness. It ceases to apply when politics become a cartel of tyrants and traitors. Once the politicians make themselves, as a class, irremovable, and once they begin to abolish the rights of the people, it is the duty of the Monarch to step in and rebalance the Constitution. It is then that she must resume her legal powers and exercise them of her own motion.
The need for this duty to be performed has been apparent since at least 1972, when we were lied into the European Union. The Conservatives did not fight the 1970 general election on any promise that they would take us in. When they did take us in, and when Labour kept us in, we were told that it was nothing more than a trade agreement. It turned out very soon to be a device for the politicians to exercise unaccountable power. The Queen should have acted then. Indeed, she should have acted – if not in the extreme sense, of standing forth as a royal dictator – before 1972. She should have resisted the Offensive Weapons Bill and the Firearms Bill, that effectively abolished our right to keep and bear arms for defence. She should have resisted the Bills that abolished most civil juries and that allowed majority verdicts in criminal trials. She should have resisted the numerous private agreements that made our country into an American satrapy. She should have insisted, every time she met her Prime Minister, on keeping the spirit of our old Constitution. There have been many times since 1972 when she should have acted.
At all times, she could have acted – all the way to sacking the Government and dissolving Parliament – without provoking riots in the street. So far as I can tell, she has acted only twice in my lifetime to force changes of policy. In 1979, she bullied Margaret Thatcher to go back on her election promise not to hand Rhodesia over to a bunch of black Marxists. In 1987, she bullied Margaret Thatcher again to give in to calls for sanctions against South Africa. And that was it. She is somewhere on record as having said that she regards herself more as Head of the Commonwealth than as Queen of England. Certainly, she has never paid any regard to the rights of her English subjects.
The Queen has not sustained our national identity. It is actually worse than this. By expressing that identity, she has allowed many people to overlook the structures of absolute and unaccountable power that have grown up during her reign. She has fronted a revolution to dispossess us of our country and of our rights within it. How many of the people who turn out on Jubilee Day, with their union flags and street parties, will fully realise that the forms they are celebrating now contain an alien and utterly malign substance?
This does not, in itself, justify a republic. Doubtless, if a Government of National Recovery ever found itself opposed by the Monarch, it might be necessary to consider some change. Such a government would have only one chance to save the country, and nothing could be allowed to stand in its way. But this should only be an extreme last resort.
Symbolic functions aside, the practical advantage of having a monarchy is that the head of state is chosen by the accident of birth and not by some corrupted system of election; and that such a head of state is likely to take a longer term, more proprietorial, interest in the country than someone who has lied his way into an opportunity to make five lifetimes of income in four years. We got Elizabeth II by a most unhappy accident of birth. But we may be luckier next time. Sooner or later, the luck of the draw may give us a Patriot King.
As for Her Present Majesty, she may be remembered in the history books as Elizabeth the Useless. Even so, she is our Queen, and has been that for a very long time. I suppose this should count for something come Jubilee Day.
Ever since the English Civil War and the short-lived Puritan Republic, the institution that clipped the Sovereign's wings has been Parliament. James I and Charles I (both Anglican) stood on Divine Right and they lost.
Lest you think that Parliament is a fount of freedom, consider the fact that the next Sovereign to be deposed was James II. He actually did nothing to injure the rights of Englishmen. What got Parliament in an uproar was the fact that he was a Roman Catholic, even though he did his duty as Supreme Head of the Anglican Church and tried his best to live up to his oath as Defender of the Faith. To be blunt, James II did something for freedom by separating his conscience from his duties. His compromise was that he worshipped Roman Catholic as a private person but administered the Anglican Communion while "on the job." In so doing, he established the idea that a person's religious conscience is his own when off the job.
Fact is, he was deposed because he was a Roman Catholic and had sired an heir. Had his line continued, the prerogatives of the Anglican Church would have been eroded. The Glorious Revolution, regardless of its benefits, was not a blow for freedom.
This capsule revisionism of mine ties in with Dr. Gabb's point - namely, that the instrument that used to hem in the Sovereign is, as of now, no prize for the freedom-loving. But, that leads to the question of what is to be done.
There's only one option left: to petition the same group that was responsible for bringing King John to heel via the Magna Carta. It was this group of worthies who restrained the Sovereign when Parliament was little more than a gaggle in the Sovereign's back pocket. It's the only institution left if Parliament is little more a gaggle of little tyrants.
As I said, I don't think Dr. Gabb has quite thought through his complaint. If pursued to "what are you going to do about it?", it leads to either revolution (which he eschews) or counting on the hereditary aristocracy to step in.
Come to think of it, we haven't heard much from them lately...
Mr. Gabb is fully aware that he is demanding that the Royal Sovereign stand up for the rights of her subjects and due her duty to protect them, even if her title what has become a gilded cage is imperiled. Parliament, the BBC, and Brussels are trying to destroy traditional Britain. There already is a Constitutional crisis, and there is neither consent of the governed nor a pretense of legitimate authority.
If true, then Mr. Gabb miscalculated badly. The U.K. is not America, and HM Queen Elizabeth II is not an elected President. What Mr. Gabb has done, is publicly insult the Sovereign.
Had he been astute, he would have described HM Queen Elizabeth II as a noble and good-hearted but too-trusting Queen, taken advantage of from below by scheming parliamentarians. She and her noble court have been imprisoned by the parliamentary pandemonium.
That's how one does it with respect to the Monarch. The way he did it, he burned his bridge. The only hope he has is the chance that no-one in the court (i.e., the ruling class) will find what he wrote.
I realize I've stiffened up, but what he did was not dissimilar to an American publicly calling a sitting President a traitor. Only, the successors to the throne are descendants of Queen Elizabeth. Mr. Gabb has zero chance of influencing Prince William once the Prince finds out that Mr. Gabb publicly insulted his grandmum.
True - but he was well past his sell-by date then
Plenty of leftists routinely insulted the Queen and the monarchy in the last century. Who is it that is winning?
I realize I've stiffened up, but what he did was not dissimilar to an American publicly calling a sitting President a traitor.
Obama like Senators Graham and McCain are traitors. They aided the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda in Libya.
To quote another Englishman, "Treason doth never prosper: what 's the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason."
I am an American with a First Amendment right and I dare.
To be frank, I thought you were a confederate of Dr. Gabb's from the U.K. Just goes to show I'm not that good at guessing identities.
Daniel,
There is little need to guess. If you click on someone’s screen name, you will go to their page.
I am an Anglophile and more supportive of the shared histor of Anglo-America than most WASPs I know. I went to a British styled preparatory school. At one time I knew all the English monarchs from Alfred to Elizabeth II by heart. I write not as someone who dislikes Britain or the monarchy, but as someone horrified by the subjugation of the Sceptered Isle.
As an American, I support the British Freedom Party. Were I British, I would likely join UKIP. The Libertarian Alliance is not a party.
If deference has brought colonization of your cities, Muslim rape gangs, bowing to Brussels, and curtsying before politically correct commissars, then patriotism demands rebellion. Either stand up when your children are second-class subjects of a nominal country they still run electorally, or watch their children become second-class hated minorities in a backwater province.
And, yes, I know I may as well be speaking martian as far as most British are concerned.
Of course, we are little better off in America.
You are pretty well completely incorrect. As a former protocol officer of the Royal Australian Navy, and a military historian and history teacher since then I have studied her military career, and those of other members of the Royal family, in quite a lot of detail. I have also had the opportunity to discuss this with Her Majesty, personally, through a friendship with two of her sons.
Her Majesty - as Princess Elizabeth - was on active service as a driver from March until the end of July 1945. She was a driver and she was driving military vehicles as assigned all over south east England, and occasionally into the northern areas as well. There was relatively little press coverage of this active service, although there was during her training period in February which, as I said, the article describes reasonably accurately. You are correct she was not a soldier - she was, as the name of the service she was part of says, an 'Auxiliary'. Further it was an Auxiliary of the Territorials (Army Reserve) rather than the army. Members of various Auxiliary services served during the war sometimes in conditions of danger, other times in positions that were not particularly dangerous, but which were considered to be both active service and war service.
So you have the future Queen of England leaving Windsor Castle every morning and leaving her security people and the intense security of the Royal family’s residence, to go drive a truck around England during the daytime, and then drive back to the castle after the WWII work day so that she could sleep under high security at night.
It was quite common for ATS people to 'live at home' rather than in barracks when it was possible for them to do so. This was normal practice. It saved money on food and accomodation, both of which were in short supply. The Princess did do this, as did most of the people she served alongside - yes, her home was extremely secure in comparison to others, but she was doing what others did.
All that so that she could serve in the last weeks of the war leaving all that daytime truck driving with the rank of Captain.
Not quite. While she was on active service, she was a Second Subaltern and then a Subaltern (equivalent to Second Lieutenant and Lieutenant). She was not promoted to Junior Commander (Captain) until her active service ended. And, yes, she was serving in the last few weeks of the war, but at the time she began her training the war was still predicted to last for as much as another eighteen months - nobody knew when the end would come - anywhere between two and eighteen months were the general estimates.
How many truck drivers enter military service, attend school, attain the rank of Captain and then are discharged, all in five months, all the time living under security, having little contact with normal soldiers, and spending her nights sleeping in the most protected residence of England in WWII for security reasons?
Her service was basically identical to that of the other girls who trained with her. They all became Second Subalterns at the completion of their training, they were mostly promoted to Subaltern after three months, and were mostly demobbed between May and August of 1945, as she was. Once the war in Europe was over, the British forces began to rapidly demobilise - the process began on June 18th 1945 - and those stationed in the UK were generally among the first to be demobbed for purely practical reasons. The Princess was demobilised on 27th July 1945.
Any ideas why she waited until almost her 19th birthday to do all this, just as the war was ending and Germany was totally collapsing?
Yes, as it happens, I do know the reason. Her father would not give permission for her to join the ATS until she finished her schooling. Specifically he would not give permission until she achieved Matriculation standard for Oxford. She did that shortly before Christmas, 1944, when she was still about eighteen and a half - an entirely normal age for somebody to matriculate at that time (some did it at 17, some did at 18, some did at 19). British law at the time 'called up' men at 18, but women were not 'called up' until 20 (and then only if they were unmarried). She was actually fairly young in joining before her 19th birthday.
Only a subject would try to sell the Princess living at Windsor Castle under totally controlled security conditions and attending a theatrical 3 week course down the street as doing military service.
Less than five months even enrolled in service although always stationed at Windsor Castle for her residence, and she leaves as a Captain.
About the only thing you say that I don’t is that you keep making the unsubstantiated claim that while she was largely separated from other people, lived in ultra high security and isolation as the future Queen of England living with the King at Windsor castle, that she inexplicably got to drive around England driving a military truck (during the day, going back to the castle at night, ‘to save money on food’) without security for a number of weeks or a couple of months to earn those promotions all the way to Captain that was normal for all the girls.
“In keeping with her power and status of high birth, on her 16th birthday she was appointed Colonel of the Grenadier Guards during WWII (during 1942).
The Grenadier Guards training element was stationed at her home, Windsor Castle as security and personal escorts for her.”
“”She was enlisted as 230873 Second Subaltern Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the ATS, [March, 1945] and sent to train as a transport officer at Camberley. The course was three weeks and Princess Elizabeth did not associate too closely with her fellow trainees.
She lunched in the officers’ mess and slept the night at Windsor; 50 years later, her grandsons would eat cadet food, iron their own uniforms, polish their own boots and be shouted at on the drill square.
Despite her kid-glove treatment, Princess Elizabeth greatly appreciated her spell in the ATS, believing it gave her a confidence she had previously lacked
The war in Europe was now drawing to a close and on May 8, 1945, the two princesses were allowed out of the Palace with their Guards officer friends to mingle with the crowds in the Mall and join in the shouts of “We want the King” “”
It's particularly true when the "guv'ner" is a commoner like the petitioner. Even if you're solid gentry, you're likely to be pegged as a fop or upper-class twit. Just as with Americans and my fellow Canadians, coming from a privileged background means having something extra to live down. It's a way of making the playing field more level.
True, the Brits aren't much for protests and standing up politically, but that's because they rely on more informal means. A Brit just quietly breaks the law when no-one's looking and trusts his mates to back him up. Any mate that doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut or dissimulate gets a warning with his second chance or the boot. It's not very stirring, but it works well enough.
The long-term goal is to wear down the authorities, to make them throw up their hands and not bother to enforce the disliked law or rule. Eventually, so it's hoped by the afflicted, said law or rule will become little more than a dead letter. As I said, it's not that stirring but it does work.
Nice to hear that you're an Anglophile of long standing. Myself, I'm only a recent convert: Americophilia was more attractive to me when younger. One benefit to being an Anglophile is picking up the political mode of thought there. Brits ingest "cui bono?" with their mother's milk. An unreconstructed Brit will peg:
Also, they keep ideologues underfoot by treating such as mere theoreticians. This practice has the benefit of keeping mainstream ideologues underfoot as well.
But still, the class system is a lot more rigid in the U.K. and it's also more constricting. An American can always resort to "li'l old me," but a high-up Brit can't. It's an enormous advantage you Americans have over the Britons.
Congrats on securing the benefits of a more rigourous education.
I was born a British subject, but I am now a citizen of both Australia, and the United Kingdom. If you think the word subject means anything different from citizen, I hate to disillusion you, but it's just a word that is defined in a law.
As for the '3 week course', that is simply an inaccurate description of the entirely of her service. As a matter of fairly easily obtainable public record, she served from February until late July 1945 - between five and six months total service. The three weeks was simply the first training phase. It was not her entire service.
I do not defend the Queen because I am her subject. I defend the Queen from lies because I would defend any public figure from lies when I knew them to be untrue.
The Queen's military service was active service. That is a fact. Yes, she went through a three week basic training course. Then she went through a six week advanced course during which time she was already driving as a transport driver. This is also a fact. At the completion of that six week course, she was considered fully qualified in her rating and undertook the normal duties of a rated ATS officer-driver for approximately three months until she was demobilised. At her demobilisation, she was promoted to Junior Commander (roughly equivalent to Captain) but that was a purely honourary promotion but that only occurred at her demobilisation.
About the only thing you say that I don’t is that you keep making the unsubstantiated claim that while she was largely separated from other people, lived in ultra high security and isolation as the future Queen of England living with the King at Windsor castle, that she inexplicably got to drive around England driving a military truck (during the day, going back to the castle at night, ‘to save money on food’) without security for a number of weeks or a couple of months to earn those promotions all the way to Captain that was normal for all the girls.
If I was in the UK currently and had access to the records there, I could pretty easily substantiate my claims but unfortunately (in more ways than one) I'm not there at the moment. But what I'm saying is not at all controversial, nor anything that isn't fairly widely known. But I'm not claiming what you are actually saying anyway.
I do not know if the Princess spent every night at Windsor Castle, although she certainly did during her three week initial training period. However, during her active service, she was stationed at Aldershot, which is less than twenty miles from Windsor Castle. It was entirely normal for women in the Auxiliary services - the ATS, the WRNS, or the WAAF - to 'live at home' if they happened to be stationed near their home or those of their parents. That is a fact. And most of the driving ATS personnel did were round trips of a few hours - longing driving tasks were in the hands or army transport. It is quite likely she did return to Windsor Castle each evening to sleep. That did not preclude her being on active service.
Her promotion to Junior Commander was not routine - but as I have said repeatedly that occurred at the time she was demobbed - it was not part of her active service. Incidentally, she was subsequently promoted to Brigadier in 1949, also in an honourary capacity and that wasn't part of her active service either. Her active service was five months as a Second Subaltern and Acting Subaltern. Her subsequent honourary military service saw her rise to Brigadier while still a Princess and subsequently Commander-In-Chief when she became Queen. These are honourary positions but are distinct from her active service. And that is routine for the Royal Family. The Prince of Wales is now an Honourary Admiral - but his substantive naval rank remains Lieutenant because that is the rank he reached while serving. Yes, she has a lot of honourary service - that does not change the fact she has some active service, including some war service as well.
“In keeping with her power and status of high birth, on her 16th birthday she was appointed Colonel of the Grenadier Guards during WWII (during 1942). The Grenadier Guards training element was stationed at her home, Windsor Castle as security and personal escorts for her.”
You seem to be confusing an honourary appointment with actual military service. Members of the Royal Family routinely hold honourary rank in particular regiments or units - but that is totally distinct from their actual military rank. When Prince William married last year, he did so in the uniform of a Colonel of the Irish Guards - because he is their Colonel-in-Chief. When on active duty, however, he is a Flight-Lieutenant of the Royal Air Force, and that is the uniform he wears. Yes, the Princess Elizabeth was given the honourary position of Colonel of the Grenadier Guards when she was sixteen and she's subsequently acquired dozens of other similar ceremonial positions. But that is completely separate from her active service rank and service.
The fact is, what you have read is a hit-piece by somebody who doesn't like the Queen. It has no more validity or accuracy than many of the attacks on the service of former President Bush in the Air National Guard, including the scurrilous story that helped to end the career of Dan Rather. Some people like to publish articles misrepresenting the military service of certain people for their own political ends. And sometimes people believe them.
An article that talks about only three weeks of a period lasting over five months as if it represents all of the five month period - surely any thinking person should be wondering what is being left out, right from the start. Quite a lot in this case.
From this job to truck driver without security? “As she approached her 18th birthday, the law was changed so that she could act as one of five Counsellors of State in the event of her father’s incapacity or absence abroad, such as his visit to Italy in July 1944.”
A truck driver cruising around Britain alone? “At the end of the war in Europe, on Victory in Europe Day, Elizabeth and her sister mingled anonymously with the celebratory crowds in the streets of London. She later said in a rare interview, “we asked my parents if we could go out and see for ourselves. I remember we were terrified of being recognised ...” Odd, since she was a local truck driver, the only one living in Windsor Castle, you would think that she would be known to everyone.
The three week course she took was a three week course, as far as how long she was carried on the books in the Auxiliary Territorial Service as active which was months, that was merely part of the image, she didn’t actually drive trucks around, before her discharge as a Captain.
“If it seemed like freedom to her, it was a sheltered one. While she was driven back to spend the night at Windsor, the other women slept in dormitory huts. At lectures, she was surrounded by officers, the lower ranks sitting behind.”
“The Princess’s personal contribution to service life lasted only a few months, as the King had known it would. As head of the Armed Forces and Churchill’s confidant, he knew, when his daughter started in the ATS, that the end of the war could not be far off.”
Here is the propaganda machine trying to sell her as a “competent mechanic”, that must have been some 3 week course. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2grMaRttws
The entire thing was just short lived propaganda by a Monarchy, the propaganda endures through lies and worship.
The ‘Princess and Counsellor of State’ in case the King of England was killed or unable to rule, was not tooling around making deliveries during the war.
Once again, you're talking about something you do not understand.
The Counsellors of State are virtually always the consort to the monarch and then the first four adults in the line of succession (adult is defined as 18 years old for the first in line, and 21 years old for others). That's how it works. The law was changed for Elizabeth because up until that time, it referred to the heirs male of the monarch, not just the heirs when considering the status of the first in line to the throne.
The current counsellors of state are the Duke of Edinburgh (as consort), the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge (Prince William), Prince Harry, and the Duke of York (Prince Andrew).
All four of the Counsellors in the line of succession have served in the military while they have been Counsellors of State. Two of them (the Duke of York and Prince Harry) have served in combat while they have been Counsellors of State.
One of the reasons there are five Counsellors of State is to ensure that at least two are available, if the others are busy with other duties (two acting together are required to take the place of an absent Monarch).
The Princess Elizabeth as a Counsellor of State, but nothing in that role prevented her from serving in the military. Prince Henry, Duke of Kent, was a Counsellor of State when he was killed on active service in 1942.
And the Princess may well have had security when she was driving her truck - she almost certainly did in fact. Just as Prince William currently has security officers assigned to him while serving as a RAF search and rescue pilot. They stand in the background and don't interfere with military duties.
A truck driver cruising around Britain alone? “At the end of the war in Europe, on Victory in Europe Day, Elizabeth and her sister mingled anonymously with the celebratory crowds in the streets of London. She later said in a rare interview, “we asked my parents if we could go out and see for ourselves. I remember we were terrified of being recognised ...” Odd, since she was a local truck driver, the only one living in Windsor Castle, you would think that she would be known to everyone.
Again, you show a distinct lack of knowledge here - the VE Day celebrations took place in central London in the area around Buckingham Palace. The Princess was living at Windsor Castle and so was not a 'local truck driver'. In fact, she wasn't even that local to Windsor Castle when she was driving. She was based at Aldershot, twenty miles away from Windsor Castle. Yes, she was worried about being recognised while in a crowd right outside the main palace in London. The odds of her being recognised while driving a truck in Portsmouth would have been far, far less.
The three week course she took was a three week course, as far as how long she was carried on the books in the Auxiliary Territorial Service as active which was months, that was merely part of the image, she didn’t actually drive trucks around, before her discharge as a Captain.
Yes, she did. She drove supply and transport trucks from March 1945 until July 1945 as an active service officer of the Auxiliary Territorial Service. That is a fact.
You just keep saying ‘yes she did’, well no she didn't, and it is idiotic to think that she was cruising around delivering goods driving a truck, yet living under high security the rest of the time.
You even admit that if she did drive a truck to a delivery for the propaganda show, that she would have had a security detail accompanying her, presumably in multiple vehicles, and involving many men (all for a single female truck driver), I would not be surprised that that had to have happened at least once for the newsreels and photographs that this charade was created to make.
Research keeps showing the same propaganda reporting over and over, nothing reveals her as a real truck driver for the five months that she was earning her Captain rank.
I am a military historian and I have studied this. Unfortunately I studied it on the other side of the planet, and I don't have easy access to the evidence I studied then, or I would go to it and cite it. I probably could, if I wanted to spend a few hours at the State Library or one of the local University libraries find locally obtainable references, but proving to you that the sky is blue isn't really worth that amount of time to me.
I keep saying "Yes, she did" because yes, she did - as tens of thousands of people have been aware of for decades, and a hit piece in one newspaper doesn't counter those facts.
As for her 'security detail' I said nothing about some massive operation accompanying here is multiple vehicles or trucks. She would have probably had one officer with her. Security for the Royal Family is nothing like what you are used to seeing in America with, for example, your President. I have actually been sitting near the Prince of Wales (himself the heir to the throne) when somebody ran at him a few years ago now firing a pistol (it turned out to be a starting gun, thankfully). The Prince's single bodyguard acted. The gunman was actually brought down by the Premier of the state of New South Wales and the Australian of the Year, who were sitting in the front row of the people on the stage. And that was in 1994 in an era when security is taken a lot more seriously than it once had been. Except for the Monarch themselves, most members of the Royal Family rarely have more than a single security officer with them - the Queen herself generally has no more than five. Remember when Diana, Princess of Wales died, there was only one bodyguard there. When somebody attempted to kidnap Princess Anne in 1974, again, she had only one security officer present. Princess Elizabeth would have almost certainly had only one bodyguard with her.
In terms of photographs, there are very few candid photographs of the young Princess and Queen because photographers did not take them, because newspapers would not buy them. Even at nineteen, the Princess was still legally a minor by the standards of the day and any photographer who invaded her privacy would have been treated with contempt by society at large.
Prince William and Prince Harry are both currently on active service and when discharging their military duties do so as other airmen and soldiers do. But when they return to their home at St James Palace, they enter a high security bubble as well. Prince Andrew did this before them for many years, having a fairly long and fairly respectable naval career. The Prince of Wales did it too, for about five years during a period when the UK was at peace. Prince Edward as well, although his military career did not go very well, it lasted a few years. And they are just the most recent examples. The Royal Family have been doing this for a long time and they know how to make it work. The Queen's father fought in the First World War. One of her uncles, Prince George, Duke of Kent, the son of George V and the brother of George VI, died on active service in 1942. Another of them, again brother to George VI, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, was wounded in action in 1940, and later served as Second-in-Command of an Armoured Brigade. Royals serve - and Princess Elizabeth did so as well. Yes, they have ceremonial roles as well, but they are always, always kept separate. When service is described as genuine in the records - it was.
The Queen's war service was not spectacular nor very long, but it was genuine service. If it had just been done for the propaganda value, they could have had her in a much more glamorous role than a truck driver. She became a truck driver because it was ATS policy and practice to assign a new trainee to the nearest ATS unit to their home - and in that case, that was a motor pool at Aldershot, twenty miles from Windsor Castle.
There is nothing in that post.
You just keep going about nothing with your imagination and speculations, and I don’t know why you keep referring to a single article in a newspaper or a hit piece, why make up something like that, but it is like all of your long posts, you just keep winging it.
This wasn’t real duty, and we Americans call people on theatrics and propaganda like this, even real soldiers, who really serve, and even go to war have to come under scrutiny, people like Kerry, and JFK, and Al Gore, and George Bush.
Your Queen was never truly in the service, was never a mechanic although that was the created myth, as the newsreels show, and is still published and pushed today, it was a short lived propaganda piece that was performed in the last months of the war.
I have an old artist friend, and Englishman, a hardcore atheist and a hardcore liberal, but man, he still worships his “Queen”.
The queen was not really serving as a truck driver with her personal security detail, it was for show only and she lived at Windsor castle under tight war time security, that is why she was largely separate even within that three week course where all the photos seem to come from and why the King and Churchill made her wait until the war was almost over before they let her out of her cage a little, and yes, it was legal to photograph powerful 19 year old uniformed officers, if you remember that was the whole purpose of this propaganda exercise, publicity, and lot’s of it.
The reason I keep referring to the single article in a newspaper is because it seems to be what you have based your entire position on. You keep quoting from an article that appeared in the Daily Telegraph on the 20th April 2006. In my view, it is accurate to describe that article as a hit piece. It was not accurate in describing the Queen's service.
I'm aware you've also quoted from Bradford's book - I would not call that a hit piece, but Bradford is very clear in stating she is only referring to the three week initial training course, and not the Princess' entire service. You're extrapolating that as if it was the entirety of her service which is simply not true.
I'm not relying on my imagination or speculations. I have seen Her Majesty's record from the Second World War and I have had some opportunity to discuss it with her.
I have demonstrated quite clearly in my posts here that I know more about all of this than you do. I know exactly what a counsellor of state is, unlike yourself who seems to think it's some massive duty that prevents a person doing anything else despite the fact that a number of counsellors of state have served in actual combat positions while being counsellors of state (Henry, Duke of Gloucester, George, Earl of Harewood, Andrew, Duke of York, and Prince Harry), as well as other war service while being counsellors of state (George, Duke of Kent). One was a counsellor of state while in Colditz as a Prisoner of War (George, Earl of Harewood) - which rather clearly demonstrates just how little a counsellor of state normally has to do in terms of helping to run Britain. Not to mention those who have served in a peacetime capacity in the military while being a counsellor of state - Edward, Duke of Kent; The Prince of Wales, and William, Duke of Cambridge). You think that Princess Elizabeth could not have served in the military because she was a counsellor of state - more counsellors of state have been in the military during their period as counsellor of state than not, in fact.
I also have shown I have a much better knowledge of the type of security that members of the royal family have than you do. You think they have convoys of bodyguards, the way your President does, when they generally only ever one guard in fact.
You know very little - but you've turned into some huge story in your own head. That's propaganda and that's what you read in the Daily Telegraph.
No you just keep saying nothing, you just keep hacking at it, and writing longer and more flowery posts to escape the simple facts and obvious truth.
The future Queen was not an actual real life, working truck driver, and sure wasn’t a mechanic, that is why every story is merely a repeat of the same general propaganda information.
*”“If it seemed like freedom to her, it was a sheltered one. While she was driven back to spend the night at Windsor, the other women slept in dormitory huts.”*
A three week course, largely separate from the other girls, maximum publicity, escorted back to the castle each day by war time security, then you have her suddenly joining the ranks and wheeling around delivering stuff as a truck driver, doing so well that she rises to Captain in a few months, she must have been quite the truck driver/mechanic, of course we can’t seem to find anything of all those truck driving exploits.
This kind of thing is ridiculous *”In terms of photographs, there are very few candid photographs of the young Princess and Queen because photographers did not take them, because newspapers would not buy them. Even at nineteen, the Princess was still legally a minor by the standards of the day and any photographer who invaded her privacy would have been treated with contempt by society at large.”*
My God that is laughable, the whole purpose of her becoming a uniformed officer on active duty was for the newsreels and photographs, she left as a Captain, the publicity was the entire goal, and yet you try that nonsense, you have no credibility.
Publicity and Propaganda was her purpose.
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