Wonderful post and you said it so well. We are mourning not just the loss a great lady and great queen, but also the loss of what she stood for. We already knew we had lost so much that is important and precious, but her passing is a marker, and feels like the turning of the last page of a good chapter we did not ever want to end.
Yes, we — and our Founding Fathers — are the heirs of a rich history going back to Magna Carta, Albert the Great and before. Our Founders conserved the best of English law and principle in our Constitution, reshaping it as befitted our new nation in the New World.
I can trace my family back to England, too, as many, many Americans can. Doing genealogy teaches us how we stand on the shoulders of those gone before us in such a personal and profound and humbling way. But even if my ancestors came from elsewhere, I would still have a deep appreciation for our English heritage as a nation, not just of blood but more importantly of ideas and ideals, of freedom, of individual rights, of justice, Judeo-Christian values and more.
I have lived among and worked alongside other citizens of the Anglosphere, British, Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians — and keenly felt our special common bonds. Most Americans admired Queen Elizabeth as a person and for her so ably fulfilling her role as Queen of the UK, even though we want no part of monarchy for our own country.
Somehow perhaps we realize she had more in common with our own great national and cultural icon George Washington, who fought and won a war against her country long ago, when it comes to matters of character and civility than our current president does.