Pod Save the World - The life and legacy of Queen Elizabeth II

Episode Date: September 9, 2022

In this bonus episode, Tommy and Ben discuss the life and legacy of Queen Elizabeth II. Then Ben is joined by historian Dan Snow to dig deeper into the Queen’s place in British history.  For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome back to Pots Save the World. I'm Tommy Ditor. I'm Ben Rhodes. What you guys can't see, because this is obviously a podcast, is that Ben is wearing a crown and throwing himself what appears to be a very somber tea party in this house. Yes, yes. Jokes aside. Gin, actually. You're going to drown myself in gin over here. And Farage, Jin. We are obviously recording a bonus episode to discuss the life and death of Queen Elizabeth II. We will explore her life, her legacy, why she is revered. by so many British people and why the monarchy is less revered by many other people, Ben?

Yes, yes. And what happens next for Prince Charles and for the institution of the monarchy and for the UK. And then later in the show, you're gonna hear a banger of an interview. Someone who is, he's in the elite echelon of podcasting guy named Dan Snow, brilliant podcaster,

brilliant historian. You guys just talked, Ben. I cited a very cool sort of study backdrop. What did you guys talk about? Yeah, Dan, you know, a great history podcaster, from the UK. We talked about kind of what is Elizabeth's place in history, like, you know, where does she rank in the kind of pantheon of kings and queens,

what her legacy will be in terms of, you know, her steering through decolonization, preserving the monarchy, what she represented to British people, and kind of brought that up to today, you know, and, you know, talked a little bit about, well, you know, where's this all going to go without her? But it's a great interview. And Dan has got like a terrific perspective as someone who's like constantly thinking and talking

about history. So people should check it out. Yeah. And look, I think Queen Elizabeth is the type of figure. You almost need a historian to really capture a sweep of her impact. So I'm really glad you guys talked. So let's just jump into it. So, you know, Queen Elizabeth passed away on Thursday, September 8th at her castle in Scotland.

She came to the throne in 1952. her reign spanned 15 prime ministers, 14 U.S. presidents, and according to a tweet that I absolutely did not fact check, 59 different starting quarterbacks for the Cleveland Browns. Yeah, I mean, it says a lot about her. It says a little bit about the Browns, too, I have to say. a little bit about the Brown. Sorry, Michael O'Neill. She was not born destined to be a monarch. Her uncle, the former king, Edward VIII, abdicated from the throne so he could get into a very messy marriage with an American woman that was considered too scandalous. A major scandal at the time. I believe that Edward and his wife were revealed to be Nazi sympathizers. So I guess, you know, bullet dodge by everybody here. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, big bullet dodge there. Yeah,

could have ended up pretty poorly. Yeah, but when Elizabeth's Uncle Abdub, Her father became King George the 6th, and she, the heir to the throne at the ripe old age of 10. World War II starts soon after, which gets us to what I think is, you know, the first moments of many in the future of just extraordinary public diplomacy for the queen. Let's give that a listen. I can truthfully say to you all that we children at home are full of cheerfulness and courage. We are trying to do all we can to help our gallant sailors, soldiers and airmen. And we are trying to bear our own share of the danger and sadness of war.

We know every one of us, but in the end, all will be well. That was then Princess Elizabeth making her first public radio address on October 13, 1940. She had been asked to do this by Prime Minister Winston Churchill. It was ostensibly to boost the morale of children of the Commonwealth, many of whom had been shipped abroad for their own safety because they didn't want to get bombed by the Nazis. I also think it meant a lot to the adults listening that day. I think also was intended to tug on the heartstrings of Americans debating whether or not it was time for the U.S. to get into the war. It's been, I mean, hearing that, it's pretty amazing. I just can't imagine that responsibility already at 14.

Yeah, actually what's also amazing is it sounds just like her. Yeah, it really does. It sounds like a 14-year-old hurt. It's like a very distinct cadence. But yeah, I mean, it's a reminder, obviously for longevity that, you know, she was around for the war. But that, you know, she then ended up kind of serving as like an ambulance driver later on when she was a little older. So she actually, you know, participated in the most seismic event. right, and British history, really, you know, through the days of the Blitz and being in the UK,

being in England throughout the whole conflict, I think that's part of what I think, you know, speaks to like the affection some people feel for. She represents kind of this finest hour of the British people standing up to Naziism, weathering the Blitz and prevailing in World War II. and like, yeah, there she is. Like she was, she was a part of that even as a kid. It's also something kind of sad about it, right? Like, you know, that, you know, when she's like 14 years old, she's given, like, radio addresses.

It speaks to the fact that she didn't, you know, get a choice here. Like, she, once the abdication happened, like, she was in the seat and, you know, headed for the rest of her life doing stuff like that. Yeah, and I think her parents refused to send their daughters to Canada or someplace safer. they wanted to keep them in the UK, and clearly they just made them a part of this fight. So, boy, I can imagine, if you're old enough to remember World War II, and imagine hearing that, like, to know that the queen was suffering with you, like living through this nightmare with you through thick and thin.

I mean, that's pretty powerful. Yeah, you know, and, and, you know, Buckingham Palace, like, took some hits, actually, like, during, during the Blitz. I didn't know that. Yeah, and then I think for a time, Elizabeth and her sister, or Margaret were sent to one of the other castles, but that doesn't mean that there weren't like air raid sirens and they'd have to go down to the basement, right? And, you know, bombs can hit palaces

just like they can hit apartment building. So it's not like they were, you know, spared from danger because of their identity, even if they were living in nicer digs in other people. So, yeah, I mean, I, you know, the fact that she went through that, I think has lent her like a bit more heft throughout her reign, as it were. I mean, I mentioned this to Dan Snow, but like, I went to the Normandy 70th commemoration of D-Day, and, you know, there are all the leaders sitting on the dais, and there she is, and she's the only one sitting there who was around for World War II, you know, so like it was a little different for her being there than anybody else because she had, you know, she remembered D-Day, right? She remembered all those events.

She met all those people, you know. she met Eisenhower. She met Churchill. Churchill was her prime minister when she became queen. Yeah. So, the closest listeners of the show, and even not so close listeners of the show, will know that we are not always or often kind to Boris Johnson, the former prime minister of the UK.

But the man can be when he wants to be a pretty powerful speaker. And I found his speech to Parliament about the Queen powerful. And I think a worthy attempt at explaining what the Queen meant to. him and what she meant to a lot of people in the UK. Here's one of two clips. Think what we asked of her in that moment, not just to be the living embodiment in her DNA of the history and continuity and unity of this country, but to be the figurehead of our entire system. The keystone in the vast arch of the British state, a role that only she could. could fulfill because in the brilliant and durable bargain of the constitutional monarchy,

only she could be trusted to be above any party political or commercial interest. I mean, I think what's interesting about that description from Boris Johnson is that he's not exaggerating. Yeah, I mean, that's really what she was for the United Kingdom. Yeah. It was that big? Yeah, it's. Yeah, look, it was a really great speech by Boris Johnson. We don't say nice things about Boris Johnson very much. But I think it's a reminder that, you know, in moments like this, like, you know, the politics kind of go out of it. But yeah, he really captures it, right?

Like in America, it's so different. Obviously, we fought a whole revolution so that we wouldn't have a king or queen. And I'm glad we did. Me too. But each, you know, to each of their own and everybody's got their own system. And in their system, I think part of what's distinct is, like, you have these pretty brutal political bloodsport battles, you know. But because she's not in a political party, she's just this kind of symbol of national identity and national unity, right? And in the U.S., like, we kind of elect the president as that, right?

But no president can be that to everybody, right? because there's always some people on the other side, particularly in recent years, who kind of reject the president as the leader of the entire nation. And so I think it's like sometimes hard for Americans to understand that. But like she, you know, and I know some British people don't like the monarchy, right? So this is not like 100% case closed. You know, they're, they're Republicans in Britain too. People who think it should be a Republican, not a constitutional one. But the majority favorite, in part because of her, because how she carried herself. because you never really knew what her political leanings were.

She was pretty scrupulous, not just in kind of carrying out her duties, as he said, like doing all the things that a queen does showing up on. I mean, I remember I was there Tommy once during like their VE Day parade, right, the victory in Europe day parade. And there she is, trots out to the middle of the parade, stands there at kind of like the memorial. And you realize she does this for every event, you know, at the Olympics. There she was, like opening up the Olympics and also doing the kind of a pretty funny James Bond sketch if you want to Google that.

Yeah, but Paddington Bear one too. Paddington Bear recently, right? But like, and this can seem kind of weird and trivial, and it is a little weird, but you know, every country is a little weird. But you also have to think that this is a country that's kind of been through some weird twists and turns in the last century, right? I mean, you go from being the empire of like two-fits of the world to, to not, to just being like this country that is still a pretty peculiar country because, you know,

Like you've got England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, right? So it's a few countries kind of stitched together. And so what makes people British? Like what makes people like share a national identity? They don't have a written constitution like we do. It's this kind of unwritten thing. And so she, the institution of the monarchy is one of the main elements of what it means to be British. And she, I think uniquely in part because of how long she did the job and also because of how, you know,

know how well she did the job like I think she just kind of represented you know what it meant to be British to a lot of people but not everybody but that's a big deal right I mean that's like for Americans like we think about the flag and our founding fathers and the constitution we all have these kind of symbols of what does it mean to be American you know they're pretty contested these days and over there like you know she she is definitely like probably the you know you couldn't help but have her in your life. Again, every holiday, every major event, like she's, she's there. Yeah, she is. I mean, I will not, because we were showing so much respect today for Boris Johnson, repeat the joke that the queen waited to die until he would no longer be in office and have to give her eulogy.

I will not repeat that joke that was made on Twitter many times. But this second clip from Boris Johnson's same speech, I think it's why a lot of people are feeling the queen's death so personally. Millions of us are trying to understand why we are feeling this deep and personal and almost familial sense of loss. Perhaps it's partly that she's always been there, a changeless human reference point in British life. The person who, all the surveys say, appears most often in our dreams. so unvarying in her pole star radiance that we have perhaps been lulled into thinking that she might be in some way eternal.

But I think our shock is keener today because we're coming to understand in her death the full magnitude of what she did for us all. You know, I think that comment is so interesting because it goes back to what you were just talking about about the way the United Kingdom has changed so much during her lifetime. I mean, it went from literal empire.

The sun never sets on the British Empire to basically just an island. But she was this constant for so many British people, this constant presence. She was out in communities, talking with regular people all the time. And I think they love her for that. But, you know, there's also this very dark history of colonialism, the horrors inflicted on people in India and parts of Africa, in Ireland. You know, it's also why I think you're seeing a lot of people respond. with a sentiment that's like, I really like Queen Elizabeth the second, but I do not like the monarchy.

And I think that dynamic raises some difficult questions for King Charles, who immediately takes over, I think, the minute she dies. And raises the question of whether the British people continues to support a very expensive symbolic institution when she is gone. Yeah. No, I mean, this is like the big issue. and let's just say the discourse has been a little interesting on this last couple of days. Twitter is probably not the best place to unpack your thoughts on the death of a 96-year-old person.

But look, I get it. I mean, this is an incredibly complicated institution, right? Like even though the queen, I mentioned the Sudan, but like, you know, it's not like there was even, you know, while she was queen, so it's not even just predating her. you know, there were some pretty, like, horrific crimes, right? There was Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland. There was, like, a brutal suppression of Kenyans of Kenyans and, you know, Kenyans put in concentration camps. And this is being done, that was done, like, not at her order, you know, because this is not someone who had made any decision-making power. Like, she wasn't directing any of this.

But it was done in her name, you know, because everything is kind of, it's the Royal Army, you know, the Royal Air Force, the Royal Armed Forces, etc. So I understand those emotions. I will say part of her legacy to me was trying to deal with the complexity of that. And, you know, I'll just, you know, people have noticed probably a little since this podcast, like, why, why do I like the Queen? I haven't quite put it this way before. So I was thinking about this episode and I was thinking I was going to put it this way. You know, Barack Obama became very close to her. And they got along well.

They, you know, they shared kind of a pretty dry sense of humor. He spent a bunch of time with her on his visits there. I will say, Tommy, like, we saw Obama get a lot of racism, you know, be on the receiving end of a ton of racism. Including from Boris Johnson. Yeah, including from Boris Johnson, right, who said he harbored anti-British feelings because... It's a colonial mindset.

Yeah, because he, yeah, all this garbage. We saw it from Republicans, and we saw it, you know, from a bunch of foreign leaders, you know, like it, let's just say, like, they're not a lot of enlightened people. I will say, like, the queen seemed to go, like, an extra mile, really, to embrace Obama. And I think he would say,

that too. Like, and, you know, he has this background, right, where, you know, his grandfather was, like, thrown in prison by the Brits in Kenya, right? So, and that history was present. And it almost seemed like she was trying to, to make sure that, you know, she showed the most possible hospitality to Obama to, because, you know, it's part of the complexity of dealing with this legacy. That's not to say there's no racism in the rural family. We all saw the Harry and Megan interview, so I'm not saying these people are perfect. Some endemic challenges in the institution and the family, etc.

Yeah, but I am saying, and actually, but I think you saw Harry and Megan, none of that was directed at her. Like, they specifically said she was not. They specifically said she was not. And like I always, you know, it seemed like she, you know, she went, you know, she went out of her way to speak Irish and Ireland

something our friend Michael O'Neill brought to our attention. And shook hands with a former IRA commander, Martin McGinnis. You know, when the IRA, I believe, had killed a member of her family in a bombing. I mean, that sort of that effort of reconciliation, whether it's racial or, you know, Catholic Protestant was a part of her legacy. She reportedly was pissed off at Margaret Thatcher, another revered figure, for not sanctioning South Africa during apartheid fast enough.

Yeah. There's a lot of anecdotes like that. You're like, oh, this is an impressive person. They do. They add up. I mean, there's enough evidence there that, I mean, again, I'm sure she didn't do enough. I'm sure that people in the former colonies would like more apologies. Some people would like reparations. Some people like Commonwealth. We get that. So before people, you know, add us about this. They're right. They're right. You are right. But I am saying like for a woman who, you know, represents like the most kind of conservative possible institution in the world, she did seem to try to strike certain grace notes. All I can say is my own personal experience was she treated Barack Obama with a hell of a lot. more grace than most Republicans did in this country and other leaders that around the world.

But yeah, to look forward, I think you're also right. This is a pretty perilous time. And just take the Commonwealth as an institution. We've already seen, you know, countries make noises about leaving. I think Jamaica, right, recently opting out here. I think you're going to see more of that. I think another thing, Tommy, Scottish independence, could be on the table, yeah. Exactly. Like you follow that. We had Nicole Sturgeon, the leader of Scottish Independence Party, on this podcast. You know, like, I don't know, man. This is not a shot at Charles, like, as he begins his brain, as it were. But, like, Queen Elizabeth might have been part of what was holding together both the United Kingdom and some of these ties that Britain maintained with its former colonies and Commonwealth countries. and I think they're going to have to go the extra mile here

and actually probably do more to address some of the history and some of the sense of grievance, whether it's from people in Scotland who won independence or whether it's people in the Commonwealth who won out to hold that together. I mean, that may be the burden that falls on Charles and whoever is prime minister, let's trust now, hopefully, you know, labor in the future,

you know, may have to kind of go even further here in order to hold some of this together. Yeah, and look, what's interesting and notable, I think, about the Queen with Charles now, the Royal Family, is there is a vast PR apparatus behind them thinking through every step of this. I mean, there was this amazing story in The Guardian back in 2017

about the just staggering amount of planning and preparation that went into this Thursday, this week with the Queen's death. I mean, they had a code word. It was London Bridge. Civil servants were supposed to say, London Bridges down to convey that she passed. There were these elaborate plans for how to notify the 15 government outside the

UK where the queen is head of state and 36 nations where she's a figurehead, just like insane detail. And we actually kind of saw some of this playing out in real time because Liz Truss, I think, might have been doing prime minister's question times or within parliament. And then all of a sudden she gets past a note by her deputy and then Kier Starmor and her both step out of parliament. And there's these like rumblings in the building where everyone kind of realizes is what's happening and that the message they just got,

the only thing that could pull them out of this moment, you know, Liz Trust is what second day was the Queen's passing. It's like pretty incredible. Yeah, no, I remember getting approached in like 2016 when I was in government, Tommy, for, I think from the BBC to tape an interview with Obama for the event of her death. I mean, so these institutions have been planning for a while to, and I don't think he did. I think he's done, he did that later. But yeah, you could feel that sense of preparation in choreography.

Like even when they put out the first statement that she was in ill health and being attended to, it almost felt like the beginning of like setting something in motion. It didn't feel like they were suggesting she was going to get better. It is just, it's insane really to think about the fact that the day before she had met with Liz Trust and maybe, you know. And I think Boris Johnson maybe a couple days for, yeah, yeah. Like so, so within a couple days, just historical whiplash. I'll say like, and Boris Johnson kind of spoke to this, it's weird that the death of a 96-year-old

person felt, I mean, not that it was a surprise, but it still felt like a little shocking. Just because she's just been around, like, even as an American, like I remember, as a kid, I remember being aware of her, you know, like, I didn't have, like, opinion about her, but I remember her like, you know, facing pictures of her and, you know, like, I think she wrote horses with like Rommel Reagan or some, some shit, you know. So she's just kind of been around in the air, right? And so, but you're right, the, but the choreography will get them. I think this will be a very intense, you know, a couple weeks in this funeral. It'd be very interesting to watch that funeral and who's at the funeral and who's not. But yeah, like, then I think that the real work

begins. And look, it may not, they may not hold it together. I mean, you know, it may not. And I don't take a position on whether that's good or bad. We're just, you know, I think it's just, it's going to be, you know, a post-Brexit. They're just going to have to define who they are post-Brexit, post-Elizabeth, and maybe to some extent kind of post-Commonwealth. And, you know, that hopefully will fall to like a new generation of British people, both in politics and just in the broader society. With Trex, you get the most.

most of everything, the most wood inspired, the most eco-friendly, the most decking and railing designs, the most trusted. Trax, performance engineered for your life outdoors. Visit trex.com today. I mean, on our side of the pond, I mean, you talked a little bit about President Obama and First Lady, Michelle Obama's like deep, like deep, real affection for the queen. And I saw they had statements out early. It was also very notable to me that Trump's statement about the queen was like the closest thing I've ever seen from him to a normal presidential statement or post-presidential statement. He said this is a verbatim language. She will always be remembered for her faithfulness to her country and her unwavering devotion to her fellow countrymen and

women. And then Melani and I will never forget her majesty's generous friendship, great wisdom, in wonderful sense of humor. Like nothing could sound less like Trump than that very kind, magnanimous language. Which he probably didn't write, but, you know, it will take it. I will say, like, there were some times, like when Trump was president or a lot of times, right, when you were kind of embarrassed that he was the president. One of those times was I remember when he met Queen Elizabeth, I was like, and this speaks to like, you know, why she kind of mattered because like if he met like the king of some other country, like I probably wouldn't have thought twice about it.

But I just remember being so embarrassed. And then he gave some interview where he was like, you know, some people told me that the queen said that was like the best time of her life or something. Like it's such bullshit, you know. But it just shows like he wanted, you know, everybody kind of. Whatever you think of her. Like, there's a reason why everybody wanted kind of that mark of approval from her. She carried a certain weight.

I'm sort of sitting here imagining you getting the BBC interview for Obama while in the White House in 2016 in the event of her death and going to a planning meeting and trying to sell that to Dan Pfeiffer and election years. Yeah. It's a good use of time and I'm laughing very hard. Definitely. Every NSC press comms meeting we ever had where we tried to get them to do our stuff. Well, actually, like, it wasn't going to air until after she died, right? So it was just eating up, it would have eaten up time.

Just hours in the day. But he did do it. He ended up doing that interview. So I think the BBC will have some, you know, if you see a documentary with some Obama footage, I think he ended up doing that in his post-presidency. But, uh, yeah, it was legit. He really, he really did like her. And he liked Philip, uh, who, uh, who apparently was, you know, exactly like his, you know,

stereotyped like he was drank at lunch and was you know funny about people in an off-color kind of way you know got it nothing wrong with that um so whenever there's a momentous news event like this especially when there's some strong feelings on either side uh there's no other way to say people get off some great jokes and i and i'm thankful for them on twitter this week is no different i will not read from irish twitter because that's a little too hot for this podcast it's pretty fucking hot yeah i will read this this historic paragraph by a columnist named Patrick Frayne. He writes for the Irish Times. He wrote this graph in 2021 about the Irish feelings about the monarchy.

Quote, having a monarchy next door is a little like having a neighbor who's really into clowns and has daubed their house with clown murals, displays clown dolls in each window and has an insatiable desire to hear about and discuss clown-related news stories. More specifically, for the Irish, it's like having a neighbor who's really into clowns and also your grandfather was murdered by a clown. Yeah, that's just genius. One of the most genius things I've ever read. Some of the tweets I really enjoyed Ben was,

if you're in line for the throne, stay in line. That's a very good heartening back to all the elections here by someone named at M. Bernic. Here's another one, a little more heated. Please be respectful when talking about the queen. She was a head of state, a monarch, a mother to multiple pedophiles, and most importantly, a devoted cousin to her husband.

That was someone who calls himself, gaming disorder pog. And this was my favorite one. Now we all know I was innocent. Amen, RIP, Queen E. That was baseball legend. Reggie Jackson, Mr. October, referencing his incredible role in the naked gun movie.

I mean... Accused of killing the Queen. Yeah. If there are any younger listeners who have not watched the naked gun, find it. It's got to be somewhere in the Reggie Jackson. That was pretty awesome.

I will say the Irish viewpoint, like the Irish kind of get, for me, like a total pass from the decorum police on on anything involving the the monarchy. If you'd, you know, if you'd live through Irish history, you know, you'd be a little resentful of that institution yourself. And I will say, though, formally, like Sinn Féin, right, which is the political party that, you know, associated with Irish nationalism and republicanism, put out like a very, like, gracious statement. So there was like, there was like an interesting dynamic. There was some some pent-up

frustration, will you say, and some good humor from the Irish, but also I think, you know, a bit of an understanding that like she did preside over the period of the Good Friday Accords and, and she went to Ireland and, you know, the first monarch to go to Ireland in a really long time in 2011. But yeah. There was, there was some, you know, let's just say it got a lot. hot there for a while. Got a little hot. Before we get to Ben's interview with Dan Snow, I did just want to do one thing, which was just say, like, you know, Ben, we hear at Pons of the World, we believe in accountability.

We worship at the altar of facts and truth and believe that democracy dies in deceitfulness. I'm auditioning for the Brian's Delta job. Just kidding. But I did want to debut a segment called Mistakes Were Made because I had people all up in my mentions this week telling me how stupid we were on Tuesday. So I'm saying it all in the passive voice to create some ironic. distance. So, thankfully, we have listeners who are much smarter than us, and I want to anonymously thank all of them who flagged three things. One, entrecoat is a premium cut of steak. You might call it a

rabbi. Yeah, I ate a bunch of entrecote when I was in Paris. Duly noted. We should clarify that British Prime Minister Liz Trusses' weird speech about cheese and pork is from 2014 when she was environmental secretary. So apparently it just goes viral every time she's in the news because it's so fucking weird. But I didn't. Wow. I didn't mean. Yeah, wow, I feel like an idiot. I did too. I thought it was from her like announcement. Thank you, listeners. Sorry we're dumbasses on that.

Yeah, a very excellent BBC producer flagged that one for me. And then finally, I heard from a sharp journalist in Tokyo who pointed out that former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's assassin was not motivated by religion, but motivated by the killer's claim that his mother had been bankrupted by the unification church. So certainly angry at the church, but less a religious issue. and there's a great Reuter story about this that I've tweeted and that we can put in the show notes. Well, that one was my fuck up because I did, yeah, to me, like I remembered the connection to that church. But then I woefully and inaccurately shorthanded it as religious when, in fact, it was just, like, first of all, people should Google that church.

Yeah, the Revenue's. The Reverend Moon. Former Washington Times. Church is a strange way of destruction. driving it, it's kind of a cult, basically. More a C, yeah. It's a cult with, like, political, political angles to it as well. But, yeah, no, that, and Reuters, by the way, great journalism, particularly, they always

had good journalists in Asia, I have to say, too, like, oh, yeah, yeah. Reuters, like, crushed it in Asia always, so thank you guys. Yeah, and we, we, we, when we're dumb asses, you know, let us know, you always do, I notice in my mentions, but, uh, I do too. I think this is a good segment. We should keep this going. Mistakes were made. Any final thoughts from you on the Queen

before we get to your interview with historian and podcaster Dan Stone? The only thing I'd say because Dan references this but I think it's a good way for us to write because people may like, you know, Queen fatigue, although some people won't. I mean, I was on a plane, Tommy,

coming back to this very hot city and it's really hot here, by the way. Los Angeles, yes. It's been sweltering. I've never felt this on. 98. But, you know, I was like noticed that,

everybody in my row was reading, like, news about the queen, you know, like, just you glance over their phones and, you know, and that's her. It's actually not the institution of the monarchy, like, like, all due respect to Charles here, or, like, whatever you think about her, and even if you think this is overkill, like, there's something about her that, that she mattered to people and people are interested in her. She represents, like, a massive era. And, and, yeah, like, that's why I'm glad we could do this pod and glad we could get Dan on too. Yeah, for sure. And it is, it's funny.

It's something I might say, like, how is, you know, the Queen's death, like a foreign policy event that gets you to do, you know, a bonus episode? It's like, well, it's sort of going to be the biggest story in the world for a week or two. It's a historic global event. All over the world, too, right? There's not many people, I don't, you know, not many people, you can count on one hand the people who, if they die, like, everybody in the world is, like, aware of that and has. some thought about it, good, bad, or mixed, you know. Including American presidents. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, that's it for us. When we come back, you will hear Ben's interview with Dan Snow. With Trex, you get the most of everything, the most wood inspired, the most eco-friendly, the most decking and railing designs, the most trusted. Trex. Performance engineered for your life outdoors. Visit Trex.com today. I'm so glad that at this sad and momentous and historic time, we can welcome to the pod, Dan Snow, historian, emperor of the history hit empire. Everybody should check out Dan's podcast.

I'll plug it some more at the end, Dan, but thanks so much for joining us. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me on. You're the perfect person to talk to. You know, you take a view of history that I think is very relevant to. the consideration of this moment with the Queen's passing. And I wanted to start by asking you to place her in history, right? Like there's all this immediate reaction to her death, obviously, all these remembrances. But in the whole sweep of British history and the history of the monarchy,

how do you think Elizabeth ranks? Like how should we think about her place in history? Well, I think that even the people who don't believe in monarchy, in fact, especially those people, would rank her very highly and they'd rue that, they'd regret that, because she has been such a fantastic constitutional monarch. She, first of all, longevity always helps with monarchs. Victoria, Elizabeth I the first, Elizabeth the second. It, you get enormously, it benefits you to be there for a long time. You get good at it when you're allowed to just go at it for decades and decades. The other thing is that she is a very, I think she is an important figure because she came along a very particular time in British history, the early 1950s where Britain was retreating from global hegemony

in a profound way. Her grandfather, when she was born, ruled over one-fourth of the world's population. It's bonkers. It's wild. She presided over the effective dissolution of the British empire. But she, whereas you think about other empires declining and collapsing, you think maybe about the Austro-Hungarian Empire with that kind of ancient emperor shambling around his palace in Vienna. He seemed to kind of embody the collapsing, aging empire. Suddenly the British Empire is collapsing. And you've got this young, dynamic, interesting woman there who sort of felt like a mid to late 20th century. She could play the role of a kind of globe-trotting, celebrity, attractive, mid-20th century figure.

She's hanging out with JFK and she looks the part. So she performed this kind of really interesting role of going, yes, there's this moribund, impoverished empire. but we've got this kind of figurehead who looks like she's beginning this new Elizabethan age. So I think she allowed Brits and allowed the rest of the world to kind of come to terms with their loss of influence and loss of standing because of what she embodied. It's a very weird and very soft and very emotional thing. And I think that also she was then head of state through some very turbulent times. Britain had socialist prime ministers, if you can believe that. in the US.

Prime ministers who called themselves socialists. We had, and we, and we had wars of, we had wars of decolonization. We had wars of, you know, against, for example, Argentina in the early 1980s in the Forklunds, the imperial war. So she was present throughout that. So an incredible calming influence, if you like, at a point of stillness at the heart of British life. And yet, with no particular power, no, we don't know what influence she can.

kind of wields within the private conversations we have prime ministers, but I don't think it's very much. But, but, yeah, and it's something you guys would, it's interesting for you, we've separated that role of head of state and political leader. Yeah. So we can all hate our political leaders and be rude about them down in the pump and slag them off. And yet we all have this kind of wonderful person who floats in and opens hospitals and gives medals out to veterans who's uncons who's a little bit more, oh, well, uncontested. And in fact, her, you know, approval ratings are through the roof compared

with any political figure in the world. So, yeah, that's how we think of her. And, you know, we think in terms of legacies here a lot in the United States. And she's more complicated in a way because, like you said, she didn't have like a direct responsibility, you know, for governance, right? That's why it's a little weird to see some of the criticism of her, you know, it's not like she was, you know, directing, you know, wars against, British colonies. But I understand the complexity of the institution she represents. But is her legacy,

is it preserving the institution of the monarchy? Is it something more intangible that's hard to understand if you're not British about what she kind of meant to individual people? What do you think stands out as her enduring legacy? Well, that's a really good question. It's something you're used to asking about. Presidents and Joe Biden has been burnishing his legacy over the last six months, right, and getting big bits of legislation through. It's something we don't really talk about in the UK. I think her legacy is probably felt in her own lifetime. So she just made people feel better. She did that bit that the president can do. And we all remember Barack Obama doing, for example, in that amazing moment he burst into song in in that black church

following that appalling shooting. And that was a moment that sent shivers down. Everybody's spying who witnessed that. So that was her job. She would do that. She would, she did actually literally turn up to the aftermath of the last mass shooting in the UK. And would talk to people and by all accounts was a soothing person in that situation. She was, I actually thought she gave a very good speech, very good address during COVID. And that just made people feel a bit better. Her legacy probably is that she maintained the monarchy for a potentially very dangerous phase, a phase of taking Britain from a world before TV,

before when only a tiny proportion of the population attended university, became college graduates, she kind of transitioned through the internet era, through the creation of mass, highly literate electorates, who probably had she been someone else, there would probably have been a referendum, or there would have been more question marks about her reign. And indeed, I think her passing,

we will now see that institution will come under pressure, increasing pressure. So whether she's, preserved it for decades to come is another question, but she certainly did the tricky job of steering it through the second half of the 20th century into a bit of the 21st, which actually is probably no mean feat, right? Because that was, we saw pretty radical political experimentation given the broads three British history in that time. Yeah. It seems like she, you know, one of the other pieces of her legacy was dealing obviously with this transition from an empire to a more, you know, normal country, if you will.

And I mean, my own memory, you know, Dan, you and I were trading messages. You know, her relationship with Barack Obama was really interesting, in part because he kind of represented a piece of that colonial history, not just as an American president, but as someone whose grandfather was, or his father was Kenyon. His grandfather was literally kind of, you know, conscripted and imprisoned by the British Empire. And she struck up this kind of very warm friendship with him that felt in some ways it was like she was going an extra mile to demonstrate like grace to Obama. I think they got on naturally. But I always felt like she was important to her that she have a good relationship with him, in part because of his identity.

And you saw her, you know, travel to Ireland and speak and Irish. You saw her go to South Africa after Mandela became president. I'm not fan-boying out here. She obviously bears some responsibility in a way for what the institution of the monarchy did in the colonies too. But talk a little bit about, because I think Americans don't quite, we have our own version of an empire. That's a whole other conversation.

But we certainly don't know what it's like to kind of formally go through this process of decolonization. How did she manage that, this transition from an empire to a commonwealth, this tricky balance of wanting to maintain good relations with former colonies, but to do that, it's a balance. Do you apologize? Do you hit certain grace notes? How did she manage basically going from being an empress to being the head of a commonwealth? Well, I mean, that's right. And actually, just for the American listeners, the Commonwealth is a sort of in name only

organization really. I mean, like it's not a super intense friendship. You know, it's, we have amity, but, you know, more Brits would go and hang out and marry and work in Spain and Italy and France and the US and, you know, it's not, we don't

we don't all feel that, you know, the Garnayans and the New Zealanders are only close to us than anybody else, really. So the Commonwealth is a, Commonwealth was a kind of face-saving exercise, I think, to cover up the kind of end of empire. But yeah, the Irish trip was amazing. She went to Ireland and she came very close to apologised, but certainly behaved with great grace there. Her relationship with Barack Obama, I thought was extraordinary.

And, you know, in your question is what is her legacy? I mean, our legacy is that probably, like, you're talking about her on this POD Save the World podcast. Are you going to talk about the death of the King of Belgium or the King of Sweden or the King of... I couldn't tell you the name of those guys. No offense to our listeners in Belgium and Sweden. God bless you all. But I think the, I think the, there was this weird, there was this, there is this weird thing about being British and maybe I'm just British, so I think this, but there's this weird thing

and it's around, it's about James Bond films, and it's about Harry Potter, and it's about the Beatles and music. And I think the Queen is part of that. Of course, it's about language and our closeness to you guys, but we, the Queen became one of the most famous people in the world and was talked about by Barack Obama and as a man who's great was no Anglophile. After all, we know Tommy Vitor and you took the bust of Churchill out of the Oval Office. Yeah, personally. I need to this. I'm glad I can have this out with you now. But anyway, so this is, so this is like a, this is a guy who is not programmed as some

some Anglophars like Jack Kennedy were like kind of Anglophile. But, but, and yet he at Shimon Peres's funeral, I'll never forget, I was driving a car. This is Shimon Peres's funeral. He's in Jerusalem talking about Shumperos, the Prime Minister of Israel, and he says, the three greatest states people I met in my time as president, Mandela, Perez, Queen Elizabeth II. He wasn't talking to British audience there. That blew me away. I was like, that, Matt, that's weird. I can tell you the story about that, Dan. I was a speech writer on that speech. I thought it was a great speech, buddy. And so, well, thanks, but I didn't, that, I can't take credit for that. What happened is I, I, I wrote this speech, and I, you know, I'm Jewish, so I really, and Shimon Perez is like, you

know, I couldn't admire an Israeli more. And so I wrote this speech, but it was, you know, as usual, it's missing one thing. And he added a few lines. And he, he was like, I want to convey how singular Shimon Perris was, the level that he was at. And Obama put that line in himself. He's like, I, you know, he said, I remember him talking to me. I think it was on the plane over, actually. It was like a late addition to the speech. And he said, you know, when I think about the people I've met, like the, the he's in the class of people with like the queen and mandela who you know just kind of who in in his point was both the kind of grace she had and the kind of stature but also the longevity right to

your point like the the sense of having seen it all and met everybody right um which is yeah is truly a special thing as i always say if general Howard got off his ass and chased captured George Washington on Long Island. You guys could have enjoyed the sweet benefits. We could have had her. No, I think the, I think the, I think the, so that, so like Britain, we talk about this as Brits a lot, because it's slightly immeasurable. But like for some, we do kind of still like to feel we are a bit more important in the

world than our, just our economic position would dictate, right? And I guess the queen, I guess that's a legacy. I guess the queen is part of that. So it's having this state's person who perhaps is able to initiate or, or perhaps close certain conversations and get access that maybe you wouldn't be as excited when Liz Trust Prime Minister, Theresa May Prime Minister, Boris Johnson Prime Minister, arrives in Washington. So, but that is very intangible. And that's why we all argue about it and we fall out about it because we can't, you can't measure

this stuff. She doesn't have a legislative achievement to her name. And yet, with, you're talking, you're asking me about her. We are talking about, Barack Obama mentions her. So therefore, it does. And there's a sort of sense that like, oh, yeah. Yeah, it's kind of James Bond, you know, with MI5 are really good, the Queens are really important. And I wonder if any of, I think that will be, and so in a way she was able to smooth out the transition from global hegemony.

And I think we're now going to come to terms of that, even more so now with her gone. And of course, we have huge problems in the UK in our relationships with Europe and indeed in our eternal relationships around secession, parts of the UK, Scotland, namely. And so those conversations, I think, are going to get, there's, there's, there's, there's, less of a sense of certainty around those conversations now because we've lost. So it's a tricky. It's tricky. Yeah. I mean, it's a kind of a, you know, some of the emotion might also be a concern, right? I mean, you've got a Scotland, a Scottish independence movement. You got, you know, Northern Ireland's always a question, particularly post-Brexit. You know, you've got some lingering resentments in former colonies. You've got the relationship with

Europe to rebuild. And she kind of smoothed over some of those issues to see. some extent, right, because of her celebrity. I mean, it must feel like, you know, we've got Liz trust and King Charles, you know, not to be negative on Charles on his first day in the job, but like it does feel like this is potentially, you know, rough waters ahead, you know? Yeah. And listen, we've never had, it's quite unusual to have a first in British political history because we've been around for a while, so it's quite exciting. And we've never had a new monarch and a new prime minister in the same week ever before. So that's kind of weird. So neither of them will have ever had the weekly chat with ever before, like with any other monarch

or prime minister, respectively. So it's, that's, that's, that's, that's a, that's kind of a strange time, a strange time for us. But, you know, you, and, and just, just knowing that the quick, so I've got a really good, there's a Jewish historian friend of mine, and we talk, we into, I interview him regularly about the Holocaust, to Holocaust, and his, his mum survived Belson, and she was friends with Anne Frank, and she was one of the last people to see her in Belsen. And, and he said, his mom arrived, on death door, she arrived at England, this little suburb of London. You know, it's a funny little place. You know, it's called Nisden.

You know, no one would have heard of it. And she had an expression. And she goes, if the queen is safe in Buckingham Palace, I'm safe in Nisden. And for me, that was a really arresting moment. And as a kind of liberal kind of guy who's always a bit snooty about the queen, to hear that kind of really robust, like immigrant, working class, blue collar, attachment to stability to sort of some kind of

permits, it might not be perfect. It's a, some old woman's living in a big old palace on the hills, kind of a weird system. But it says something, which is, this is a country in which there is not going to be a kind of weird radical upheaval

that she lived through when she lived in Germany. And that expression has just stuck with me. And I think that's it, and that's why, there is, as you say, there is a sense of uncertainty now. Yeah, well, I mean, and the last thing I wanted to ask you about,

because it connects to kind of, I think, the positive legacy of the queen and hopefully something, you know, the positive aspects of the UK's continuing role in the world. I saw a very moving picture today that I think was tweeted out, may have been by the British Embassy in Kiev, of lots of flowers that Ukrainians had placed at the British embassy. You know, these are people going through the midst of a, of a, you know, the most brutal war imaginable.

And here's a pile of flowers, you know, in Memorial to the Queen that they took the time to place ordinary people in Ukraine, which to me speaks something to, like she came to be connected to, you know, fortitude and defense of democracy in a way. And we've seen Britain be among the most stalwart support. of Ukraine. I know you and I are watching that too. In a way, the kind of things that she struggled, again, I'm not trying to romanticizes her too much, the kinds of things that she represented. I remember being at Normandy for the anniversary of D-Day. She was there, sat next to Barack Obama at lunch. You know, these issues are still very alive in the world today. It's kind of interesting that

as she dies, you have this Ukrainian offensive, you know, against essentially fascism. right, the same forces that blood and soil fascism that, that she was in the service against in World War II. I just wanted to give you a chance to reflect on that connection of what's happening in Ukraine right now. I know you're a military historian, military buff in a lot of ways. When you're watching that Ukrainian offensive at the same time that you're dealing with this outpouring of grief and emotion in the UK, can you put that together for us? Well, I don't know if I could put it together any better than you, man. but it's happening, isn't it? So I think we've got this political first in the UK,

this transition of political power and of monarchical power, which is unique so far. We have, basically this week, we've made this kind of enormous decision to just completely flip our energy security arrangements on their heads, but effectively Europe, as said, we're going to cut, we're going to end our dependence on Russia. We are looking probably at the most important, possibly the most important week in Europe, in military history in Europe since 1945, possibly, and this Ukraine offensive seems to be, well, so far it's doing extraordinarily well. And I think you're right. I think those flowers for me probably represent, look, this is what we found so distressing about Donald Trump.

We come to believe that the US word was its bond and that one thing could be relied on, is that America was always going to be the bastion of democracy of multinationism, of multilateralism, of international institutions, partly because America set them up, you know, fine, it's partly for their benefit. You know, the World Bank, NATO, what of these things. It's not, it wasn't totally altruistic, but I, by the way, as far as world hegemon's go, I think we'd have a separate conversation. I think the USA has been pretty remarkable over the last 70 years. Could be worse. Could be worse. Could be worse. And we may sadly find out. So, and I think in the same, more, so that, I think in the same way, it's like, you know what, there was a sense,

again, this is all soft, it's all a sense that if Britain gave its word something, the queen represented longevity, politicians might come and go, but there's, it wouldn't be as chop out under the bonnet. I think we probably chop around as many as most polities, but there's a kind of sense, you know, the Lannisters always pay their debts. It's like, if the queen's there, again, if the queen's in Buckingham Palace, I'm all right in East. If the, if the queen is there, Britain's made a commitment to Ukraine. That feels kind of like a bit of a, that feels like an extra little bonus guarantee, right? And so it must be, now, we can debate whether that's true or not, but I think these impressions matter. And in the way, for example, I've been so struck, Vladimir Putin

endlessly tweeting out about British intelligence. And we Brits have been very flattered. Our British intelligence spent half the Cold War working for the Russians. You know, the idea that there's this myth around, I only get in trouble for that, there's this myth around, you know, the sort of James Bonner mentioned before, the Queen, the sort of British way of doing, things. It's very flattering to us. I don't think it's true, but it obviously kind of matters in some sense. And I just wonder if those flowers in Kiev, it's like saying, you know, the constancy. It's a constant ally reflected by the fact we have this kind of constant presence at the top in the UK. Yeah, no, I think that's right. And she did, she just represented, I mean,

I remember Obama and Normandy, where listeners of this podcast will know I famously, tried to walk into the bathroom that the queen was in at the time. By the way, I am so here for those stories. My most glorious moment in government. Also, you can hear how uncomfortable you are every time. Like, it's scarring, man. And I'm just hearing that. When she comes out and she fixes her handbag on her arm.

But, I mean, you know, he said he's sitting there. He sat next to her lunch. You know, she makes dry, funny comments under her breath to him, like through these events. And then he's sitting next to her at the event. And he's like, I'm sitting next to her. And he's like, I realized, I think it was like the 70th anniversary of D-Day. I realized that she served in World War II.

You know, like that's a lot of constancy. That's a lot of consistency. Well, look, Dan, people should check out if they haven't history hit your podcast. I listen to almost every episode. And as you'll see when you go to it, there's a lot. It's almost every day you get. a look at a piece of history. You get smarter. You've got great guests. And you've built this crooked media-esque podcast empire that people can also surf through if they,

at their history fans. So thanks so much for joining us to put this in perspective and look forward to keeping in touch. Thanks, man. A huge fan of your pod. So thanks to you and told me for what you do. Thanks again to Dan for joining the show. Thanks everybody in the UK. Stiff upper lip, etc. Yeah. Keep calm and carry on, guys. Drink some Farage gin. You'll be fine. Drink some barrage gin, lads. Have some local cheese. Yeah, yeah. Talk to you next week.

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