Today, Explained - The queen is dead

Episode Date: September 9, 2022

Long live the king. This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy and Hady Mawajdeh, fact-checked by Serena Solin and Amina Al-Sadi with help from Amanda Lewellyn, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram, who also edited. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained   Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

These days, you're almost expected to leave your job every few years, even switch careers a few times. But Queen Elizabeth II held that one gig for 70 years. She was Britain's longest-serving monarch and oversaw the end of her family's empire. And even though she was 96 years old when she died yesterday, a lot of people were still shocked. And a lot of people were celebrating, especially online. There was, after all, colonialism, the troubles, the inbreeding, the racism, the hush-hushing of pedophilia, lots to dislike, but coming up on today explained what people liked, why the world's going to be mourning Queen Elizabeth II for the next days,

weeks, months, years, and whether the end of her reign is also kind of the end of monarchy. BetMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long. From tip-off to the final buzzer, you're always taken care of with a sportsbook born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with BetMGM. And no matter your team, your favorite player, or your style, there's something every NBA fan will love about BetMGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your basketball home for the season. Raise your game to the next level this year with BetMGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your basketball home for the season. Raise your game to the

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about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Today Explained, Sean Ramos from joined by Helen Lewis from The Atlantic, who wrote eloquently about the Queen upon her death, much more eloquently than, say, R.I.P. Bozo, which was trending on Twitter in the United States, at least for some time on Thursday. I asked Helen if that surprised her. Well, it's not necessarily that surprising that Americans should feel some

anti-monarchist sentiment. You know, you did have a war to get rid of them. So I can understand that for some people in America, they might be particularly thinking, well, God, why is everyone talking about this? This is an inherited wealth and privilege that we tried to get away from. But I think that underestimates the level of interest that there is in the queen. And some people therefore kind of performatively saying that they're not interested in the royal family is kind of part of that. You know, whenever I write a story that touches on Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, the queen, it always does enormous traffic in America. There is a huge level of interest in the queen. She's maybe the most famous person in the world. There was an amazing stat on Twitter,

which I hadn't quite thought about in this way. She's been on the throne for 70 years, which is essentially a third of the time that the modern American state has existed. You know, it speaks to the fact that why this is such a big moment is that for most people in Britain's lives, whole lives, she has been there and on the throne. I guess one slight pushback on that argument is that, you know, for a lot of people may seem like she just kind of sat there for 70 years and, you know, waved her hand and did some ceremony, did the pomp and circumstance. Do you think people are missing something? I don't think that's pushback because I think to some extent she used to say, you know, I have to be seen to be believed. So there is a huge role for monarchy that is literally about symbolism. It is about being a kind of symbol of continuity and stability in the country without then necessarily doing anything. And one of the

reasons for her enduring popularity was because she didn't get involved in political fights. She exemplified Britishness in a way that was not left-wing or right-wing, not conservative or liberal. So she was a kind of above the fray in that sense. You know, she didn't talk about her political opinions. She was just somebody who was there to go and open new museums and railway lines and do walkabouts. That was specifically, to her, the point of being a constitutional monarch. Remind us when she ascended to the throne. She ascended to the throne in 1952.

Her father was the second son of the previous king, so hadn't been expected to take the throne. But his elder brother, Edward VIII, abdicated the throne for an American divorcee in 1936. So that then leapfrogged her to being the heir to the throne. And the throne passes to King Edward VIII's younger brother and his wife, whom we have known and loved for so long as their royal highnesses, the Duke and Duchess of York, to the new sovereign, King Albert I and Queen Elizabeth, and to the little lady who is now heir to the throne, long life and all happiness. She was then brought up with the expectation, you know, if a brother had come along,

she would have been kicked out of the succession, but she only had a younger sister. And so she lived through the war as a very visible symbol. And we are trying to, to bear our own share of the danger and sadness of war. We know, every one of us, that in the end, all will be well. For God will care for us and give us victory and peace. She was essentially a Girl Scout. She trained to be an army mechanic. And then she started to deputise for her father, King George VI,

because he was always in quite bad health by that point. And she was on a royal tour to Kenya when the news came through that he had in fact died. You know, she was a young queen. It was seen as this kind of moment of great renewal for the country that after having lived through the war, there would be a kind of sense of national renewal and a new chapter and a new kind of birthday for the country with this young woman on the throne. And as a young queen who spent most of her life

not expecting to ever be in this position, was she chiefly learning on the job? Well, she had a strange education. She never went to school. She always had governesses. So she had, I guess, what I would call a very Bridgerton education, right? The kind of things that a young lady would have learned in previous eras. I write, I paint, I sing, I dance.

I can divide and multiply. I even construct my own house. And so there are things you can probably only learn by doing it. And there are things that she had to learn all the way along her reign, particularly dealing with the media, which changed enormously. You know, when she took over the throne, the media was incredibly deferential to politicians as well as monarchy. And by the time we get up to 2022, I don't think any of us would argue that that is the case anymore. And quite the way it was now, I think the monarchy gets a hell of a lot more deference than politicians, but it's still nothing compared to the way that it was treated in the 1950s.

What was the first major test of her reign over the British Empire? I think the decolonization process was challenging for the British monarchy, and she was instrumental in embracing the idea of the Commonwealth becoming something new, becoming a kind of club of people who wanted to be there rather than had been forced to be there. I went back and looked at the brochure for the coronation of the Queen in 1953. And on the first page are all these coats of arms of countries that no longer exist. So Aden, which is now part of Yemen, Bekuana land, which is now Botswana, Southern Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, Ceylon, which is now Sri Lanka, Basutu land, which is now Lesotho,

Sarawak, which is now part of Malaysia, British Honduras, which is now Belize, Swaziland, which is now Eswatini. So this is a kind of story about a world that doesn't exist anymore. And some of those countries have more happy relationships with Britain than others. Some of them have very strongly turned against Britain. Some of them have come to more of an accommodation. The problems really started, I would say, in the early 90s. She had what she called the anus horribilis, the terrible year. When her children started to get divorced, get into marital troubles, Windsor Castle burned down. For the Queen, it's a home, a place of family memories. For the world, it's a symbol of Britain, part of our national heritage. And that was the point where she decided that the monarchy really had to reform itself and change. So she did a number of reforms. She started paying income tax,

which classically through history, very few monarchs have voluntarily given up money, given up power. And she did both of those things, actually. And then if you're familiar with the work of Peter Morgan, not just through the crown, but his earlier work, The Queen, that depicts very well the problem that the royal family had in 1997 when Diana, Princess of Wales, died. And they were quite flat-footed about how to respond to it. So what would you suggest, Prime Minister? Some kind of a statement? No, ma'am. I believe the moment for statements has passed. They couldn't deal with this overwhelming outpouring of national mourning from a family

who had been taught always to kind of repress their emotions and, you know, keep a stiff upper lip. That's the way we do things in this country, quietly, with dignity. I think that was a moment where actually in most, in my lifetime, felt that the monarchy was closest to being irrelevant or something that people felt that they were peeling away from. But that has completely changed again in the last 25 years to people coming round very strongly to the monarchy. And, you know, Republican sentiment in Britain is here, but it's always been pretty low, actually. There's no really serious movement for republicanism, which isn't true in lots of other places that have the queen's head of state. You know, Australia has already had at least one referendum on getting rid of the

monarchy. I sense it might very well now have another in the next couple of years. How do we go from the country feeling that the monarchy is completely out of touch around the time of Diana to the country once again being behind the royal family? What is it that she does? Well, I think a lot of it was about the fact that people softened particularly towards Camilla Parker Bowles, as she was, who was Prince Charles's mistress. And people felt that Diana had been very badly treated by Charles in that relationship, and that she was hounded by the press after the divorce, particularly. And that's something I think that

Prince Harry has always felt very strongly and has seen in his own relationship with Meghan Markle. He sees this terrible echo of the fact that he feels his own mother was persecuted by the press. So I think as that faded away from memory, and then Charles and Camilla got married in 2005, and have been very boringly, happily, as far as anyone can see, married ever since. No hint of anyone else, any scandal. To me, the real tragedy of the Charles and Camilla story is that I think Charles has really only loved one woman throughout his entire life, but he wasn't allowed to marry her because she was already divorced in the 1980s. And I'm sure he loved Diana and he loved their children. But I think, had it been okay for a future monarch to marry a divorced woman, he would have just married Camilla and they probably would have

been very happily and boringly married this entire time. So I think people have kind of softened on that and that has helped. When they first got married, the announcement was that Camilla was only going to be known as Princess Consort. She was never going to be known as Princess of Wales while the Queen was alive and she was only going to be Princess as Princess of Wales while the Queen was alive, and she was only going to be Princess Cortensort, not Queen. And that was only when the Platinum Jubilee was approaching that the Queen put out a statement saying, when Charles becomes King, I want Camilla to be known as Queen. And that marks a huge rehabilitation for Camilla, and kind of therefore by extension for Charles too, that he had been quite an unpopular figure, and that now there was a sort of level of acceptance that he was going to be the next king and this was going to be his queen. That being said, I mean, the queen served for 70 years. Charles is 70 something years old. He's got a long storied history of scandal and unpopularity and just being the butt of jokes in a way that his mother never really was. Is there a chance that the end of Queen Elizabeth II is thus the end of her royal family?

That's something that people have been talking about for a really long time here. I'm hesitant on the basis that if you look around Europe, there are quite a few extant royal families, and a lot of them have had their own share of scandals. You know, for example, the king, as he's called the King Emeritus of Spain, is now actually living outside of the country because of charges related to embezzlement. There are some much more scandal played royal families than the British royal family, who are nonetheless kind of staggering on. It would be quite a big thing for us to have a referendum and for the Republican side to win. I would be surprised if that happens imminently, looking at public opinion now. But I think you're

totally right to say the media's treatment of Charles is very different to that of his mother, and the affection people feel is very different to the affection they felt for his mother. So something definitely has changed overnight with the Queen's death. Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained. Ramp.com slash explained.

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Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Visit connectsontario.ca. Perhaps you would like a marmalade sandwich. I always keep one for emergencies. So do I. I keep mine in here. For later. Helen, for those who are unaware, what is it even that the monarchy

in England does anymore? Well, it's woven into the fabric of British life in a way that I think we're probably only going to fully realize in the next couple of days, simply because we haven't had a handover. But let me give you a couple

of really simple examples. The Queen is on all of our banknotes. You know, there is someone on the other side, but the Queen is on all of our banknotes. You know, there is someone on the other side, but the Queen is on one side of all of our banknotes. I grew up in Canada and she was on one side of all the currency there too. Well, there we go. I mean, that is all going to change. She's on all of our postage stamps.

And so those will now be updated with Charles and he will be facing the other way because it flips every time the monarch changes. All of our senior lawyers, our most senior lawyers are known as QCs Queen's Councils so that will now become King's Councils but you know all the way through the year she was patron of various charities things like the National Theatre she would go and you know do civic stuff she would kind of do the kind of stuff that you know Kamala Harris is probably even now going and kind of seeing some community school production of something that's the kind of stuff that, you know, Kamala Harris is probably even now going and kind of seeing some community school production of something. That's the kind of thing that, you know, the Queen does

or has always done in Britain. And then she hosted a lot of garden parties in which if you'd done great, you know, charity or community work, you were kind of invited to them as a reward. And you know, I was probably say hundreds of thousands of British people have done that over the last couple of decades of her reign. So the idea is just to be everywhere as a symbol of kind of civic national life. And she's been old for an incredibly long time. How has she prepared Charles or even Charles's sons for what comes next? They're a long-lived family. Queen Victoria was on the throne 60-odd years. I'm trying to think of the exact date, 1837 to 1901.

And the Queen's mother lived to 101. So, you know, it was always kind of assumed that she would probably be around for a very long time. The question has been, therefore, about the fact about Charles inheriting, is he too old to inherit? You know, is he very set in his ways? He does feel like much more of a figure from another time in a way that William doesn't a prince Charles for example has 149 servants 25 of them personal staff no maids

butlers or cooks for William and Kate so who will make the bed and butter the bread well they will there's a famous story about Charles having his toothpaste squeezed onto his toothbrush by his valet. Which I just don't get. It's got to be so much easier to do it yourself. I don't understand. Yeah. How do Brits feel about a King Charles at this point?

Or a King Charles III, I should say. Yeah, it's not the regnal name with the best antecedents because Charles I got his head cut off. And then we had 10 years of a protectorate. But then we invited his son back and he became Charles II. So, you know, swings and roundabouts on that one, I guess. I think there's a lot of residual goodwill for him in the sense that he is now somebody who's mourning the death of their mother. I don't think we'll really be able to take a gauge on that for another couple of months, simply because I think this is a huge shock to people in Britain. I know it's

very unexpected for a very long time, but it had the quality of a sort of fairy tale that you couldn't really quite believe it was going to happen. And also because there's just so much sort of stuff to get through in terms of the state funeral and then the coronation, which can be that Queen Elizabeth II was crowned after succeeding to throne in 1952. So it just could be a huge set piece that will take a long time to put together. And so I would think about around the time of Charles's coronation, we'll get both a much better idea of what kind of image he wants to present the monarchy. Who is he inviting to that coronation? Which people are performing there? What bits of the ceremony are being kind of subtly tweaked in whatever ways is it still going to be a lot of you know dukes and posh

girls in lovely frocks or is you know or is there going to be some attempt to be slightly more modern about it and i think that will give you a much better idea of both of his approach and also how whether people are genuinely enthusiastic about the idea of king charles or whether or not this is something that we sort of need to go through because the wedding of William and Kate was a genuinely joyful occasion, as was the wedding of Harry and Meghan, for that story went sour very quickly. Were you silent or were you silenced? You know, there have been monarchical events in Britain that people have just generally, the overwhelming sentiment has been really positive. And I'm not sure that's true of

the coronation, but we will see in due course. You're presenting a scenario in which Charles does, in fact, embrace the job of being king after 70 some odd years. Does that mean there's no chance that he just abdicates and says, you don't need another old person in this job? Here's my son and his wife who don't have a housekeeper? I find it really unlikely. He has been training for this job his entire life, and he's now taking on this job after the time in which most people have retired. You know, and then notably, the Queen didn't abdicate. You know, she absolutely could have done.

The Queen of the Netherlands abdicated a couple of years ago. It's not unknown among modern European royal families to do that and say, you know what, the hours are really getting to me. I've shaken enough hands and accepted enough bouquets from adorable little children. I just fancy putting my feet up and watching the TV. Even a Pope did it in recent memory, right? Exactly. Yeah, Benedict XVI did it. So it is an option. But again, I think her conception was very much that, you know, you had been anointed by God and therefore you carried on until the end. And whether or not Charles has exactly that view, I think it would be,

I mean, there was a lot of discussion about when he, you know, which again you'll have seen depicted on The Crown if you've watched that, the Australian tour he did with Diana early on and his jealousy about the fact that people were really excited to see her and not so excited to see him. The final straw, honestly, pulling faces, horsing around while I'm trying to do my job. I was blushing, blushing at your compliments. People were laughing at me, laughing in my face at the end of a week in which half of Australia has also been booing me. I don't deserve this. This is supposed to be my tour. My tour as Prince of Wales to shore up one of the key

countries in the Commonwealth at a very delicate moment politically. And thanks to you. Thanks to me, people have shown up. Thanks to me, people are interested. No, thanks to you, people are laughing in my face. And there have been persistent rumours that there's been a similar thing about William and Kate in a kind of sense of, oh, why do people seem to love them and got very excited about them? And they've never felt like this about me. So I think it'd be very, I would be very unexpected if he just did decide that he, you know, after three years, he was actually quite tired now and he fancied a rest when he's been waiting his whole life for this opportunity. And is somebody, I should say,

with very strong political views that he has always wanted to enact. And what are those strong political views? Well, for example, he's very against modern architecture. You know, he really doesn't like brutalist architecture. If you show him some poor concrete, he's very unhappy. He sponsored these model villages in somewhere called Poundbury that you might say are kind of quite twee, but, you know, were built along very traditional lines.

He was always a big champion of organic food. I think that was probably paid off. You know, and he lobbied for sort of different developments in London through these series of memos to ministers that were called the Black Spider memos because of his terrible handwriting. Among the issues, there was restoring huts in the Antarctic, badger calls and Patagonian toothfish. Yeah, so he's got strong opinions on food, on architecture, on architecture, you know, not straightforwardly left-right political views. And I don't think he would ever get involved

in particular politicians or anything like that. But his ideas about sort of traditionalism, I guess, are there. And I think he'd be quite keen to kind of push them further. And even those few issues on which we know he has, you know, clear political stances, that seems to be more than we knew about his mother's politics. Yeah, I mean, she very deliberately cultivated this air of mystery and mystique around it. You know, there were some experiments in the 60s, 70s, 80s, even about, you know, engaging with the press. But the last thing

I can really remember her being interviewed for was a jubilee programme about the crown jewels and the coronation. So there are some disadvantages to crowns, but otherwise, they're quite important things. So, you know, staying way away from anything that was, you know, in any way controversial. David Cameron, the former prime minister, suggested that she was very, very happy that Scotland didn't go independent. And then another minister suggested that she would have backed Brexit, which I remember my colleague at the time saying, well, look, this is, you know, a woman aged over 65 with no degree, like that is the demographic of a Brexit voter. So we shouldn't be surprised. All she said in the run up to the Scottish independence referendum, she made some comment to somebody else who was waiting for outside church.

Queen Elizabeth II also broke her silence on Sunday and urged Scots to think very carefully about the future. And this was interpreted as her saying, don't do it, don't go independent. But that was as far as she would ever gone in public to back a particular political cause. And this is something that made her beloved. I think it did. I think it's key to the appeal is the turning yourself into a kind of quasi religious symbol of the nation, something that is above politics. Some of the most sort of patriotic queen loving people are people in Britain who run corner shops, like our version of bodegas, right? Quite often you go into that and you'd see that people would have, you know, Diana memorial plates or coronation mugs. And I think there's an interesting strand where sometimes recent immigrants to Britain liked the idea that there was a symbol of Britishness that was non-political and was open to everybody.

And you could say, yeah, I really love the Queen Queen, you know I'm here, I'm British now. Although the royal family is obviously an incredible symbol of privilege and elitism, there was a cross-class, cross-race interest in her as a version of patriotism that was available to absolutely everybody. Helen Lewis, she's a staff writer at The Atlantic. Our show today was brought to you by Abishai Artsy and Hadi Mawagdi, with help from Amanda Llewellyn and Amina Alsadi, Paul Robert Mounsey, Mixed and Mastered, Matthew Collette and Serena Solon, Fact Checked.

It's Today Explained. Thank you.