People can make all he excuses they like as to why Elizabeth doesn’t attend other royal events but in reality there is no excuse. Lets look at some of those excuses:
She is an old woman: Yes, but she hasn’t always been old and even on her younger days never went to anything.
It’s protocol: What kind of protocol is it that stops a monarch attending events outside her country? Granted at one time the English were the most hated people on earth and their monarch was likely to be assassinated if they left the country, but those days are gone and it’s part of the job description to attend.
She is Queen of more than one country and has a heavy work load: Most of those countries have Governor Generals who do the work. Even in Scotland, the oldest kingdom of which she is queen only gets a week of her time. And consider this, Elizabeth has a month break over Christmas and New Year. She has another month break at Easter and a two-month break in the summer when she goes to Balmoral. During those four months she carries out no royal duties. During the rest of the year she stays at Windsor from Friday to Monday and again, carries out no duties over her four-day weekend. That leaves three days in the week for royal engagements. That means that there are only around 96 days in the year when royal engagements are carried out, and this has been her schedule throughout her reign.
One of the reasons I heard as to why she didn’t go to anything was because the British government would only allow her to go if she was given place of honour. Of course there was no way that was going to happen as the monarchs take their place according to how long they have reigned and throughout the years Elizabeth was well down the line. It’s true she attended King Baudioun’s funeral but I have heard that that was a mistake. The British government thought that with Baudioun out of the picture Elizabeth was now Europe’s longest reigning monarch and would have place of honour after the Belgian royal family but they forgot about Prince Rainier who had not only reigned longer than Elizabeth but had also reigned longer than Baudioun .
This all has to do with the belief held by the British government and by many English people that the Windsors are somehow superior to other royals. I have heard English people claim that the other royals are not “real royalty” and I have even heard it claimed that the other monarchs had their titles given to them by the British monarchy. This week the Norwegian royals visited Britain. Some of the newspapers reporting the visit used capital letters when referring to the British Queen, Prince or Duchess but lower case when referring to the Norwegian royals ie, king, queen and crown prince instead of King, Queen and Crown Prince. This is because in British eyes they are inferior to the Windsors.
Why they should regard them as superior is a mystery and I think the Windsors do regard themselves as being better. I did read one reason for this. It was suggested that they have to convince themselves they are better because, unlike the other royal families, they are not the rightful royal family. They also know that they are no way near as popular as the other royals. In Scotland Elizabeth has never enjoyed great popularity. This goes back to the day she was proclaimed as “Elizabeth the second”
She is only the second in England but the first in Scotland and all the other countries in which she is queen. There was a great outcry in Scotland when this happened and post boxes with EIIR on it were blown up, (today the monogram is never used in Scotland.) People would have forgiven this putting it down to bad advice but things were to get worse. On the day of her inauguration as Queen of Scots in the High Kirk of St. Giles in Edinburgh thousands lined the streets waiting to see her. I was told by a lady who was there that as the carriage came along the cheers sounded “strange” they rose up and then seemed to die in mid air changing to an “ohhh.” When the carriage passed by she saw what the reason was, Elizabeth was wearing an ordinary dress and a hat and coat. She hadn’t made any attempt to dress for the occasion. During the service the Honours of Scotland, the crown jewels, were presented to her. She was to touch the crown (she couldn’t wear it as only the Stuarts are entitled to wear the Scottish crown) but she didn’t even put her handbag down to do so. The next day the newspapers had only one headline “THAT BLOODY HANDBAG.” As she left the kirk it was noticeable that most of the crowd had disappeared in disgust. My great grandfather who had proudly placed her photo on the wall took it down and burnt it and as long as he lived he forbad the mention of her name in the house. From that day there has been a love/hate relationship with her in Scotland.
I’m sure the other monarchs must talk among themselves about Elizabeth’s absence but I’m sure they are better off without her. She would probably be a party pooper.
