[chrisstu]

You think she enjoyed the trappings of wealth? I never had that impression. And no, she didn't "sign up for it", she became Queen as a result of birth. Yes, she could have abdicated but the fact that she chose duty is to her credit. She was not faultless, but it's difficult to imagine another monarch doing a better job. I say all this as an anti-monarchist. I don't want one, but if we have to have one, she was the best.

[gnulinux]

> Yes, she could have abdicated

If you can quit a job but you choose not to do so, in what sense did you not "sign up for it"? Her own uncle Edward VIII abdicated so he can marry Wallis Simpson without controversy. This has nothing to with anti-monarchism, I'm just pointing out that she was the queen only through her own free will.

[QuarterReptile]

>If you can quit a job but you choose not to do so, in what sense did you not "sign up for it"?

>she became Queen as a result of birth.

It is true that failing to live up to her responsibility was a path she could have chosen. She did not, and that is greatly to her credit. Choosing not to abandon your responsibility is a far cry from "signing up for it."

[vintermann]

Her responsibility to be a rich and powerful figurehead for a colonial empire? I don't see how choosing that was to her credit. Isn't it better to value something more than your own family's power and prestige?

[QuarterReptile]

>Her responsibility to be a rich and powerful figurehead for a colonial empire?

Correct

>I don't see how choosing that was to her credit.

I can see that.

[notahacker]

There's a massive difference between signing up for your dream job and being handed a responsibility with the right to abdicate it if you don't mind causing a constitutional crisis and still being stuck with the media obsessing over you.

Technically, I can take drastic action to negate things I received as an accident of birth if I don't mind getting flak for doing it, but it makes no sense at all to claim that on that basis my parents, physical appearance or manhood were all stuff I signed up for of my own free will.

[makeitdouble]

If tomorrow some guy from a small remote and completely obscure island came to you and told you're the last in the royal bloodline and need to reign the SNBXIHWJ people, leave your life and everything you own to come to their survival island and sit on the throne, you'd probably give them the middle finger.

In our current world wealth and royalty is preserved by free will and is nothing comparable to your manhood (which you can also give up if you want to, people do)

[notahacker]

> If tomorrow some guy from a small remote and completely obscure island came to you and told you're the last in the royal bloodline and need to reign the SNBXIHWJ people, leave your life and everything you own to come to their survival island and sit on the throne, you'd probably give them the middle finger.

Sure, I wouldn't necessarily be up for a lifestyle change involving playing Survivor with consonant-loving maniacs I wasn't actually related to and have never heard of before! However the Queen's situation is the exact opposite: she had a life built around being heir to the throne and whilst it was technically possible to give the middle finger to everyone in her life instead of fulfilling the role she'd been assigned at birth, that's a bit different from implying monarchy was the job she wanted or even a net positive.

Odd that a subthread which started with someone praising the late Queen for choosing not to run away from obligations requires so many followups pointing out that she could have run away from them...

> your manhood (which you can also give up if you want to, people do)

Well yeah, that was the point. You can change almost anything you're born with; the ability to give something up [at significant cost, and without necessarily getting a better alternative] clearly isn't remotely sufficient to describe it as something you "signed up for".

[makeitdouble]

> Odd that a subthread which started with someone praising the late Queen for choosing not to run away from obligations requires so many followups pointing out that she could have run away from them...

This goes in pair. You praise someone for the choices they make, it doesn’t make sense if it wasn’t a choice at all in the first place.

I think she was a brilliant and intelligent person, she proved it in so many occasions, and she didn’t become Queen or stayed for so long just because of social pressure and “daddy told me to”. So yes, I’m assuming it was a net positive for her, and that she dedicated her life to something she wanted to do.

Sure there are many shitty parts coming with the throne and the toxicity surrounding the whole royalty system, but I give be the benefit of the doubt on having done the right choices in her life.

[notahacker]

The easiest choice of all would have been to take up the role of monarch but decline to keep her opinions to herself or do stuff she couldn't be bothered with. The talk of her "signing up for it" upthread was all aimed at dismissing the notion that performing the role well was praiseworthy, as if they were responsibilities she'd actively looked for rather than merely been given.

[greiskul]

> without controversy

Wasn't this actually a huge controversy at the time?

[gnulinux]

He was pressured not to marry Wallis Simpson. If he married her it would have been a constitutional crisis, so in order to prevent that controversy, he abdicated and married Wallis Simpson. He could have chosen to be the king and not marry her; or he could have married her anyway and embrace the huge controversy. This is why I said "he abdicated in order to marry Wallis Simpson without controversy".

[3836293648]

Wasn't he the guy who was pressured into abdicating for being a Nazi?

[alistairSH]

No, he was pressured not to marry an American divorcee (with two living ex-husbands). That led to his abdication - doing otherwise would have led to a constitutional crisis. He was rumored to be a Nazi sympathizer, but that wasn’t the direct cause of his abdication.

[cge]

I feel like the timing is important in that story, and often underemphasized. Edward was pressured not to marry a married (and arguably not separated) American woman he was in some form of relationship with, who was willing to divorce her current husband in order to marry him. Simpson didn't file for divorce until after George died, and the cause of divorce is widely understood as having been orchestrated to allow her to marry Edward. The divorce was not finalized until well after the abdication.

While, technically, the constitutional crisis would have been caused by him marrying a divorcee and being the head of a state religion that didn't approve of remarriage with living ex-spouses, the circumstances were likely important in motivating a hard stance on the policy: it involved the sort of situation that an apologist might have given as an example of why remarriage should not be allowed. Even current Church of England rules would not allow the marriage.

It is interesting that the story is often simply portrayed as him wanting to marry a American divorcee, likely leading to the sense in many readers unfamiliar with the circumstances that he wanted to marry someone who simply had had prior marriages, quite possibly with ex-husbands who were still in the US.

[foldr]

No, that has nothing to do with why he was pressured to abdicate. Really he was pressured not to marry Wallis Simpson, not pressured to abdicate.

[antod]

Not directly, but for that reason it was a massive relief for the govt when he did abdicate and they could "exile" him and his wife and their Nazi sympathies somewhere far away.

Basically he never wanted to be King, and seemed totally unsuitable for it anyway.

[foldr]

Edward VIII abdicated at the end of 1936, almost three years before the start of the second world war. At that time being a Nazi sympathizer was still perfectly respectable in much of British high society. I think possibly you are getting the timeline slightly mixed up.

[antod]

You're right I had the timeline between abdication and "exile" condensed in my head. But by govt relief I wasn't referring to High Society but the functional bureaucracy of govt and intelligence services etc.

I recall (possibly faulty memory) from a documentary I watched once, that the bureaucracy stopped providing him with certain daily government briefing documents out of fears for national security.

[antod]

Then again, the intelligence services were riddled with communist sympathisers so that probably explains it just as much :)

[aaronbrethorst]

Smart billionaire monarchs don’t flaunt their wealth lest the peasants realize what a raw deal they have and revolt.

[caleb-allen]

I admire the queen if only for the masterful job she's done at convincing the masses that she is a victim of circumstance rather than the quintessential purveyor of privilege

[wilsonnb3]

> she chose duty

I would like to choose the duty of being fabulously wealthy and literally immune to criminal or civil prosecution, too.

[smegger001]

to be fair those are entirely theoretical powers, the second any of that become a legitimate issue parliament can remove them. Just ask King Charles I about how well sovereign immunity saves the monarch from criminal prosecution.

[WastingMyTime89]

Completely theoretical. Actually no member of the British royal family has ever been in a situation where the common man would rote in jail for life and got away scot-free. It was all my imagination these past few years.