The events of the next few days and weeks will be nothing like the royal events we are used to – mostly weddings and jubilees. The nation has entered a period of genuine trauma, a period that will be marked by a series of unknown rituals that, behind closed doors, have been many years in the planning. Whatever your stance on hereditary monarchy as an institution, it’s simply not possible to be an indifferent spectator. There is no option to opt out. Britain is a nation now instantly changed, both in mood and material – our national anthem is now suddenly God save the king and a new head will soon appear on our banknotes, coins and stamps. Although profound for us, the coming changes will be modest in historical terms. When Elizabeth I died in 1603, another nation’s monarch, King James VI of Scotland, crossed the border and was placed on the throne. Most people saw this settlement as a blessing, as they feared that the death of their Virgin Queen could plunge England into chaos or spark a war of succession. Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip on a Commonwealth visit to Kenya, 1952, the day before she learned her father had died. Photo: Keystone/Getty Images Three and a half centuries later, at the time of Elizabeth II’s coronation, Labor leader and former prime minister Clement Attlee expressed his hope that what the British people were seeing through the thick flickering glass screens. white televisions, was “the beginning of a new Elizabethan era no less famous than the first”. This second Elizabethan era is now over, and its completion coincides with another of history’s closing moments. Many of the most profound changes now likely to follow the death of Queen Elizabeth II will take place beyond our shores and, in many ways, those changes are already underway. After news of the Queen’s death was sent to the Prime Minister by her private secretary, Sir Edward Young, the next step in protocol dictated that the global response center at the Foreign Office inform the representatives of the other 14 nations headed by the Queen . of the state. Next to be informed were the rest of the nations of the Commonwealth, the institution which became the great passion of the Queen’s life and reign. It was always fitting that a monarch to whom the Commonwealth meant so much should become Queen while abroad in a British colony. That colony, the Kenya of 1952, was then dominated by about 10,000 Europeans who controlled the government, the economy and the best land, particularly in the so-called “White Highlands” in the center of the country. The Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William on their royal visit to the Caribbean. Photo: Tim Rooke/Rex/Shutterstock Kenya’s break from empire, which took place in the years immediately following the Queen’s accession, was to be among the most violent in Britain’s long march from imperial greatness, a stuttering, involuntary journey that began with independence of India in 1947. The “wind of change” that eventually brought about the end of British rule in Kenya was already blowing when Elizabeth II ascended the throne. Within a decade of her coronation, not only Kenya, but also Sudan, Malaysia, Ghana, Somaliland, Nigeria, Cyprus, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, Sierra Leone, Kuwait and Uganda had gained independence. Today, 70 years later, another wind is being felt across the Commonwealth. a mass awakening to the realities and legacies of imperialism and slavery. New scholarship and new debates around the story are changing attitudes in many of the 54 “independent and equal nations” of the Commonwealth – countries that are collectively home to 2.5 billion people, most of them non-white, and the 60% of them are under 29 years old. However, this shift in consciousness, long bubbling beneath the surface, was not until recently recognized or understood within the walls of Buckingham Palace. The disastrous tour of the Caribbean by Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge in March this year starkly revealed the great gulf that exists between the monarchy and many of the people of this Commonwealth – especially young people. The tour was described by Palace insiders as a “glamour offensive”. From its conclusion, there was little charm, but no shortage of insult. Historians might well look back on this tour as the first harbinger of the era in which we now find ourselves. the post-Elizabethan era. At least William and Kate’s Caribbean tour – the fruit, it is said, of years of careful preparation – would not have looked out of place on any of the tours the late Queen took in the early decades of her reign. And therein lies the problem. While the palace has clung to tradition – the 1960s Land Rover used by the Queen on her trip to Jamaica half a century ago has been preserved and polished like a holy relic – the world has changed. That such a tour, and the images that came from it, were deemed appropriate, in the era of Black Lives Matter, the felling of colonial-era statues and the Windrush scandal, suggests an institution on the wane. However, as long as British politicians continue to entertain juvenile dreams of Empire 2.0 and “Great Britain”, the monarchy can hardly tell that it is trapped in their delusions. At the beginning of the 21st century, there are certain aspects of the past that can no longer be avoided or written, even by monarchs. In the 1950s, little was known and little had been written about Britain’s involvement in the Atlantic slave trade and slavery. Now that the story is out of the bag, it is being taught in schools in Britain and, more importantly, in the Caribbean. What this history reveals is that the monarchy itself, not just the British state, has a moment of reckoning ahead of it as three monarchs – Elizabeth I, Charles II and James II – were directly involved in the slave trade. Africans and two others. George III and William IV defended the system. Another royal tour of the Caribbean and the Americas, home to 13 of the Commonwealth’s 54 nations, is unthinkable until Britain and its head of state can face these realities. Judging by recent speeches, King Charles III seems to be aware of these realities. The big opportunity given to the monarchy, which many hoped would allow it to take the cultural equivalent of a “great leap forward”, was Prince Harry’s marriage to Meghan Markle. a woman whose presence and voice had the potential to make the monarchy feel more relevant to the 21st century and allow it to look more like modern Britain and the modern Commonwealth. But Meghan was butchered by the sharks of the British tabloid press and Harry became – literally – the prince across the water. It is perhaps a testament to the enormous esteem in which Elizabeth II was held that the coming wave of questioning and reappraisal was partly postponed until after her death. Barbados’ decision last November to become a democracy is a sign that the push for change is now reaching a critical juncture. There is no escaping history for either the new monarch or the Commonwealth, the institution the late Queen did so much, for so long, to hold together. David Olusoga is a columnist for the Observer, professor of public history at the University of Manchester and a broadcaster and documentary maker
