The sun peeped out long enough for me to throw a load of laundry on the line and get it dried; I cooked dinner – a-z, all the way to some more-than-slightly overly-toasty coconut macaroons – and…here I was, feeling all super-successful as a hostess and Tech Boy is stuck in traffic somewhere, at ten minutes to seven, as is our guest, because it’s Jubilee Weekend.
Oops.
How could I have forgotten that the Glorious Elizabeth I* has, as of this weekend, ruled the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland now for sixty years?
I am surrounded by people who are either completely uncaring of the fact that this woman has been queen for so long (D’s office is having work as usual on Monday), or a little skeptical, at best. Many Scots are an unwilling part of this somewhat united of kingdoms – while many also feel quite British and are eagerly waving flags and draping bunting and getting into the spirit of things. It’s a bit of politics I, as a guest here for five years, DO NOT GET INTO. However, I was just reading something in the paper and it said something about “pub-hall ditties about crushing the rebellious Scot,” and I said, “Wha?” and looked it up.
God Save the Queen. The “additional” anti-Jacobite verse, written in 1745:
Lord, grant that Marshal Wade,
May by thy mighty aid,
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
and like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush,
God save the King.
Of course, NOBODY sings that today. People rarely sing more than the first verse of the song — and mushily at that. (One of my favorite things is to watch people sing national anthems — how many DON’T know it?? Far more than you’d think.) But it’s historical fact, this little verse, and, just as people of the Jewish faith remember that once upon a time, the phase “perfidious Jews” was in a traditional Catholic prayer for Good Friday, it’s something heavy-handed enough to leave fingerprints in minds of an historical bent.
Ah, well. History, my high school teacher always warned us, was a lie agreed upon. In some respects, the unity in “United” States is as much of a fib as the unity in “United” Kingdom. We human creatures are critical of our leaders (technically, QE I is a figurehead, not a leader – the prime minister does the heavy lifting, but still) and rightly so, very rightly so! But sometimes, we are also a difficult, cranky group, at best.
Ah, well. It is the nature of the beast, and well our leaders know it. So, good luck, Queen Elizabeth I*! …And Incumbent Obama…
*Edited to Add: I know that the current queen is technically QEII, however, since it was not the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the time QEI reigned, the current Elizabeth is the first. And YES. Because I know this, I also know that I have way, way, way too many history major friends…