From the Head of School

 

An Exemplary Life

Many of us were shocked at the announcement of the Queen’s death yesterday, and then were surprised at that shock: she was 96, and her health had been failing for some time.

But for those of us from this Island, she has always been there. You would have to be pretty old to remember any other UK monarch.  She was a source of continuity and stability when this country and the world was going through profound changes.

Queen Elizabeth was a different kind of head of state to the presidents of France or the United States. She was very aware that she didn’t have their power: in 1957, she told the nation, “I cannot lead you into battle.  I do not give you laws or administer justice.”  But she was quite clear what she could do, and what her role should be; she went on to say, “I can do something else: I can give you my heart and my devotion …”

It is easy to think of power in formal coercive terms: the power to enforce your will.  But there is a quiet kind of power that comes from self-control and behaving in a certain kind of way, consistently and over time.  

The Queen was given a prominence in public life, but not the right to direct it.  What she could control was herself.  Over the past 70 years she had plenty of opportunity to say divisive or belittling things.  Instead she used her platform to emphasise unity and to show steadiness when times were tough.

Her first broadcast to the nation was in 1940, when she was aged 14.  She reassured other children as bombs rained down on the capital.  That she stayed when she could have fled was a special kind of power.  80 years later, during a different time of national peril, she mourned her life’s partner with the same pandemic restrictions that everyone else was under - setting a far more powerful example than those that did have the power ‘to give laws and administer justice’ ever did.  

Very young children learn that they cannot control the world; as the adults around them, it is our responsibility to teach them to control themselves, and with that ability combined with the right values, that they can change the world without laws and armies.

The Queen’s death was a shock, despite it not being a surprise, because it ended an era.  We felt personally impacted because the Queen led such a public life so well.  She was an inspiration for us to lead our lives well: whatever our roles, whatever the extent or limits or our abilities.