Queen’s stark health admission

Her Majesty the Queen has long been the sole greatest practitioner in the coded art of broach wearing. Over the years, she has deployed her vast, vast collection of diamond, ruby and sapphire beauties to telegraph particular messages to the world that she could never herself utter.

Take Donald Trump’s visit to the UK in 2018. She first wore a green piece, given to her by the Obamas, to greet him, followed by, the next day, one given to her by Canada, then Trump’s northern nemesis. And then lastly, on the third day, she chose a teardrop-shaped number that she wore to her father’s funeral.

Today, we were treated to another striking moment of broach diplomacy.

In the early hours of Tuesday, the Queen addressed the leaders gathering in Glasgow for COP26 via a prerecorded video. Dressed appropriately in green, there on the left side of her chest, was another very particular sparkler – the Onslow Butterfly Brooch – in what was a very clear tribute to her late husband, Prince Philip. (The piece was a wedding gift to the young princess in 1947 and the image, prominently displayed of the Duke of Edinburgh to her side was one released after his death to mark his work as the World Wildlife Fund’s president.)

The decision to wear such an intimate, emotion-laden piece reflected the substance of her speech, which was no ordinary outing or platitude-filled opener. Instead, the 95-year-old delivered a powerful, largely unprecedented address which included the most frank admission we have seen yet about her current situation, saying, “We none of us will live forever.”

Those seven words might be the simple truth but given recent events, they are no less chilling.

For the better part of the last two weeks, courtiers have been attempting to navigate the biggest health crisis of the sovereign’s nearly 70-year reign, with the question of Her Majesty’s mortality one that has been looming very ominously over Buckingham Palace.

The sight of the Queen using a walking stick, and news she had agreed to forgo her nightly cocktail for the sake of her health, originally set off alarm bells.

Then on October 20, it was announced that she was pulling out of a tour of Northern Ireland, followed, in quick succession, by a secretive overnight hospital stay which courtiers had tried to cover up, by official images of her being released which showed what looked like a bruise on her forearm.

Finally, over the weekend, Buckingham Palace announced it was cancelling Her Majesty’s next two week’s worth of engagements, including her attendance at the Festival of Remembrance, on the advice of her doctors because she needed to rest.

In short, things have been looking increasingly worrying for a woman who, only a few years away from hitting triple digits, still rides ponies, drives and works every day.

And it is against this backdrop that we have today’s video, a powerful, unusually emotional plea for action on climate change and which will very possibly join the roster of her other most famous speeches of hers. (For example, her 1947 one, broadcast from South Africa, to mark her 21st birthday in which she pledged “I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service” or her powerful message in April last year in which she invoked the words of Dame Vera Lynn and told a battered world, “We will meet again.” Anyone else need a tissue after that moment?)

As far as these sorts of addresses go, today’s was hardly long, clocking in at just over four minutes, but what really set it apart was the fact it constituted one of the most personal and charged messages she has sent during her regal career.

She invoked the memory of Philip, not only via her choice broach and the tender photo by her side, but by referring to him as “my dear late husband” and speaking about his decades-long work on the “challenge” of the environment.

She also took the highly unusual step of offering rare public praise for her family’s efforts, saying: “It is a source of great pride to me that the leading role my husband played in encouraging people to protect our fragile planet, lives on through the work of our eldest son Charles and his eldest son William. I could not be more proud of them.”

However, what is highly significant here is that there was no equivocation, no diplomatic tiptoeing around why 120 of the world’s most powerful men and women are now gathered in Scotland in her message. Rather, the Queen pulled no punches, urging the great and good to “rise above the politics of the moment, and achieve true statesmanship”.

More broadly, this speech constitutes the most direct and forceful insertion of the monarchy and the crown on a subject that, not that long ago, would have been viewed as uncomfortably political and therefore an absolute no-go zone for Her Majesty.

By contrast, the last of these UN-run climate talk-a-thons was held in Madrid in 2019. And back then? Buckingham Palace did not utter a peep via any sort of official press release or statement about goings on. On the same day it concluded, and while the world was trying to work out what, if anything had been achieved, Her Majesty was giving out a poetry medal.

But things have changed – markedly.

The question here is, does the Queen’s outspoken intervention on Tuesday reflect how mainstream and essentially apolitical the climate crisis has become? Or does this moment more accurately reflect the fact that she is coming towards the end of her reign and is driven by an increasing sense of urgency to play her part while she still can?

Is this speech really an admission, as sad and as inevitable as it might be, that she only has limited time left to make an impact?

If so, it would be a thrilling prospect.

Throughout her reign, Her Majesty has hewed religiously to long-established precepts about what was territory that a crowned head of state might comfortably enter into and stayed ruthlessly away from anything even remotely verging on the controversial or the divisive. Her job was to remain regally above the fray and to project a permanent Sphinx-like inscrutability on the sorts of matters which consumed Westminster.

So, have we just witnessed, with today’s video, the very first sign of an erosion of this lifelong commitment? With a finite amount of time remaining, are we seeing the Queen, even marginally, colouring outside the lines?

As with her wonderfully sneaky broach moves in 2018 with Trump, when your face is on the currency, you get to play by your own rules.

Long live the Queen – literally.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

Originally published as The Queen’s stark health admission during emotional speech