Yesterday was Remembrance Sunday, but this year, it wasn’t a big public event. The UK is doing another big lockdown of some variety, so the somber events of Remembrance Sunday happened without a crowd of on-lookers by and large. From what I could see, most of the royals did arrive at the Cenotaph wearing masks in the car. Then they removed their masks while there for what was something of a “social-distanced” ceremony of wreath-laying. The Queen, the Duchess of Cambridge, the Countess of Wessex, the Duchess of Cornwall all watched from balconies. The Queen was, at no time, photographed wearing a mask on Remembrance Sunday.
Perhaps she had gotten all the mask-wearing out of her system the day before, when she visited Westminster Abbey. She monitored her equerry placing a bouquet of flowers on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, and she wore a black mask entering the Abbey, and for the entire flower-laying event. This was the first time she’d been photographing wearing a mask. Her last public event, on October 15th, was that horrendous trip she made where everyone was maskless but the palace insisted it was okay because all 48 people had been recently tested for the virus. Before the Queen stepped out on Sunday, Robert Lacey wrote an interesting piece in Vanity Fair which was basically like “the Queen must be photographed in a mask, this is absurd.”
When the Queen last appeared in public, at Porton Down on October 15, Buckingham Palace had prepared an explanation for her lack of a mask. The 48 people who were due to come into contact with the Queen and Prince William that day had been specially tested for COVID-19 beforehand, said the Palace, and the site had been fenced off to keep it secure.
But that is not quite the point, is it? The message of this official explanation was that there is one rule for Her Majesty and another rule for the rest of us, who cannot deploy teams of testers whenever we go out to ensure that all those we meet are COVID-free. That’s why it is government policy that we should all wear face masks.
Isn’t that the job of our representative monarch—to reflect national policy on important national issues? And what could be more important than the issue of battling COVID-19? The Queen’s thinking on this matter remains a mystery. The closest that anyone has come to explaining why Elizabeth II should not just ignore but apparently flout government guidelines is because she wants to show Britain a picture of the magnificent and mask-less times that lie ahead. Her Majesty is holding out for hope. If this is her thinking—and this explanation has not been confirmed by Buckingham Place—her aims are laudable. But to achieve those hoped-for good times, there is still a battle to be fought, and the frequently-repeated government strategy for winning that nation-wide battle is quite clear—that we all should wear face masks, if possible, from high to low.
Across Britain people are understandably bristling at the welter of restrictions that the current crisis is placing upon our lives. There has been a neo-Trumpian behavioral revolt at the “tyranny” of government measures, with all age groups—not just students—reveling in pre-lockdown parties. So surely now, more than ever, is the time for our Head of State to demonstrate that the sensible medical precaution of wearing a face mask is no tyranny – and that she is no Trump.
Lacey goes on to suggest that the Queen needs to wear a mask on Remembrance Sunday. She did not. Neither did any Windsor. Maybe she was hoping that the Saturday photos would be the balm, an excuse to go maskless for the rest of the week. Yeah, it doesn’t work like that. The Queen should be leading on this issue – masks for everybody in the family, herself included. God, she’s such an a–hole.
Wearing the mask on Saturday and then NOT wearing it on Sunday just made it worse, IMO.
I know the UK posters say that masks aren’t required when you’re outdoors. But she should still wear the damn mask, in my opinion. Wear it as an example, wear it as a way of saying “look, masks suck, but they help, so lets all do our part, and go beyond the minimum.” Masks aren’t usually required here in my state if you are outside and can physically distance. Our governor wears one all the damn time. (and my sentence above is a direct quote from him this week, lol – “wear the damn mask.”) he wears it during press conferences if he’s not speaking. Like most of us, he’s getting a wide range of masks and coordinates them to the occasion (this is something I would like to see Biden do, lol.) He’s done it from the beginning and its clearly his way of setting an example and normalizing mask wearing. I cant believe the queen isn’t doing the same.
ETA While I’m ranting about this – maybe I can believe the queen doesn’t care. .You wear a mask to protect the people around you, not for your own health. So maybe she’s saying she doesn’t care about the people around her.
A lost opportunity to lead. Again.
Yep!
According to the Royal reporters, she wore a mask at the Westminster Abbey Unknown Soldier event because in the UK it’s mandatory for people to wear masks in churches. The UK mask wearing rules are nonsensical but the British Government has to pander to the right wing anti-mask crowd which I don’t doubt includes the Royal Family.
Even though wearing a mask is not always required in the UK, I can’t believe the Queen hasn’t been advised to wear one at all times because she’s in a vulnerable age group.
I cant believe that everyone around her isn’t required to wear a mask at all times.
She requires everyone around her to be tested instead.
The White House has proven that testing daily doesn’t guarantee being virus free and yet they continue with this lack of mask wearing out of vanity.
I’m a bit surprised Lacey is being critical of the Queen but the UK has handled this virus poorly.
The rules are pretty weird, but I wouldn’t have said that there is a “right wing anti mask crowd” in the UK? Maybe they don’t impinge on my bubble.
My experience generally is that Windsors appear to be more or less following the UK rules, and the general behaviour of the British public – mask wearing indoors but no mask wearing outdoors.
The excuse that she’s going without a mask to be a beacon of light/promise of the future is such unbelievable tripe I want to gag. Don’t insult people’s intelligence. Petty Betty doesn’t want to wear a mask. And what Queen Petty wants, Queen Petty gets.
Is anyone surprised? Liz probably has no idea what’s going on lol. Her courtiers must have forgotten to give her a mask, just like they forgot to tell her about her grandsons request to have a wreath layed down.
That’s my thought too. She has no idea. Whatever they tell her to say she will say, whatever they tell her to do, she will do, if they say jump, she just says, how high.
Her aims are NOT laudable! They are reckless, self-absorbed, stupid nonsense.
The royals should be wearing masks. End of.
Especially the 90 year old in the at risk age group, the 4 70 year olds also in the at risk age group and one of them even had the virus, the almost 40 year old who apparently suffered quite badly and the other 40 year old who saw how much her own husband suffered at the hands of the virus
And everyone else not included in this list.
I’m forming some kind of idea about a parallel between face masks for COVID and the way everyone carried around their gas mask when they left their house to go anywhere during WW2. Are there photos of the RF carrying around their gas masks during the war? It seemed like EVERYONE did back then. It wasn’t political. It was about safety and also a bit about patriotism and showing that you were prepared and weren’t going to stop living your life. The face masks are so similar. Just wear them. It would mean so much to people to see the entire RF always wearing a mask. Solidarity. Sympathy. Preparedness. All in this fight together.
She did her part in WWII but has squandered her opportunity to do so again. Remember her mother famously saying she could look east enders in the eye – I think this was a similar opportunity.
I can’t understand being so uninformed and unbothered by the idea of getting COVID (particularly as a very old woman) that you just run around without a mask on. I can’t imagine it. I’m in my 20s. I’m horrified of getting this virus or spreading it to my loved ones. I wear my mask to go get the mail, lol. Just can’t understand feeling otherwise.
Perhaps by the time you get to that age you no longer care about living or dying and since you’ve never had to consider anyone else in your life, why bother to try and protect them even if you don’t care about dying yourself. Besides, like Trump if she gets the virus all efforts will be made to ensure she survives it unlike the peasants.
Practically speaking, QEII doesn’t need to wear a mask every time she goes out in public. If she’s outside and many feet distant from others, the possibility of transmission is infinitesimally low. HOWEVER, to model healthy behavior and set a precedent, she should be wearing a mask at all times in public — even when it’s not epidemiologically necessary.
It’s NOVEMBER. I could see if she didn’t wear a mask in March/early April when things were so up in the air and recommendations still changing. But it’s NOVEMBER. We’re all crystal clear about how important it is to wear a mask while out in public. It’s shouldn’t be that hard, AND YET, some people still don’t think all of this applies to them. Including the queen, apparently.
We wear masks when we’re inside, not when we’re outside. Same rule for all of us.
These people think this is a game!! Imagine if harry and meghan did this…
And look at how they are praising her for this staged photoshoot but have a problem with the sussexs sharing their visit to la gravesites honouring remembrance Sunday