This People Magazine cover story came out on Tuesday late afternoon/early evening, around the same time that “The Queen Died” began trending on Twitter. As far as I know, Queen Elizabeth II has not passed away. Operation London Bridge is very detailed and everyone in the UK knows exactly what to do and what to say once the Queen passes. We will not find out that the Queen died via some dude’s Instagram account in America. What’s actually happening right now around the Queen is that she’s still alive but in very poor health, and she’s physically and emotionally drained. Instead of being well-served by competent staff in the last months/years of her life, she’s surrounded by dangerous clowns and sycophants who don’t know what to do with an ailing – but still living – 95-year-old woman with Covid. Which is where People’s cover story picks up. Some highlights:
February has been rough on the Windsor clan: “It’s a drip-feed of negativity for the monarchy,” says a palace insider in this week’s cover story. “I’ve not known such a tumultuous time as this.” A royal insider adds: “It just feels to be one thing after another for the Queen. It’s going to take a toll.”
Her Maj is surrounded by death: The Queen no longer has her most trusted companion beside her following the death of her husband, Prince Philip, in April — just one of the many deaths of close confidants that the monarch has experienced in recent months. “There’s a difference between being alone and being lonely,” says the palace insider. Factor in even mild symptoms of COVID, and it “must be hard,” adds the insider. “Whatever the symptoms, when you’re feeling below par, having to deal with the other problems is really hard.”
The Stoic Queen: However, the Queen remains resolute even in the midst of difficult times. The Queen “is stoical and mentally strong,” adds the insider.
She isn’t as active as she used to be: She’s also been unable to take part in one of her favorite leisurely activities: horseback riding. Queen Elizabeth hasn’t been riding her beloved ponies in recent months due to “discomfort.” “In the past, one of the things that’s always been a way for her to cope is to be physically active,” says historian Amanda Foreman, author of Queen Victoria’s Buckingham Palace. “And with that being curtailed, it makes it especially hard.”
Still focused on the Jubbly: “Her main concern will be to get back to be in fighting form to start the Jubilee celebrations,” says the insider. “She’s of the generation where you ‘suck it up.’ It is duty first.” Adds royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith, author of Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch: “She’s very, very good at dealing with what life throws at her. She understands that she needs to project that positive image more than ever and go about her business.”
It’s a bit rich to say “I’ve not known such a tumultuous time as this.” The ‘90s were legitimately crazy for the Windsors as Diana increasingly “went rogue” and Charles kept trying to make fetch (Camilla) happen. Diana cooperated with Andrew Morton on a tell-all book which exploded like a bomb in the monarchy (they truly were “blindsided” back then). Charles agreeing to the Dimbley interview, Diana sitting down with Panorama. It was chaos. And it will all be on The Crown’s Season 5, lmao. But yes, I would say the past year has been especially damaging to the monarchy. A lot of separate “gathering storms” converging all at once. But again, do I actually feel sorry for them? Not really. They did it to themselves, even the Queen. She mismanaged the family business for seven decades and all of the chickens are coming home to roost at the twilight of her reign. It is what it is.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- 11/06/2021. London, United Kingdom. Prime Minister Boris Johnson G7 Summit Day One . HM Queen Elizabeth II accompanied by The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge joins the Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie for the G7 leaders summit reception & dinner at the Eden Project as the Prime Minister Boris Johnson chairs the G7 Leaders Summit in Carbis Bay, Cornwall. .,Image: 615377261, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: This image is for Editorial use purposes only. The Image can not be used for advertising or commercial use. The Image can not be altered in any form., Model Release: no, Credit line: Andrew Parsons / Avalon
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- Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Boris Johnson, left, greet guests at a reception for the Global Investment Summit in Windsor Castle, Windsor, England, Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2021.,Image: 638818085, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: POOL, Model Release: no, Credit line: Alastair Grant / Avalon
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- Queen Elizabeth II receives General Sir Nick Carter, Chief of the Defence Staff, during an audience in the Oak Room at Windsor Castle, Berkshire. General Sir Nick is relinquishing his role as the Chief of Defence Staff at the end of this month.,Image: 643610011, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Steve Parsons / Avalon
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- Queen Elizabeth II receives the Governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey during an audience in the Oak Room at Windsor Castle, Berkshire. Picture date: Wednesday November 24, 2021.,Image: 644696447, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533 42 89, Model Release: no, Credit line: Avalon.red / Avalon
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- Queen Elizabeth II records her annual Christmas broadcast in the White Drawing Room in Windsor Castle, Berkshire. Issue date: Thursday December 23, 2021 The photograph on the desk is of The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, taken in 2007 at Broadlands, Hampshire, to mark their Diamond Wedding Anniversary.,Image: 649254904, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533 42 89, Model Release: no, Credit line: Avalon.red / Avalon
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- Queen Elizabeth II cuts a cake to celebrate the start of the Platinum Jubilee during a reception in the Ballroom of Sandringham House, which is the Queen’s Norfolk residence. The Queen came to the throne 70 years ago this Sunday when, on February 6 1952, the ailing King George VI – who had lung cancer – died at Sandringham in the early hours.,Image: 659601877, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Joe Giddens / Avalon
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- Queen Elizabeth II cuts a cake to celebrate the start of the Platinum Jubilee during a reception in the Ballroom of Sandringham House, which is the Queen’s Norfolk residence. The Queen came to the throne 70 years ago this Sunday when, on February 6 1952, the ailing King George VI – who had lung cancer – died at Sandringham in the early hours.,Image: 659602010, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Joe Giddens / Avalon
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- Queen Elizabeth II speaks during an audience at Windsor Castle when she met the incoming and outgoing Defence Service Secretaries.,Image: 662999449, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Steve Parsons / Avalon
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- New York, NY – Meghan Markle and Prince Harry leave Melba’s in Harlem after grabbing lunch. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were in town paying a visit to a Harlem elementary school where they sat and read to school children. Pictured: Meghan Markle BACKGRID USA 24 SEPTEMBER 2021 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
Must be really really hard facing all those “troubles” while sitting in a huge castle surrounded by servants, not having actually truly worked a single day in her entire life. Poor woman. My heart breaks for her (not).
troubles that she seems pretty directly responsible for. she may not have been the origin of the bad acts, but she sweeps, sweeps, sweeps with the best of the them and has made a mockery of the monarchy & the country. these are not good people, and the fact that she is 95 doesn’t somehow make it alright.
Is she stoic, or is she a 95-year-old woman who is tired and past caring about any of it? I would imagine it’s hard to muster much of a reaction at 95.
Her being so “stoic” ( read: sticking her head in the sand) is exactly why the windsors are in this mess to begin with.
Had she been a bit more hands on in the family i feel like a lot of shish could have been avoided.
Her children are adults and responsible for their own behavior.
True, but they all represent the monarchy, which she is the head of. All these years, the buck has stopped with her. She can’t stop her children from being horrible in their lives, but she has always had the power to reign them in. She just chose not to do it on many occasions where she should have.
And how exactly do you think their behavior came to be? Elizabeth is notorious for sticking her head in the sand. Even when her kids were little
So bad parenting explains pedophilia and pay-to-play in grown ass men? It’s like they have no agency as adults.
which she continues to downplay, ignore, and bail them out of. she has held on to her position with a steel grip, she is thus responsible for an utter lack of leadership and moral conviction. she has allowed the rot that permeates every nook and cranny of that disgusting institution
I think looking back over her life and the lives of her parents and grandparents, she was just doing things in the way she thought was right. I’m not trying to defend the outdated rules she’s lived by or tried to force her family to live by, the emotional pain she’s inflicted upon her children, which has then been passed down to their children, or any of it. None of those rules she learnt were good but I don’t think she knew any other way.
Put the royalty part to one side and you’ve got a common theme for many families. Unhealthy ideals, rules and the passing down of unresolved emotional trauma. The royals of her generation in particular were sheltered from more outside experiences which could have shifted their way of seeing things. I wonder whether the future generations might do things a bit differently.
Many of the bad things which have happened to the royals have been a direct or indirect consequence of her decisions, both as a monarch and a mother. Her children might be adults, capable of making their own decisions but they have also been shaped by their upbringing. Andrew in particular seems to have been favoured and is arrogant, self entitled and doesn’t spare much thought for anyone else.
Bad parenting does explain a lot of bad behaviours in adults but the crux is at what point to they start to self reflect and think about how to change? They’re all incapable of self reflection because they never face serious consequences to make them stop and think. They shelter each other and they have surrounded themselves with yes men who tell them they’re all doing the right thing.
I think Charles developed the bad habit of never accepting responsibility for his own actions. I think that came from the influence of his Grandmother, Queen Mum. she made him feel that he could do no wrong. Although, Charles choices were all on him but the “system” of the heir being more “special” in effect made his bad features a lot worse.
Oh, brother.
The thing is, 90% of the “tulmult” is self inflicted by the core royals themselves. Andrew being a skeevy idiot, Charles being greedy with no morals or self-awareness, the Keens and CH running smear campaigns on other family members, Wills being a ragey cheating slacker, her Madge failing to push back on the attacks on the Sussexes, none of them taking basic pandemic precautions.
Yes the world itself has got some stuff going on, but internally the Windsors are a mess, and as their matriarch and Queen, she owns some of that because she ‘raised’ them and decided what she allowed and what she didn’t.
She’s at the mercy of the courtiers and Charles but she made it so. No sympathy from me.
Poor old dear. Countless execrable decisions and judgments over 70 years are culminating in what are certainly her last months. If not her worst year, with 24-hr news coverage and relentless social media, the whole world is watching and judging every deplorable minute of this one. And I’m here for it.
Besides the COVID, I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for her. The rest of it is all Windsor-inflicted. Even Andrew – no, its not her fault her son is a rapist, but its also not like everyone thought Andrew was perfect and innocent and had no connections to sketchy people until last year. People have known what/who Andrew is for ages now and the Windsor machine still was unable to mitigate his damage to the Firm.
They say she’s “stoic” in the face of crisis, I say she ignores crises and buries her head in the sand and makes everything worse in doing so.
@Becks1 THIS! What you said. I’m so fkn sick and tired of *everyone* giving the Queen a free pass for her complete and utter inaction and calling it stoic. To hell with that. I wish that she’d just bloody retire so that we can abolish the monarchy. Completely outdated and wholly unnecessary in this day and age
Exactly! What’s so great about stoic? What about compassionate? Understanding? Loving? I’d hate if the only good thing people could say about me was stoic.
Even the covid, in this case, kinda is since they made her go to events maskless, meeting people, after part of her family was infected with it so..
“They made her” ? On what basis are you assuming that she’d be masking if only she hadn’t somehow been deprived of exercising a preference to do so? She alone of all the working royals would choose to mask but somehow is being prevented?
@Becks1 Exactly.
The future kween is keen-o,
Will’s a cheating ween-o
Lizzie’s fave’s a ped-o
The royal family.
We’re 9 comments in and this is already the post of the day! OMG!
Kaiser- the 90s were messy but it was domestic matters- infidelity and two spouses going at each other in the press. The troubles for the royals now are more legal and that is probably why they have that one guy saying it’s never been this bad. Imagine, a prince of England being tried for rape, the future king involved in financial impropriety investigations, PLUS dirty family laundry flying in the wind from every direction (the crown, h&m, rose bushes, the Middleton machine). It must be a wild time to be a courtier.
I will be singing this all day long. Thank you for the morning laugh!
🎵 Snap! Snap! 🎶
Yes!! Certainly comment of the day!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
@Cate Perfection! 😂😂😂
@Cate. Awesome. I’ll add:
This is your legacy, Liz. Seventy years on the throne and you get to finish it with racism, the loss of the jewel in the crown known as Harry, your son outed as a rapist that everyone enabled, and your future heirs all playing GOT. This is what happens when you don’t nip problems in the bud and choose to bury your head in the sand. I’m thrilled she’s getting to witness it all fall apart before she goes.
Plus one!
Plus two!
Plus three!!
When people show you who they really are, believe them.
She don’t care. Especially at her age. I see it with my granny. Don’t talk about deep stuff, she don’t wanna hear it. Just burry it, and act like nothing has happened.
“No longer has Phil beside her” completely ignores the fact that for his last years he was mostly “beside” Penny. “Surrounded by death” for losing Phil at an extreme age? She hasn’t lost any young person to Covid as many of her “subjects” have. “Suck it up” is for when you have to go back into a laborious job, NOT for getting out so people can worship you. There is nothing in the entire article that expresses any concern for any of her “subjects” suffering at any time just what her own family has done wrong. Her only concern seems to be that the antiquated monarchy marches on, not for anything else. Pass on feeling badly for her.
She’s a Queen…at the art of the passive voice!
It’s a legacy of her own making and quite frankly, I do not care. Had she been a better mother, a better human, practiced better discernment instead of enabling her terrible sons, bullying the women they may marry, and clinging to protocol out of resentment that her father had to be king instead of his nazi sympathizing brother, she’d be at peace.
Imagine nursing a nearly 100 year grudge that spared the kingdom a codependent little baby… good grief, Charlie Brown
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were childless. She probably would have ended up being Queen anyway. Her father was a heavy smoker which caused the cancer. She would have ended up being Queen in 1972. Given that Edward died in 1972.
It’s amazing that for someone who ‘never complains’ she’s happily the victim of the scandals and never the originator of most of the issues. That’s not stoicism, that’s enabling!
If the Queen passes this is going to be a public relations disaster. From Charles who probably gave it to her, to Camilla doing events maskless, to Boris’ whole ‘living with Covid’ policies…. It’s all gonna look so bad that they couldn’t protect this 95 year old woman.
I’m really curious if they will attempt to attribute it to something other than Covid to avoid that outcome. “She passed peacefully in her sleep” , or maybe a heart issue or something.
And if they do, if that will work. I can’t tell how rightwing the UK is compared to the US–they’ve kept Boris longer than we’ve had Trump, there seems to be a more acceptable level of overt racism in the press and public discourse (though they are sane about guns and don’t have police shootings so we aren’t necessarily ahead overall), and they voted for Brexit. So I suppose it’s in the realm of possibility that they skew to the right in a way similar to a Red state. If so perhaps there won’t be much outcry?
This is all wild conjecture, though. I’d welcome any Brits weighing in. The ones who post here generally don’t describe their situation the way posters from Red states do so that suggests I’m off-base.
What the heck do the people need her for when she can’t even stand up for her grandson?
Well said!! I would like to add Chucky to that issue at hand as well!! They are always needing to bow down to his constant temper tantrums and endless demands like a child! Baldimort is no more ready, or competent, to be king than I am!
This is due to them never making anyone take responsibility for their actions! Their criminal and abhorrent behaviour is due to ignoring their actions and pretending they don’t exist! TQ made her bed and now SHE must lay in it! As well with Chucky I might add as well!!
@BothSidesNow….I beg to differ. C’mon now, you are more than ready and competent to be king compared to Baldimort. I choose you over him every single moment of every single day!! @Kaiser could be an excellent king also.
‘King’ being a gender neutral term in this context.
They are really pushing that Jubbly as if it is the last chance they have to rally the country/Commonwealth to their side before she passes and they have to do it all without a beloved figurehead.
Is this “People” UK or something where the Queen gets the cover and Bob Saget gets relegated to a corner?
The only thing I wish for her is that her staff let her rest more and stop spouting foolish crap (it is absolutely maddening how they’re opening their mouth just to say how ‘hard she works’ but keep silent for literally everything else). As for the rest of it, I agree with you, they did it to themselves.. SHE did, by not keeping a leash on things, so it was just a mess waiting to happen.
Yes, consequences.
This time is actually worse. During Diana there weren’t resounding calls to abolish the monarchy. And there is a lot of talk of William being the last King. I think Charles will be.
It would be good if we had the impression that the Queen is in charge rather than the courtiers. She seems just a puppet at the moment, and you can’t rally around a puppet. How can she rally the country together when she has allowed her family to cannibalize each other. What has happened to Harry and Meghan is an absolute moral crime. She can’t possibly be totally helpless in the face of it, and if she is, then she is absolutely useless. I can’t see where the Queen has shown any kind of leadership at all to unify the country or to make ALL Britons feel proud of their country. I used to think the Queen was admirable in her devotion to duty, but when your only duty is the survival of the institution, and you don’t pay any attention to what that institution means or stands for, then it is nothing that needs to be admired.
hear, hear! The monarchy is a toxic institution that has outlived its time. It should die with her, before anyone else can be destroyed by it. We may look back on Diana as the beginning of the end, while Meghan exposed the endemic institutional racism in a way that it could no longer be ignored. The Cambridge kids should grow up to be regular civilians. It’s time for the Windsors to go the way of the Hohenzollerns, the Hapsburgs, and the Romanovs (the abdication, not the murders)
This is a profound insight with broad application. If the cause you work for doesn’t serve a greater moral cause, there’s no moral value to it.
And of course, myth-making aside, there’s never been a moral value to the monarchy, even in times when it was widely believed to. It’s an interesting question if in recent times the family could have pivoted to a calling to service so effectively that they made the monarchy an ethical institution–certainly nearly everyone here thought Harry and Meghan could achieve that if given the chance. I’m not sure it’s compatible with being born to wealth, though. You have to breezily accept that it’s fine for you to eat off gold plate and swan around in evening clothes while others struggle and suffer. I think accepting that level of income inequality does something corrosive to one’s moral core. And really the whole aristocracy, cash-poor though they now are, is exactly like this.
So what remains is a longstanding tradition full of intricate minutiae, and one family’s prestige and sense of identity and a portion of their wealth. The British national identity too, of course–I wonder how much of the attachment to monarchy is that it’s one of the cultural things that clearly differentiates the British identity from the American one. We tend to find the British identity charming and attractive, but obviously we are not beloved in Europe. I can see the monarchy retaining wide appeal for that alone.
And of course they’ve got the world’s Truman Show right there.
I wonder if all that is enough to make up for the institution being a self-aggrandizing one with no moral core.
If the monarchy were to end, I assume they’d take lesser titles and remain in the peerage? What political wing would spearhead the movement? It sounds like not the Tories. . .
She ostriches. And lets problems grow to crises before she makes any move.
“[N]ot known such a tumultuous time as this,” says palace insider. Huh? What about 1992 annus horribilis when they all were supposed to be celebrating 40-years on throne? Charles-Camilla tampon phone calls, Diana anguish over Charles-Diana separation, Fergie’s toe-sucking scandal, Princess Anne’s divorce after years of living apart and affairs on both sides? And the real clincher – The Fire in Windsor Castle that upset the peasants so much TQ decided to voluntarily start paying taxes.
tamsin – agree with you that courtiers are in charge. Speaking of, why did TQ allow Chuck (& Andrew) to sideline Christopher Geidt since he was the only one who could get PH & PW on same page? Robert Lacey may blame Edward Young, but how insightful do you really need to be to figure out someone is acting out of spite and causing real family damage when PH comes with tale of woe. TQ could have overruled piqued advisors with Sussexit; there was no need to be so petty and vindictive to take away military honors from the only honorable veteran with active service in family while allowing PA & PE to keep theirs.
Supposedly “never complain, never explain” is TQ motto, but who the heck is in charge of all the Byzantine intrigue when all the different palaces are continually briefing the press, frequently in direct opposition to each other. And let’s not forget who made the call to instigate investigation of Meghan’s alleged bullying behaviors after allegations were withdrawn, and who is still dragging their feet on reporting results of said investigation.