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View from the Vicarage

My dear friends,

God save the Queen!
Can you remember where you were on 6 February 1952? Some of those reading this will not yet have been born, but for others the day is etched in the memory. I was just five years old and had joined York Street Infant School, in Cowes, Isle of Wight a few months previously. That February day, my cousin, who was staying with us, came to meet me at lunch time. I can still picture the playground, where she announced that the King was dead. I’m sure I didn’t really appreciate the significance of this momentous news. As far as I was concerned the King was the invisible presence who didn’t appear at the window because he was “much too busy a-signing things”, when Christopher Robin and Alice went down to Buckingham Palace. The Isle of Wight, with its close associations with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at Osborne House, was strongly royalist and I soon realised that the passing of the King and the accession of Queen Elizabeth II was a turning point in our nation’s story. This month we celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the Queen’s Accession and, although the main celebrations of the Diamond Jubilee will take place in June, 6 February is an appropriate moment to stop for a moment, reflect and give thanks for our gracious Queen. Although I am a convinced democrat, I do believe that the monarchy, as reinvented by the House of Windsor, does give this country a unique sense of identity and coherence. The Queen has weathered many changes in our national culture, two generations of a rapidly developing society and the rejection of hereditary authority for its own sake. She can claim to have a broader understanding of national and international affairs than any of her Prime Ministers and her indefatigable energy, even at the age of eighty-five, has made her accessible to more people world-wide than any other monarch before her.

Supreme Governor
Every English monarch since the first Elizabeth has also taken the title of Supreme Governor of the Church of England. The bond between church and crown in this country is ancient. The earliest coronation ritual was devised by St Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the tenth century. At her coronation, the Queen took solemn vows under God and was anointed with oil, a special sign of divine wisdom and blessing which dates back to the Kings of Israel. However, being Supreme Governor does not mean that the Queen claims authority over the Church’s theology or worship and nowadays the monarch’s influence over appointments in the church is almost purely nominal. Nor does she act as a pope or archbishop, although our present Queen, like many of her predecessors, has always regarded her sovereignty as a sacred trust, held from God.
As we thank God for Queen Elizabeth II in this month of her accession and celebrate her jubilee in June let us pray that we may long continue to be ‘godly and quietly governed’.

Revd Canon Dr Christopher Dent

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