Jubilee by Alfred N.Muggins Part 3 : Longsitting Queens of England and the United Kingdom

    Actually Alfred had noticed that the female monarchs of Britain, or England, had actually done rather well at avoiding having their heads chopped off or losing their thrones. These notable monarchs remained firmly upon the throne at the time of their deaths, their heads still firmly attached to their bodies, and had, by comparison with male Kings ruled a fairly stable Kingdom, or Kingdoms, and enjoyed fairly long reigns by comparison with their male counterparts except for George III, who actually stayed upon the throne for about 60 years, despite Revolution in the American colonies, the Industrial Revolution, and yet another third Revolution (by the Third Estate!), the French Revolution, which they even tried to export, and resulted finally in the Upstart Napoleon raging around Europe, busily trying to change the way everything was done, while planting his own family members on countless thrones, and inventing a new crown to put on his own head. George III also had to contend with his own occasional madness, and a son/ Prince of Wales/Prince Regent who did almost everything he could to upstage him!

     But I digress a little. The longlasting, and therefore successful (?) female monarchs were of course :-

1. Elizabeth the First, who I have already mentioned favourably in Part 2, and who stayed on the throne for around 45 years, according to Alfred’s calculations, which wasn’t bad going in those days! (Speculation might suggest that had she been married she would not have lasted anywhere near so many years, particularly if she had to run the risks of childbirth and child rearing, so she did well to remain single!)

2. Queen Anne (The last Stuart!), who did marry, but with the definite understanding that she was to be the ruler (subject to Parliament of course, being many years after the English Civil War, in which Parliament became a very significant power in their own right ever after, (Apart from when Cromwell suspended them for a few years, despite having been on their side and fought for them, and found he was having just the same kind of problems with them that Charles the First had had in the first place!) and being only a few years after the coup which pushed her own father James II off the throne, specifically for trying to rule as a Catholic! Her older sister Mary ruled with her husband William of Orange as Protestants, but there was no way after that that any monarch would rule without Parliament’s control.

Mary, and then her husband, had not lasted too long, whereas Queen Anne did last about 12 years as monarch! Well okay admitted Alfred, perhaps that’s not very long either, so perhaps she shouldn’t really be on this list? Well fine, he had included Queen Anne now so that was that! He had written too much about her now than to wish to take her off now! She was however a source of stability in everything she did or that was done in her name, such as the combining of the Crowns of England and Scotland into the United Crown of Great Britain in 1707 and by behaving herself by remaining Anglican!

3. Queen Victoria! She was on the throne for an exceedingly long 63 years or so, and must have had a few Jubilees herself, but nonetheless our Queen Elizabeth II has managed to beat her with an astounding 70 years. She must have broken the record, unless there is someone else, another monarch whom you can drag out of history to prove me wrong.

Anyway, as I was saying about Queen Victoria, by the time she finally left this world, most of her subjects had never known anyone else. Perhaps many of her subjects had become a bit bored with her, as she famously refused to wear anything but black, having lost her true love Prince Albert much earlier in her career! But she certainly produced plenty of offspring, and must have sent them out to intermarry with every other royal house in Europe, so that by the first world war you could say that family members ruled by divine right in Russia, by partnership with Parliament in Germany, and by constitutional licence in the United Kingdom!

4. Queen Elizabeth II, who I have already mentioned has won the contest of the Jubilees, having already reached the personal age of 96 and the crowned number of 70 years! Where oh where have all the years gone? It seems only a few short years since she was a very young and beautiful Queen, presiding over post war years of rising prosperity and cultural renaissance. Most of those years were good except for occasional shadows, struggling Commonwealth nations, learning to manage themselves for a change, family tragedies, and revelations that even members of the Royal Family were only human, much like the rest of us!

And will the monarchy survive when she is gone? Well yes, for now at least, as long as they all behave themselves reasonably well. But will they survive for long enough until another Queen, a full female monarch, sits again upon the throne, for yet another long age? Well we shall just have to wait and see, won’t we?