The UK’s Queen Elizabeth celebrated her platinum jubilee this weekend with much fanfare and ehm… jubilation. 😏 It marked a whopping 70 years on the British throne – a historical first.
The 96-year-old monarch delighted her fans with two appearances, despite her increasing frailty. A jubilee concert opened with a skit in which Her Majesty meets Paddington Bear and shows him where One hides One’s marmalade sandwich. Quite.
If you’ve watched The Crown, you’re probably a bit of a fan of the queen, even if you’re leery of the larger idea of a monarchy. Her personal popularity has consistently remained high, despite the anni horribiles she has faced recently. The queen famously used the phrase annus horribilis, Latin for “horrible year”, in 1992 following a deluge of family scandals.
But the last few years have rivalled those.
There was the death of The Queen’s husband Prince Phillip in 2021, the revelation of sexual assault accusations against Prince Andrew, and allegations of racism following Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle permanently stepping down as “working royals”. It also doesn’t help that countries are choosing to part ways with the monarchy. Barbados is the latest country to drop Lizzie as their head of state, although it has opted to remain part of the Commonwealth.
The jubilee celebrations saw Harry and Meghan return for their first royal event since they relocated to the US, but the pair kept it super lowkey. Recent polls show the couple’s popularity has plummeted in the UK recently, particularly among older Britons, and they faced audible cheers and boos from the crowd outside the cathedral for one of the events.
Still, they fared better than embattled UK prime minister Boris Johnson, who received even louder boos. He has since narrowly escaped a vote of no-confidence following the partygate scandal – parties were held at the prime minister’s residence when they were a no-no for the rest of the country because of the pandemic. It makes us respect Lizzie even more for her selflessness!