You would look in vain for any controversial statements made by the queen during her lifetime. Sure, in the internet age, she, too, acquiesced to having a Twitter account, and a team of press people would post things on Instagram in her name. But they were all bland, uncontroversial—and, frankly, dull.

In an age when everyone has an opinion—when everyone in public life feels an urge to tell all and sundry about their grumbles, gripes, and grievances—she never did. That is exactly why she, and the monarchy, became a stabilizing factor in a time of upheaval.

Take this anecdote from 1995, when the Montreal broadcaster Pierre Brassard phoned Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace and convinced her that he was then-Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. The Canadian politician was concerned that the French-speaking province of Quebec would break away in a referendum in that year. And the imitator asked the queen to intervene. She did not. Nor did she deny the request. She just responded with studious dullness, and small talk. What would have been a scoop was nothing of the kind, because the queen said nothing of substance.

She had opinions. But they were tightly guarded. And they were only revealed when David Cameron (her 12th Prime Minister) broke with protocol. “She purred down the line,” Cameron reportedly said, describing the queen’s display of happiness when he informed her of the failure of a referendum to make Scotland independent in 2014.

Cameron got in big trouble for relaying that detail. Because the monarchy is based on the premise that the queen (or king) is a neutral arbiter, literally above the fray, sharing a choice anecdote from the weekly meeting between the British monarch and her PM was seen as a betrayal of confidence. In the aftermath, Cameron had to tuck his tail between his legs. “I have made my apologies and I think I will probably be making some more,” he told reporter Andrew Marr on BBC One.

In British constitutional theory, the role of the monarch is almost purely ceremonial. But not entirely. In 1867, the journalist Walter Bagehot wrote that the queen was part of the “ceremonial” part of the constitution, not the “functional.” The sovereign was no longer the ruler, but she maintained “the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn,” he wrote in the book The English Constitution.

The role of the monarch when Bagehot wrote was to be a unifying figure. The constitutional monarchy was devised in the Victorian age as a means to overcome class divisions. The queen was to personify the unity in a country that was deeply divided. This is still her role.

But, paradoxical though it may sound, the unelected monarch also has a democratic role to play. If she (or now he) knows how to perform the duties.

In the 1990s, Vernon Bogdanor, an Oxford academic (who was also my doctoral supervisor) controversially argued that “far from undermining democracy, the monarchy sustains and strengthens democratic institutions.”

Don’t get me wrong, the idea of a monarchy goes against every logical tenet of a meritocratic society. Having someone who is born to a position in society is profoundly undemocratic. And yet, one could make the argument that her ability to give politicians advice was uniquely unpolitical and disinterested, since she had a long view and never had to face voters.

When, on rare occasions, no party had a majority in the House of Commons, she could advise on who could form a government in a way that was not party political. Her reserve also gave the whole political sphere to elected officials; she, like the most understanding parent, would never criticize them in public, even if she might disagree in private.

By contrast, in countries with an elected head of state (Finland, Italy, or Germany, to name only a few) the president is almost inevitably a former politician. Only the most unopinionated presidents in European countries—notably ’90s Irish president Mary Robinson and the present Irish president Michael D. Higgins, a poet in his previous life—have managed to be accepted as neutral arbiters. More typically, there is a strong whiff of partisanship around Europe’s elected presidents, a sense that the advice they give to prime ministers or chancellors is tainted by past political allegiances.

This is not the case with a monarch.

And in this Queen Elizabeth was an unrivaled master, once again, because she was, yes, bland.

In 1975, the queen’s representative in Australia, Governor-General Sir John Kerr, dismissed the leftist Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. For years, Australians speculated that the monarch herself had deliberately sacked the reforming Labor leader. Yet, when the files were finally released in 2020, there was no smoking gun, no conspiracy, no evidence that she had known of the sacking ahead of time, much less approved it. No surprise: What the files did contain were various bland statements by the queen.

Queen Elizabeth’s talent for not saying anything, maintaining the sense that she was above the fray made her such a rallying point, a symbol of unity, for many in a divided society.

The big question for the British monarchy now—and for the countries that still have her as the head of state (including Canada, New Zealand, and Jamaica)—is if her successor is capable of displaying the same talent.

The queen’s oldest son —King Charles III as he is now known—has a reputation for his strong, sometimes compelling opinions on everything from architecture to the environment. “My old Aston Martin, which I’ve had for 51 years, runs on—can you believe this?—surplus English white wine and whey from the cheese process,” Charles once told the BBC without a hint of irony, thus putting an ocean of distance between himself and the common.

Now, suddenly, having opinions is no longer his job. Is he up for aloofness?

In a constitutional monarchy, once the monarch has an opinion, the support for the institution falls away. When Spanish King Felipe VI made remarks about the region of Catalonia that indicated he was unsympathetic to the secessionist aspirations of some Catalans, it damaged the institution of the monarchy.

By contrast, the Danish Queen Margrethe II has studiously avoided having any opinion on Greenland and the Faroe Islands and their aspirations for greater sovereignty, emulating a blandness commensurate with her late English colleague. It is no wonder then that in Denmark, unlike Spain, the monarchy remains strong.

Charles must do his utmost to show that he is the king of all Britons. This is a difficult task—and an urgent one. The Scottish government is seeking a second independence referendum in 2023. And while Queen Elizabeth, who died at Balmoral, was highly popular in Scotland, only a minority of the Scottish people support the monarchy as an institution.

For a while, conventional wisdom had it that the English monarchy could be saved if the opinionated Charles were to abdicate in favor of Prince William. But William’s very publicized spat with his younger brother Harry and Harry’s wife Meghan—and how race was a part of that controversy—means that he, too, is not seen as neutral. (In contrast, the queen managed to avoid the publicity backlash that William faced, while still reportedly being involved in the unwelcoming of Meghan.)

Of course, it may be inhuman for any flesh-and-blood monarch to match the mien of the most successful and studiously bland monarch in modern history. But politicians may find it worthwhile to try to imitate her.

The late Queen Elizabeth’s lasting lesson is that, in divided and diverse societies, we still need institutions that appear to be uncontroversial and above the fray, and we still need the illusion of simple and steady leaders onto which we can project our own complicated feelings.

The post Queen Elizabeth II Knew the Virtues of Being Vanilla appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Your Majesty, I realize you move slowly, and I don’t mean to rush someone who turned 92 this week. But it’s high time that you showed California proper appreciation—by making our entire state an honorary member of the British royal family.

Perhaps that seems a bit much, and yes it might breach protocol, but ask yourself, Ma’am: Does your family have a more devoted servant than the Golden State?

Over the decades, you have had any number of flunkies and public relations vassals in your employ. But none has been better at telling your family’s story sympathetically than the folks in Hollywood.

For the lowbrow set, L.A.’s entertainment news shows cover every little appearance of you and your kin. The other family those shows obsess about—the locally grown Kardashians—are perhaps best understood as a House of Windsor tribute band.

And for the highbrow, we have long championed films devoted to your stories and your lineage. In more recent years, British royalty and Hollywood have converged, with an avalanche of productions about you Windsors. The King’s Speech, about the stuttering struggles of your father, won the best picture Oscar. (Investigative reports suggest you may be the only woman that its producer, Harvey Weinstein, has ever treated with respect.) The Academy gave Helen Mirren the best actress award for playing you in The Queen. Even Northern California has been in your (streaming) service, with Netflix casting the charismatic Claire Foy as a young you in another award-winning series, The Crown.

All these productions would be enough to humanize most families. But you require more. So now California is preparing to give you our own flesh-and-blood, a glorious child of Los Angeles: Meghan Markle. She is scheduled to join your family by marrying Prince Harry on May 19.

Markle brings your clan a level of diversity (she’s biracial), education (she has an international relations degree from Northwestern), and beauty (those teeth!) that the Windsors have never managed on their own. She is marrying your less accomplished younger grandson, best known for having dressed up like a Nazi for a party. And Markle has handled herself graciously in the face of paparazzi stalkers, a nasty Andrew Morton biography, and racist Fleet Street commentary.

And as matter of foreign policy, this classy California girl has impeccable diplomatic timing. She provides a crucial boost to the faltering special relationship between our two countries, while also giving your nation a gorgeous distraction from the consequences of your horrifyingly self-destructive decision to exit the European Union. Not since FDR has an American performed so great an act of rescue for the United Kingdom.

If there is something already regal about her, well, that’s no accident. As the child of a cinematographer and as a student at one of our snootiest private girls’ schools, she grew up around wealth and celebrity in modern Southern California, about as royal a milieu as you can find outside Buckingham Palace.

Indeed, California has taken the lead from you in modernizing monarchical ideals for the 21st century.

Our wealthy folks live like royals—behind gates and big walls, often high on hills—and are obsessed with defending their privacy and cultivating mystique. Many of our wealthiest are Anglophiles—they keep apartments in London, play polo in Santa Barbara, or even hunt in the countryside with hounds, through clubs like the Santa Fe Hunt in Riverside and San Diego counties (though the prey here are coyotes, not foxes). Like any good hereditary aristocracy, they make sure the best job opportunities stay in the family. Drew Barrymore and Emilio Estevez have had film careers, so they don’t call it Hollywood royalty for nothing.

And while Silicon Valley is newer to the wealth, our tech lords are rapidly catching up to royal standards. Did you catch Zuckerberg’s testimony before Congress? His upper lip was even stiffer than yours!

One dirty secret about California is that for all our populist culture and direct democracy, we’re soft on monarchs. We’ve even granted the Queen Mary, the ocean liner named after your grandma, a permanent berth at the Port of Long Beach. This may be because we don’t share the American history of throwing off your ancestor, George III, like the states back East; we entered the Union later, in 1850.

Politically, we Californians also have a demonstrable weakness for elderly leaders who refuse to abdicate—like your generational cohorts Jerry Brown and Dianne Feinstein. And we’ve produced some of America’s most self-consciously regal chief executives, like Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. While covering the latter for the L.A. Times, I once called him “an Austro-Californian king”; I meant it as a teasing barb, but he called to thank me and praise the line.

Now, even as I hereby request gratitude from a Queen, I also must thank you. Filming your family’s stories has made a lot of money for our state’s entertainment industry. And we realize that, in sending you Markle, we’re not giving you a film A-lister or TV network star. The series in which she appears, Suits, is on basic cable. And she’s a divorcee, which probably brings up all the pressures visited on your father after your uncle abdicated to marry another American divorcee, Wallis Simpson.

I must also confess that California could use a good wedding, like Harry and Meghan’s May nuptials, that celebrates our state’s diversity and glamor. These California strengths are now mocked by our president and others who wish to divide the country and stir resentment against us. It feels good to have at least one country that respects us and welcomes us, even if that country is not our own.

Forgive me, but I must lobby you on one thing. Can you do a little better for our Meghan than the titles currently being talked about in the British press? We read that you might make her just another duchess. Or she could lose her name entirely to her husband and become, weirdly, Princess Henry of Wales.

I realize this breaks protocol, but it would be delightful if you could make her Princess Meg of Windsor Hills. That’s the upper-middle-class, predominantly African-American neighborhood in South L.A., where her mother lives. Such a title would be a beautiful way to bind a California community and your family name together.

It’d also be cool if the organist could play at least a few bars of Tupac’s “California Love” during the ceremony. But that’s not a priority. It’s far more important for you to acknowledge what this wedding really is: the official consummation of a longstanding partnership.

Most of us Californians can’t make the wedding, so please pass on our best wishes to your entire family. So Mazel tov to Meg and Harry! And, yes, God save the Queen!

The post California Deserves the Royal Treatment From Britain’s Ruling Family appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.