Royally Screwed: British Monarchy Revealed (15 page)

Things for which she is famous

Things she has done for her country

England’s Future

Royals with Relevance, Riots and Rogues

When Queen Elizabeth 1
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was on the throne, she made a point of regularly mixing with her subjects and washing the feet of the poor.  The reasons behind this are relatively unknown but it appears she felt it was good for the soul:  i.e. the soul of Her Majesty and the sole of the foot of the peasant.

As there were no such thing as ‘spin doctors’ or focus groups in the 16
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Century advising her that it would improve poll numbers, we will have to conclude that it was something she did, because she felt it was the right thing to do.

King Charles II believed that as a King he had the power to heal the sick.  He would announce his healthcare walkabout and several thousands would show up to receive this benefit.

Unfortunately, there was no crowd control and more people died in the crush than were healed by His Majesty.  But his heart was willing and certainly in the right place.  It was a gift he believed he had inherited with the Crown and he wished to share it with his people.  Again it was the right thing to do.

During the blitz of the Second World War, the Luftwaffe mounted an extremely vicious attack on the English city of Coventry. They bombed the city for six hours without a break one night and laid it to the ground. Thousands died.

King George VI and Queen Mary with daughters Elizabeth and Margaret standing on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.

The next morning, King George VI was walking through the rubble and devastation, talking to firefighters, rescuers and citizens, listening to dreadful stories from survivors of what occurred the previous night and offering words of encouragement.  The psychological boost that he gave to this broken city was enormous and made a valuable difference to all those that survived the previous night, giving them encouragement and the heart to carry on.

Throughout the Second World War the King and Queen refused to leave London despite Buckingham Palace being attacked.  After they were bombed the Queen was heard to say “thank God, now I can look the people of the East End in the eye.  This was because the East end of London had been so severally damaged because it was close to the docks which was the Luftwaffe’s ultimate target.  The King and Queen often visited the citizens living amongst the rubble and the Queen felt she was now able to commiserate on their level.

The late Princess Diana was a consummate humanitarian, throwing a light on the plague of the eighties - the Aids disease.  She sat with Aids victims, holding their hands and offering comfort, at a time when people believed it was contagious.  She proved that it wasn’t and took her young sons to visit these terminally ill patients.

On December 9
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, 2010 Prince Charles, the future King of England and his second wife, against police advice, chose to drive through the streets of London in a £500,000 Bentley car during the worst riots London had experienced in 40 years.

The riots had been caused by the recent austerity measures perpetrated on students by the new coalition government.  They had been informed that their tuition fees were to be raised to three times the current level.  They took to the streets to protest in force.

If the Prince thought the students would be pleased to see him in his £500,000 car, he was sadly mistaken. The car was pelted with eggs and paint, and his wife was poked with a stick through an open window.  And the crowd was heard to yell “off with their heads”.