The Queen is dead, Long Live the King

The Queen is dead, and to quote my daughter who is far more republican than I am, I shall miss her.

​The Queen has always been there. Early memories are of the Coronation—being taken on the back of my mother’s bicycle to see the celebratory decorations on the factories along the Great West Road in west London, a special colour souvenir we were given at school with pictures of the royals and the crown jewels, and my model of the Golden Coronation Coach.
 
In 1952 when Queen Elizabeth acceded to the throne, the country was bankrupt and facing a very uncertain future. King Charles finds himself in a similar position, and monarch not of a fading empire, but a decidedly Disunited Kingdom. Whatever else it will be, the new Carolingian Age is unlikely to be boring.