YL beat me to the point (me still being in Blighty I had to go to bed at some time
) when he said that something that may be a little obscure to our trans-atlantic friends is that the Monarchy over here attracts a much stronger sense of loyalty (if not indeed love (in the biblical
agape sense)) than merely being a pivotal part of a system of government.
Some here do not feel that way, that is so, largely because they are ignorant of what the Crown actually does and only see the sillyness and indiscretions that every now and then occur.
Many here do value the Royal Family, however and, especially at times like now, when our elected government has been caught with its collective hands in the till, we feel truly blessed that the Queen is there to be the steadying force that stops the whole anthill collapsing in a chaotic mess.
As I hinted at above, it stems from a trust in a bond between monarch and people that has eased into place over the centuries as the Crown began to function much more in our interests than it's own (with the creation of parliamentary democracy).
Just because that mutual agreement is not written down in a Constitution doesn't mean that it doesn't exist and even educated, agnostic, cynics like me still give our fealty to the Queen (possibly, in part, because she does not demand it of us).
Some are proposing that as a step in the current crisis of confidence we need to get ourselves a written constitution but I'm not certain that that is such a good idea. In many ways, tradition is a stronger guiding hand than legal phraseology. Write the 'rules' down and people will find ways around them. "It's just not done" has been responsible for keeping more people in authority on track than almost anything else I reckon
.
Anyhow, I'm wandering off beam with that. All I wanted to get across is that many of her subjects feel much more strongly about our Queen than perhaps others realise.
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