{"id":2387784,"date":"2026-04-24T18:34:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T18:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2387784"},"modified":"2026-04-24T18:34:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T18:34:36","slug":"raymond-j-de-souza-a-royal-tribute-to-our-lovely-late-queen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/raymond-j-de-souza-a-royal-tribute-to-our-lovely-late-queen\/","title":{"rendered":"Raymond J. de Souza: A royal tribute to our lovely late Queen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cGod bless you, darling Mama. You remain forever in our hearts and prayers,\u201d said King Charles III in a <a target=\"_blank\" data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.royal.uk\/news-and-activity\/2026-04-21\/the-100th-anniversary-of-the-birth-of-queen-elizabeth-ii\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:video address;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">video address<\/a> Tuesday to mark the centennial of the birth of Queen Elizabeth II on April 21, 1926.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It was that kind of day in London, with personal tributes and park dedications and palace gatherings to celebrate what would have been Her Late Majesty\u2019s 100th\u00a0birthday. Given that Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother died at 102 years old, the Windsors suffered a minor shock with the premature death of Elizabeth II at age 96. The doctors were realistic in 2022, listing the cause of death as simply \u201cold age.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Royal Family invited others born the same day as the Queen to a reception at Buckingham Palace. No grand staircase climbing or walks in the expansive corridors for this group! The King and Queen Camilla came to them, personally handing out the birthday cards the sovereign sends to all centenarians. They had a slab cake with a \u201c100\u201d in icing, as if someone had picked it up at Marks and Spencer. The Princess of Wales cheerfully asked the guests if they had \u201canything special\u201d planned for the milestone birthday, endearingly oblivious that being invited to the palace to chat with the royals was precisely the something special.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It was lovely, in a week when the world needed some loveliness. The late Queen was good at providing that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The official family portrait was expanded to include a few geriatric royals rarely featured on occasions when the main players are present \u2014 the now-obscure Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and Princess Alexandra, cousins of the late Queen. The main point evidently was that even the most minor of minor royals were more welcome than the Andrew-formerly-known-as-Prince, as the tabloids call him, and Harry and Meghan, all of whom were happily absent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">There was a bit of formal business to do. The plans for the official memorial were unveiled on Tuesday, with architect Norman Foster showing his designs to the King and Queen at the British Museum. The plans for the bronze statue depict the Queen in her younger years, wearing the robes of the Order of the Garter. Prince Philip will have his own statue nearby.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"relative mb-4\">\n<div class=\"relative\"><button aria-label=\"View larger image\" class=\"group absolute bottom-0 size-full\" data-ylk=\"elm:expand;itc:1;sec:image-lightbox;slk:lightbox-open;\"><span class=\"absolute bottom-3 right-3 rounded-full bg-primary p-3 opacity-100 shadow-elevation-3 transition-opacity duration-300 group-hover:block group-hover:opacity-100 md:p-[17px] lg:bottom-6 lg:right-6 lg:bg-primary\/90 lg:p-5 lg:opacity-0 lg:shadow-none\"><svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" viewbox=\"0 0 24 24\" aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\" class=\"flex-none size-4 -scale-x-100 text-primary lg:size-6 [&amp;_path]:fill-current\"><path fill=\"currentColor\" d=\"M3.1 3.1V11h1.8V6.314l5.392 5.393 1.415-1.414L6.313 4.9H11V3.1zm17.8 17.8V13h-1.8v4.686l-5.393-5.393-1.415 1.414 5.393 5.393H13v1.8z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/button><dialog aria-label=\"Modal Dialog\" aria-modal=\"true\" class=\"fixed bottom-0 left-0 right-0 top-0 z-4 size-full max-h-none max-w-none bg-primary hidden\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"relative text-sm mt-1 pr-2.5\">\n<p> King Charles III views a scaled model of a statue of Queen Elizabeth by sculptor Martin Jennings, during a visit to the British Museum in central London on April 21, 2026. The statue will be part of a memorial to the late monarch.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The occasion highlighted a key difference between British memorials and American memorials, with the latter getting greater attention in this year of the semiquincentennial of the 1776 Declaration of Independence. British memorials highlight the personage, with perhaps the name and dates added. The plinth upon which stands the statue of Sir Winston Churchill at the mother of all parliaments has inscribed upon it one word: \u201cChurchill.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">American memorials, in contrast, are verbose things. Mount Rushmore is the exception \u2014 four effigies, though suitably super-sized to American tastes. Otherwise, it is the inscriptions that get attention.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Lincoln Memorial has the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural inscribed, while the Jefferson Memorial has excerpts from the 1776 Declaration and from the Virginia Act of Religious Freedom in 1779. The FDR memorial has his Four Freedoms, and the Martin Luther King memorial has some 16 different texts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It\u2019s getting a bit out of hand; the newest memorial on the Mall, for Dwight D. Eisenhower, includes windy passages spread over a city block, including a massive wall featuring 200 words from the \u201cmilitary-industrial complex\u201d speech \u2014 a text from which only those three words are ever remembered.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It was the late chief rabbi of Great Britain, <a target=\"_blank\" data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/rabbisacks.org\/covenant-conversation\/bo\/telling-the-story\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Lord Jonathan Sacks;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Lord Jonathan Sacks<\/a>, from whom I first learned of the difference in memorial styles. The British constitution is a personal one, rooted in the Crown-in-Parliament, rather than a written one. Americans, from Washington to Lincoln, consider themselves an \u201calmost chosen people\u201d and therefore need their own \u201csacred scriptures,\u201d from the Declaration of Independence to the constitution to the great presidential addresses.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"relative mb-4\">\n<div class=\"relative\"><img alt=\" King Charles and Queen Camilla, with architect Norman Foster, attend a presentation at the British Museum for the final design for the Queen Elizabeth Memorial, on the 100th anniversary of the birth of the late monarch.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/bVyVeXewAxsWTsBMpwq6Aw--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTcyMDtjZj13ZWJw\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/national_post_articles_198\/6a5b51f3b26f76afd410c7274f0677fe\"\/><button aria-label=\"View larger image\" class=\"group absolute bottom-0 size-full\" data-ylk=\"elm:expand;itc:1;sec:image-lightbox;slk:lightbox-open;\"><span class=\"absolute bottom-3 right-3 rounded-full bg-primary p-3 opacity-100 shadow-elevation-3 transition-opacity duration-300 group-hover:block group-hover:opacity-100 md:p-[17px] lg:bottom-6 lg:right-6 lg:bg-primary\/90 lg:p-5 lg:opacity-0 lg:shadow-none\"><svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" viewbox=\"0 0 24 24\" aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\" class=\"flex-none size-4 -scale-x-100 text-primary lg:size-6 [&amp;_path]:fill-current\"><path fill=\"currentColor\" d=\"M3.1 3.1V11h1.8V6.314l5.392 5.393 1.415-1.414L6.313 4.9H11V3.1zm17.8 17.8V13h-1.8v4.686l-5.393-5.393-1.415 1.414 5.393 5.393H13v1.8z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/button><dialog aria-label=\"Modal Dialog\" aria-modal=\"true\" class=\"fixed bottom-0 left-0 right-0 top-0 z-4 size-full max-h-none max-w-none bg-primary hidden\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"relative text-sm mt-1 pr-2.5\">\n<p> King Charles and Queen Camilla, with architect Norman Foster, attend a presentation at the British Museum for the final design for the Queen Elizabeth Memorial, on the 100th anniversary of the birth of the late monarch.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">There was no greater public man of letters than Churchill \u2014 he won the 1953 Nobel Prize for literature, not peace \u2014 yet none of this is featured in his memorial. Just the visage, the stoop and cane of a man who stood taller than most in the crucial hours of history.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Churchill was already an old man when Elizabeth acceded to the throne, and it was he who offered the prospect of a new Elizabethan age inaugurated by a new, twentysomething Queen. That moment is the subject of perhaps the greatest sequence in the history of filmmaking, from\u00a0<em><a target=\"_blank\" data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MW6Ia-tWpeo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:The Crown;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">The Crown<\/a><\/em>, where the dowager Queen Mary, preceded by the Queen Mother, pays obeisance to her granddaughter, narrated by Churchillian oratory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">London will soon have the young Queen a short walk from the aged prime minister, her first, as they set out together into the triumphs and travails of the time, shaping it as great figures, worthy of remembrance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><em>National Post<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cGod bless you, darling Mama. You remain forever in our hearts and prayers,\u201d said King Charles III in a video address Tuesday to mark the centennial of the birth of Queen Elizabeth II on April 21, 1926. It was that kind of day in London, with personal tributes and park dedications and palace gatherings to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2387785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[360575,465521,26597,328694,183049,465522,22982,23068,391831,49174,24085,359905,465520],"class_list":["post-2387784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-100th-birthday","tag-1776-declaration-of-independence","tag-buckingham-palace","tag-king-and-queen","tag-king-charles-iii","tag-marks-and-spencer","tag-prince-philip","tag-prince-william","tag-princess-alexandra","tag-queen-camilla","tag-queen-elizabeth-ii","tag-queen-elizabeth-the-queen-mother","tag-sir-winston-churchill"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Raymond-J-de-Souza-A-royal-tribute-to-our-lovely.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2387784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2387784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2387784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2387786,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2387784\/revisions\/2387786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2387785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2387784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2387784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2387784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}