The procession and state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. Video / NZ Herald
OPINION:
If there was one word that got relentlessly and eagerly hauled out again and again in the weeks after the Queen's passing, it was "duty".
There is not a skerrick of debate when it came to the d-word she was unswerving. Unwavering. Her commitment to it, lifelong and staunch.
As a 21-year-old princess, she made a famous speech from South Africa where she swore: "My whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service." And by jove did she stick to that promise until the end, no matter how tedious the job probably was.
Think about all those (probably) interminable Theresa May prime ministerial chit-chats; the drinks receptions for Bulgarian trade delegations; the ploughing through her government red boxes of mind-numbing legislation waiting for her assent. Despite how repetitive and monotonous the gig was, did she ever falter? Of course not.
However, now a friend of the late monarch has made a truly stunning claim: That the 96-year-old essentially planned her death in one final extraordinary act of duty.
Her Majesty, of course, passed away in Scotland on September 8 at her beloved Balmoral estate, 20,000 hectares of Highlands glory which is only occasionally impinged upon by lost American tourists or Prince Andrew.
Now, consider that for decades the arrangements for her death have been set out in what anyone who has passed a live TV screen in the last month knows was called Operation London Bridge. There was also an addendum to that, called Operation Unicorn, which covered the logistics if she took her last breath while in Scotland.
Next, keep in mind that while all of this death planning was being jotted down in courtiers' monogrammed Smythson notebooks, an increasingly robust Scottish independence movement has been gathering some steam.
In 2014, ahead of the country going to the polls on the question of independence, the Queen herself offered the closest thing to a political intervention when she said, "Well, I hope people will think very carefully about the future." (In 2019, former prime minister David Cameron revealed, and then promptly apologised for revealing, that Her Majesty had "purred down the line" after he called her to tell her Scotland had voted to stay in the Union).
Queen Elizabeth II before receiving Liz Truss for an audience at Balmoral. Photo / AP
Earlier this year, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon began a push for another referendum.
All of which brings us to Wednesday's wild new claim: What if the Queen's commitment to keeping Great Britain whole extended to her strategically choosing where she spent her final days?
In an interview with the Daily Beast, a friend of Her Majesty has alleged that she made the decision to pass away in Scotland "to save the union".
The chum has told the Beast's Tom Sykes that the nonagenarian workhorse knew she was "frail" and that she made the choice to farewell outgoing PM and real-life political Womble Boris Johnson and to appoint the new Conservative leader Liz Truss, the Westminster equivalent of a piece of stale Wonder White (flavourless and useless), at Balmoral because she wanted to pass away there.
"She was frail and there was an argument that she should be back in Windsor where it is significantly easier to get hospital treatment," the friend told the Beast. "Of course she had access to medics at Balmoral, but nothing like at Windsor. Balmoral is very isolated, but that is where she wanted to be, precisely because she thought the end might be near. She planned to die in Scotland to save the union."
On one level, this would make perfect sense. Her Majesty's dedication and yes, we can't escape it, sense of unwavering duty were the watchwords of her seven-decade reign. She was not a woman who, as far as has ever come out, slacked off for even one solitary rainy afternoon. (How many of us could say we would do the same if we were presented with the choice between all-you-can-eat Mr Kipling's French Fancies and a Father Ted box set or hours wading through the legislative changes to root vegetable import tariffs?)
Factor in too here, the Queen was a leader who intrinsically understood how to wield soft power, such as in 1961 when she visited Ghana as Cold War powers tussled over wooing the nation. (At the time prime minister Harold Macmillan wrote in his diary: "She loves her duty and means to be a Queen and not a puppet.")
On the other hand, this is a pretty sensational claim. Perhaps her decision, conscious or not, to spend her final days at Balmoral has more to do with the fact that she truly adored the place and the solitude and peace it offered her? The vast property holding was the place where, according to Princess Eugenie, "Granny is the most happy," and where she spent a lengthy summer break every year.
Crowds watch as the hearse carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped with the Royal Standard of Scotland, passes Mercat Cross in Edinburgh. Photo / AP
Still, whether the location of her death was orchestrated in one last diplomatic gambit, it clearly had an impact on the Scottish people.
Until the events of last month, James V had been the last monarch to die in Scotland (thanks, cholera) in 1542. What followed September 8 was a remarkable outpouring of grief on the part of the Scots, despite only 45 per cent of voters saying they support the monarchy. (Over in England that figure sits at 60 per cent.)
When her body made the six-hour journey via funeral procession from Balmoral to Edinburgh, thousands of people lined the route and once in the city, wellwishers 10-deep waited. (It has been claimed that these large crowds constituted Scotland's largest ever public event).
Then, during the 24 hours that her coffin lay in state in St Giles' Cathedral, about 33,000 people queued to pay their respects.
In the month since Her Majesty's death there has been what appears to be a swing towards maintaining the Union.
Polling done by The Sun on Sunday in mid-September found that support for independence had dropped slightly in the wake of her passing, falling from 46 to 42 per cent of Scots wanting to split from the UK, while 28 per cent of Scots said they thought that Her Majesty's death had made the Union stronger.
James Mitchell, professor of public policy at Edinburgh University, told The New York Times: "The fact that [the Queen's death] has happened here reinforces the connection to Balmoral … I am pretty sure it's not helping the [pro-independence] SNP."
It's really quite incredible to consider that Her Majesty might have, to the very end, remained so wholly committed to the job that was foisted on her at age 25 that she even wanted to use her death to help bolster the United Kingdom.
During that 1947 speech, she quoted from a Rupert Brooke poem called Peace, saying: "Now God be thanked who has matched us with this hour," words that may just have held true to the very end.
• Daniela Elser is a writer and a royal commentator with more than 15 years' experience working with a number of Australia's leading media titles.
