Queen's Isolation

From the CBC:

“Monarch is staying with husband and limited staff at Windsor Castle during pandemic lockdown”

Queen Elizabeth is isolating at Windsor Castle for the practical reason that has kept most everyone at home — to try to keep the coronavirus at bay. But the 94-year-old monarch's stay at the historic royal residence west of London is also symbolic for her and the monarchy in the 21st century. Elizabeth has been at Windsor — considered one of her favourite residences — since before Easter. Her husband, Prince Philip, is with her, along with a limited number of staff members, all of whom reportedly are staying there — and not with their families — for the duration of the lockdown. It's not the first time Elizabeth has found herself at Windsor at a difficult time. "It's the place where the Queen is often based in times of crisis and it symbolizes the enduring monarchy, and of course the surname of the dynasty as well," said Carolyn Harris, a Toronto-based royal author and historian. Elizabeth and her sister, Margaret, stayed there during the Second World War, while their parents would go into Buckingham Palace in London. Over the years, the Queen has routinely moved among various residences — Windsor is often a weekend retreat from Buckingham Palace, Sandringham in Norfolk is her Christmas and early winter domicile and then there's her annual summer stay at Balmoral in Scotland. So far, there's been no public talk that Balmoral is on the books for this summer, and no sense the Queen will be anywhere but Windsor for several weeks, if not months. If she did leave, that could raise eyebrows.

Going online:   "At this time, everyone is being encouraged to remain at home, so there would be critical scrutiny if the Queen were going back and forth between various residences," said Harris.  Royal work has also changed since the pandemic struck, with the public side of it moving online or over the phone, which in effect also reduces the need to get around.  "There isn't the same necessity to move from residence to residence if royal engagements are going to be taking place remotely or virtually," said Harris. Last week, the Queen took part — via audio — in a video call several members of the Royal Family made in honour of International Nurses Day. According to The Telegraph, it was the first time she allowed direct audio from a one-on-one conversation to be aired. For a monarch who has said she needs to be seen to be believed, it is all quite a change. "The nature of this crisis [is] quite a strange one," said U.K.-based royal historian Sarah Gristwood. "By the very nature of the beast it makes it impossible for the Royal Family to do what they would normally do in a time of crisis. Normally, what the Royal Family do best [is] they get out there, they press the flesh." All this has presented the Royal Family with a challenge, said Gristwood, one she said they have overcome. There has been "quite a lot of addressing the nation," Gristwood said. The Queen has made two televised addresses and one on the radio.  And then there are the multiple video link-ups numerous members of the family have been making to front-line workers, charitable organizations and so on. 'Unifying voice':    "The time when the Royal Family is most useful to the public," said Gristwood, "is when there is the least faith in the other political establishment.  "And at the moment in the U.K., there is not a huge amount of faith in the political establishment, because of the response to coronavirus and the divisiveness of the whole Brexit issue. And that's exactly when the Queen as a kind of unifying voice can have most to say."

Something else may be going on, too.:   One thing Gristwood said she's noticed in the present crisis is that most public moves by the Queen have "effectively been matched by a commensurate move from Prince Charles … to also less formally speak to the nation." That's not something that's been seen in the past, Gristwood said. "I think this is a case of a conscious, deliberate attempt to shore up the Queen as still the throne, still the mother of the nation, but to position Prince Charles very clearly as the King in waiting."

Other monarchs in a time of crisis:   While the Queen may be isolated in one place for the foreseeable future, that hasn't always been the way other monarchs have lived during times of pandemic or another crisis. "Henry the Eighth seems to have been very concerned about infection," said Harris, who noted the 16th-century monarch would leave whatever residence he was in if there was any sign of plague in the vicinity. That worry came even closer to home for him. "When Henry the Eighth got his longed-for son, the baby Prince Edward, it was ordered that the walls of his nursery had to be washed down on a regular basis to prevent any kind of infection coming in," said Gristwood. Go back two more centuries, and the Black Death bubonic plague that killed about 50 million people in Europe had a profound personal impact on the reigning English monarch. "Edward the Third had a dozen children and he lost two infant sons and a daughter who was on her way to Spain to marry the future king of Castile," said Harris. 'There's a great deal of personal grief and also grappling [with] the significance of this. Edward the Third talks about death that seizes young and old alike, whatever their station may be … so we get the sense of Edward the Third sharing in the experiences of his people."

^ I took out the part dealing with Meaghan and Harry because the article is supposed to be about the Queen and it got very side-tracked. I think Queen Elizabeth isolating herself in Windsor is a good idea during this pandemic. She is in the group of vulnerable people (60 years and older) that can get extremely sick or even die from Covid-19. Her son Prince Charles, in his 70s, also showed that. Even while she is in Windsor she still connects to the British, Canadian and other Commonwealth citizens through her televised speeches. ^

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/royal-fascinator-queen-elizabeth-isolation-harry-meghan-hollywood-1.5571936