MIAMI, United States. — It was the summer of 1976. Gerald Ford was the American president and several Cuban students from Georgetown University in Washington managed to go to Philadelphia, where the Queen of England was arriving on her royal yacht.
On that state visit, on the bicentennial of American independence, the queen was accompanied by Philip, the prince consort, and her speech in Philadelphia captivated millions of Americans. According to her, she did not come to celebrate the separation of the thirteen colonies from the British Crown, but she said that “the founding patriots of the great American republic had taught Great Britain a very valuable lesson”. She added that “the wounds of the separation in 1976 healed many years ago.” And she mentioned the friendship and the common ideals of the two peoples and she remembered how they had fought together in two world wars.
To Philadelphia he brought a copy of The Magna Carta and a bell inscribed with the motto “Let it ring for liberty”, cast in England. She was received at the White House by President Gerald Ford, although Elizabeth II had already visited Washington years before, when she was welcomed by President Dwight Eisenhower.
At the banquet in Philadelphia, Mayor Frank Rizzo told him that someone had stolen the commemorative silver medal with his image (a gift that had been made in a case to all those present). Elizabeth II replied that he should not worry about her, that she would give him hers, which was gold.
Elizabeth II had a great sense of humour, I was told in London by Hugh Thomas, the English historian, already a member of the House of Lords. Lord Thomas of Swynnerton took me to Parliament, where he introduced me to a ‘blue-blooded’ member. It is worth mentioning that this lady was a Marxist and an admirer of Fidel Castro.
Queen Elizabeth he died yesterday at age 96, and under his seventy-year reign, the English had fifteen governments with fifteen prime ministers, both Conservative and Liberal, from Winston Churchill to Boris Johnson. The last official act two days before his death was to receive the newly-elected prime minister, Liz Truss, and validate her election.
It is difficult to think that the verdict of history on her reign is other than positive, as is the respect and admiration that her people and millions of people around the world feel for her today.
OPINION ARTICLE
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