Courage under pressure

I've been reading the authorized biography of Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (called, appropriately enough, The Queen Mother). It was moderately interesting, reading about her youth, her marriage to King George VI (when they were married he was Prince Albert Frederick Arthur George, and throughout his life was called Bertie within the family, but when he became king in 1936 he used the last of his Christian names, to provide the country with a sense of continuity from his father, George V), the dreadful period when "Bertie's" older brother, Edward VIII, decided to abdicate so he could marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, which resulted in the shy, nervous Albert, inflicted with a stammer, and with no desire to be king, being forced to become exactly that.

Yes, all quite interesting, but what has been most interesting is the section on the Second World War, and how the royal family, and all of Britain, coped. As was the case when I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Note of May 25, 2010), I've gotten a much better sense of just what the war meant to the British. I think I, perhaps like many Americans, have been more aware of happenings in the European war from D-Day, in June of '44, on. But the people in England had been enduring the ravages of war for four years by that time (they had officially entered into war with Germany in September of 1939, but there followed several months of what came to be known as the Phony War, when not much happened. Beginning in early 1940, things started happening.)

People in England suffered with the same food shortages that they did on Guernsey, but also had to contend with bombing raids. For four years. This was especially true in London, which was practically flattened. Reading about it reminded me of my first trip to London, in 1974, when I learned that so many of the historic sites I was looking at were not the originals, but had been rebuilt after the war. They had survived for many centuries, and then been wiped out by modern warfare within a four-year span.

And the British people as a whole really do seem to have been amazingly staunch, impressively resilient and determinedly cheerful through it all. And their king and queen were in there suffering with them, and being just as staunch, resilient and determinedly cheerful. One wonders if we Americans, as a people, would bear up so well, for so long. We all like to think so, of course, but selflessness and a disinclination to complain seem to be less in the way of American national traits.

We have been so lucky in this country. True, our ancestors lived through the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War, both taking place on our soil, and producing the tragic losses that all wars produce. But except for the attack on Pearl Harbor, which was an attack on a military target (the ships within the harbor, and the harbor itself), and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001, this country has been spared so many of the outrages and devastation of war.

The Queen Mother, by the way, is coming off almost as the Princess Diana of her era -- much loved by the masses of common people, charming everyone she met with her graciousness, her ability to seem to be genuinely interested in whomever she was talking to. Although by middle age she had become plump and somewhat dowdy -- especially by American standards -- when she was younger she was considered quite lovely, with gorgeous skin, beautiful eyes and smile, and her good humor and kindliness. And she appears to have been a true helpmeet to her husband (unlike Princess Diana).

But I can't help wondering: why was she the Queen, when she was married to King George, but Prince Philip has not been the King, while married to Elizabeth II?