Address given after the Choral Evensong commemorating Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on Sunday the 16th of September, 2022.
In the grounds of Windsor Castle at Frogmore is to be found the last resting place of Queen Victoria, whose husband, Prince Albert, died many years before the Queen herself. It was in accord with her instructions that when the mausoleum was built, there was inscribed over the entrance the words “Vale desideratissime.” Farewell most beloved. But the full inscription then continued, in words that revealed a great deal about Queen Victoria herself, “…at length, with thee in Christ I shall rise again.”
The words were eloquent in their clear testimony, not merely to an earthly love, but also, to a perhaps uncomplicated yet also very strong and overarching Christian faith. That faith was an essential feature of the character of Queen Victoria, for it was a vital aspect informing her very long life — a life and purpose that could not in fact be understood without it.
This same fact is just as true of the even longer reign of her great-great-granddaughter Queen Elizabeth II. This was made crystal clear — to cite but one of many instances, when she said in her Christmas address in the year of the Millennium:
But there is a further reason as to why Queen Victoria comes to mind now, which is that if we consider the history of recent centuries, only the death of Queen Victoria, after being on the throne for 63 years, can be considered to come close in its impact to that unfolding now after the passing of Her Majesty the Queen in Balmoral after seven whole decades on the Throne. This is an event with which we have only started to come to terms, even though it has already had an impact that even now continues to reverberate and expand around the world.
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