News from Nowhere: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

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She was Britain’s longest-serving monarch, and perhaps its most universally popular, both at home and overseas.

She survived fourteen Prime Ministers and had just appointed her fifteenth in the final week of her life. She had overseen the independence of so many former colonies, and (for the most part) their peaceful and even gracious transfer towards freedom, and voluntary membership of the Commonwealth.

In her capacity as figurehead of that league of vaguely like-minded nations, she had overseen international opposition to South African apartheid. Although she always maintained a position above party politics, she was rumoured to have disliked the divisive ideologies perpetuated by her longest-serving premier, Margaret Thatcher, and to have been as comfortable with Labour's Harold Wilson as with her first Prime Minister, Winston Churchill himself.

This week's official palace statement said that she had been 'pleased' to accept Boris Johnson’s resignation. That may simply be the standard form of words. Read into it what you will.

Romantic idealists like myself tend to believe that she generally favoured liberal-leftist politics. She was always scrupulously apolitical, yet her capacity for quiet kindness seemed progressive to many of us.

Yet she was of course the product of her times, her heritage, her class and her privilege. But she was always careful never to express the kind of prejudices which her late husband all too often let rip.

Like many ardent republicans, I must admit I always had a soft spot for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. You don't have to agree with the institution of the monarchy to respect the commitment and sheer hard work and patience she put into her job, and to appreciate the seven decades of relative social and political stability her presence underpinned.

She epitomised, at heart, a tradition of service and duty. She was the servant of her subjects.

It has been a traumatic few days for the United Kingdom. A new Prime Minister and now a new King. These are anxious times, with these untested individuals now guiding the ship of state through times of unusual crisis. Uncertainty and even fear are in the air.

But for a moment, it may be worth reflecting on the tolerant and honourable life of our dear departed Queen, and pausing to hope that at least some measure of the better part of her values and virtues may endure.

God save the King. And God help all of us.