Sixty years of self-sacrifice

The concept of duty contained in the simple vows made by the young Queen of 60 years ago would have been completely in tune with the country as it was then, a much more rigidly hierarchical society and one which, having come through the dark days of the Second World War, understood the importance of self-denial, duty and devotion to a higher cause.

Sixty years later and Britain is changed in many ways, one of the few constants being the woman who, in 1953, pledged a life of “utter self-sacrifice” – in the words used yesterday by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby – and who, remarkably, has stayed true to those vows ever since.

On that day 60 years ago, the Queen set out on a path of duty and responsibility from which she has never strayed.

Her promises have been kept even though British society has seen fit to jettison countless other traditions along the path to modernity, to the extent where the values embodied by the Queen often seem flagrantly at odds with those of present-day Britain.

The very fact, however, that the Queen remains immensely popular with the overwhelming majority of her subjects does perhaps suggest that Britain has not changed as much as it sometimes appears to have done.

For her humility, self-sacrifice and self-effacement in the face of responsibility is precisely what endears her to her fellow Britons. And in embodying stability and continuity, in adapting to the modern world while also somehow remaining above it, she has remained true to her coronation vows and both monarchy and nation are all the stronger as a result.