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As I write (mid January) there is a serious debate between London and Edinburgh about the Scottish Nationalist Party’s intention to hold a referendum on the subject of independence and the future of the United Kingdom. This necessarily involves discussions about all sorts of issues including currency, defence and sovereignty including, obviously, the Sovereign.

On Sunday 5th February 2012 our churches will be commemorating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and there will be a civic ceremony that evening in St Mary’s. We are slightly premature, the actual day being the Monday 6th.

I have often thought that Accession Days must be bitter-sweet events for the Queen since they necessarily mark the death of her late, lamented father, King George VI. Elizabeth II will be only the second monarch in the country to have achieved this sixty year landmark, first achieved by Victoria in 1897.

Like most people in the U.K., I can’t remember having any other head of state and even those who can will probably feel that this reign of 60 years marks the most stable (for some even the only stable) fact of public life since the years of austerity and recovery following World War II. It has been a period of massive change to social, economic, technological and educational expectations; to science, travel and music; from the end of Empire to establishment of the EU; a broadening of ‘Faith’ to ‘Faiths’; Suez and ‘the bomb’ to 9/11 and Afghanistan and a constant swell of antiinstitutional individualism and globalisation overseen by a dozen Prime Ministers.

Neither can we remember her actually putting a foot wrong. No gaffs, no discourtesies, no signs of lack of respect; nothing, physically, verbally nor on screen. True, there were the difficult days following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, but who else would have had to allow the general public to tell them how to negotiate the trauma of violent death in the family and, with appropriate dignity,negotiate that as well?

This is not to state that the case for democratic monarchy is conclusive. However, it does demonstrate the enormous value to that case of having a monarch who has done so much so well. A monarch who has so publicly declared and kept to our faith, while managing to show a welcome degree of inclusivity towards other faiths and cultures, deserves tribute because it would not have come easily to everyone. Indeed, as the Queen herself acknowledges, it is the fruit of a God-given grace.

We live in days of scepticism towards institutions and, particularly, privilege. It is an age in which public figures and so-called celebrities seem to be lionised merely for us to enjoy their fall. It is often easier to mock and undermine those who are leaders of nations and communities but the New Testament recommends praying for them. Her Majesty was prayed for at her enthronement in Westminster and, in one way or another, has been prayed for ever since. It seems good to continue praying for her on this Jubilee of 60 years and collectively to thank God for her devoted service. And may each one of us, too, be inspired,

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