A Good Omen

The bells tolled, the black-draped drums acknowledged and echoed the news. King George VI was dead, and a 25-year-old young woman ascended the throne of a realm that encompasses a quarter of the globe and a fourth of its inhabitants.

The news shocked, saddened, and in a strange fashion, inspired. A steadfast and modest King had died peacefully: this fact eased the sadness. The new Queen, young and popular, bore a proud name and the promise of a new era. In an age which prides itself on practicality, dismisses pomp as pretension, and regards royalty as an empty anachronism, the meaning of the Crown seemed suddenly clearer. Respect, earned and freely given, is its strength. Tyrants might demand but could not command loyalty so spontaneously offered. At a precarious moment in Britain's history, the passing of George VI and the accession of Elizabeth II strengthened the one tie that still binds the Commonwealth to the mother island--fealty to the Crown.

In Britain, political activity was stilled and party strife suspended at a moment when Parliament was plunging headlong toward a serious split over foreign policy, its first since 1940. The news postponed a critical struggle for power within the Labor Party, and rescued Winston Churchill from a situation that was causing him real concern. The issue which the House of Commons debated was whether Britain should stand beside the U.S. in whatever new perils may come in Asia. Tangled in that issue was a latent mistrust of the U.S., a concern over Britain's role of junior partner, and the political ambitions of Left-Wing Rebel Nye Bevan.

The debate became acrimonious and mischievous. To hear the Bevanites tell it, it was the U.S., not Communist China, that menaced the peace. In the heat of the Laborite assault on Churchill's foreign policy, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden was jolted out of his usual debonair mastery of the House, even lost his temper and apologized for it. Churchill maneuvered desperately to head off an end to the bipartisanship in foreign affairs which has lasted through World War II and six years of Labor government. Abruptly, the news from Sandringham House snuffed out the whole debate. One Laborite muttered: "It's a wonderful get-out for the old scoundrel [Churchill]." The debate will be resumed, but the moment and the mood will be different.

In London's winding, grey streets and Britain's wintry countryside, cares, queues and cold war persisted. But for the moment, they were overshadowed by the ceremony of death and the proclamation of a new reign.

Drawn by six black horses, a caisson bearing the King's coffin made its way from Sandringham to the railroad station, down a two-and-a-half-mile winding road lined by hushed thousands. Prince Philip and the Duke of Gloucester walked behind the caisson, followed by a limousine in which rode the women in the family, veiled in black. A special train took the royal party to London, 103 miles away. There, on a windy, rainy afternoon, the coffin was led through crowded, silent streets to Westminster Hall, where the King would lie in state until his funeral this week.

Now began the second Elizabethan Age, and in its name the people of Britain saw a good omen.

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