In the background, I’m watching and listening to C-Span2 coverage of the State Opening Of Parliament and Queen Elizabeth II’s speech.
What a lovely little British anachronism it is.
Among the announcements from Her Majesty, it appears that she will be visiting Virginia in 2007 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown colony:
Queen Elizabeth II said yesterday she will come to Jamestown in May for the 400th anniversary of a settlement that helped establish the British crown’s authority in the New World.
To think it all might still be hers, if only those colonists had behaved themselves.
The queen, who announced the trip in a speech to Parliament, will be accompanied by her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. It will be her fourth state visit to the United States and her second to the site, named for another British monarch.
The 80-year-old queen last came to Jamestown in 1957 to mark the 350th anniversary of the founding of the first permanent English-speaking settlement in the Americas.
Hundreds of thousands lined the streets of Washington during that trip to see the young queen, many waving little Union Jacks. The press swooned over every pearl, every curtsy, every buttoned glove offered to her majesty in protocol.
One palpitating report indicated that the “blue-eyed Queen took on a storybook aura” during a dinner at the Williamsburg Inn and that the prince received a greeting “very much like bobbysox squealing.”
Something tells me it won’t be quite as big a deal when 2007 rolls around.
