The Queen at 80
"I cannot lead you into battle, I do not give you laws or administer justice, but I can do something else," she said. "I can give you my heart."
It was a smart arrangement.
On Friday, April 21, the queen will turn 80, the head of a sometimes quarrelsome, often criticized dynasty that has etched its record in tales of divorce and untimely death, mockery, mischief and feuds.
But, true to the compact she offered the nation in the 1950's, the queen has remained aloof from the travails of her relatives, children and grandchildren, defining herself as a servant of her subjects, yet regally distant from those she embraced in what she called "my devotion to these old islands."
Remarkably in a land that says it has abandoned its forelock-tugging deference, the royal formula has inspired an outpouring of respect: people may deride the monarchy, but they cannot quite bring themselves to extend their barbs to the monarch herself. Not, at least, on her 80th birthday.