Raymond J. de Souza: A royal tribute to our lovely late Queen

Queen Elizabeth II is seen in a 2011 photo taken at a Royal Air Force base in Anglesey, Wales, where she was visiting her grandson Prince William. A planned memorial to the late monarch was unveiled on April 21, 2026, on what would have been her 100th birthday. Photo by Postmedia File

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“God bless you, darling Mama. You remain forever in our hearts and prayers,” said King Charles III in a video address Tuesday to mark the centennial of the birth of Queen Elizabeth II on April 21, 1926.

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It was that kind of day in London, with personal tributes and park dedications and palace gatherings to celebrate what would have been Her Late Majesty’s 100th birthday. Given that Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother died at 102 years old, the Windsors suffered a minor shock with the premature death of Elizabeth II at age 96. The doctors were realistic in 2022, listing the cause of death as simply “old age.”

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The Royal Family invited others born the same day as the Queen to a reception at Buckingham Palace. No grand staircase climbing or walks in the expansive corridors for this group! The King and Queen Camilla came to them, personally handing out the birthday cards the sovereign sends to all centenarians. They had a slab cake with a “100” in icing, as if someone had picked it up at Marks and Spencer. The Princess of Wales cheerfully asked the guests if they had “anything special” planned for the milestone birthday, endearingly oblivious that being invited to the palace to chat with the royals was precisely the something special.

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It was lovely, in a week when the world needed some loveliness. The late Queen was good at providing that.

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The official family portrait was expanded to include a few geriatric royals rarely featured on occasions when the main players are present — the now-obscure Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and Princess Alexandra, cousins of the late Queen. The main point evidently was that even the most minor of minor royals were more welcome than the Andrew-formerly-known-as-Prince, as the tabloids call him, and Harry and Meghan, all of whom were happily absent.

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There was a bit of formal business to do. The plans for the official memorial were unveiled on Tuesday, with architect Norman Foster showing his designs to the King and Queen at the British Museum. The plans for the bronze statue depict the Queen in her younger years, wearing the robes of the Order of the Garter. Prince Philip will have his own statue nearby.

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King Charles III views a scaled model of a statue of Queen Elizabeth by sculptor Martin Jennings, during a visit to the British Museum in central London on April 21, 2026. The statue will be part of a memorial to the late monarch. Photo by Toby Melville / POOL / AFP via Getty Images

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The occasion highlighted a key difference between British memorials and American memorials, with the latter getting greater attention in this year of the semiquincentennial of the 1776 Declaration of Independence. British memorials highlight the personage, with perhaps the name and dates added. The plinth upon which stands the statue of Sir Winston Churchill at the mother of all parliaments has inscribed upon it one word: “Churchill.”

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American memorials, in contrast, are verbose things. Mount Rushmore is the exception — four effigies, though suitably super-sized to American tastes. Otherwise, it is the inscriptions that get attention.

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The Lincoln Memorial has the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural inscribed, while the Jefferson Memorial has excerpts from the 1776 Declaration and from the Virginia Act of Religious Freedom in 1779. The FDR memorial has his Four Freedoms, and the Martin Luther King memorial has some 16 different texts.