CEO Letter

Reflections on the role of the monarchy in modern Britain

Currently in Edinburgh on Walpole matters, Helen Brocklebank, our Chief Executive Officer, is witnessing the loss of Britain's longest reigning monarch – and the outpouring of grief on the city's streets – in real time. Today, she writes about her experiences of the start of our period of National Mourning in the Scottish capital and how this shared event should give us all hope...
13th Sep 2022
CEO Letter Reflections on the role of the monarchy in modern Britain

Dear Members,

 

Edinburgh’s Royal Mile has been used as a place of processing for kings and queens for five hundred years, and no more movingly so than yesterday as, alongside his brothers and sister, His Majesty King Charles walked behind his mother’s coffin towards St Giles as she made her final journey through the city she loved so much, in the nation that had been for her, as King Charles said in the Scottish Parliament, “a haven and a home”. The crowds, thirty deep on each side of the pavement along most of the route, were almost entirely silent, each person paying their respects in their own way but united by grief.
 
There has been a quiet, reverent mood in Edinburgh over the past days, palpable from the moment I left Waverley station at lunchtime, punctuated only by the sounds of the gun salute fired from the Castle’s battlements. People have been pouring into the city from all over Scotland to pay their respects to Britain’s longest reigning monarch – as I write, more than twenty thousand are queuing to file through St Giles to bow their heads to our late Queen - as she lies at rest in Edinburgh’s cathedral, her coffin on its catafalque of Scottish oak, draped in the Royal Standard and bearing the Crown of Scotland.
 
Last Thursday’s news was so terribly sad. I know I’m not alone in having spent the days since reflecting on the Queen’s warmth, kindness and humour, on her quiet power and leadership, and on her exceptional gifts of diplomacy as well as her unwavering service to the country. She was such a tremendous role model, setting an incredible example with her grace and strength in difficult times and in good ones. I hope I always remember how much of an inspiration she has been to all of us, and how bright a beacon for Britain she has been in the world over a seventy year reign in which she was a constant, a north star during a period of such extraordinary change. 
 
At a time when so much of the conversation about the relationship between the four nations of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has been about division, it has taken the death of a beloved Queen to remind us why our country is known as the United Kingdom. In conversations with friends and colleagues in the immediate aftermath of the news of her death, we took comfort from the fact she died in the place she loved best, surrounded by those she loved best. But for a Queen the personal is inescapably political, and as the days have worn on, the symbolic dimension of her dying here in Scotland, and of the journey her body has made from Balmoral to Holyrood and St Giles Cathedral, before drawing our gaze southwards as she travels towards her final resting place in Windsor, is not lost on me. In a more superstitious age we would see this as an unmistakable sign that we must use this time to heal the divisions, to come back together. To see that individually we can do little. Together, we can achieve everything. In our unity is our strength.
 
This period of National Mourning is an important one. It allows us to sit still with our grief, not only for her late Majesty, but for all those we have lost over the past few years – and to find peace and closure in the ancient rituals of our country, and to understand the symbolic potency of the immediate passing of the crown from one monarch to the next. 
 
And in the words of another Queen of Scotland, Mary Queen of Scots, in my end is my beginning.

 

Yours sincerely,

Helen Brocklebank

Chief Executive Officer, Walpole

Related Articles

Paying tribute to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
CEO Letter
8th Sep 2022
Paying tribute to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
A Walpole Member update from our Chief Executive Officer, Helen Brocklebank, on the passing of Britain's longest-reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II
Moments of Majesty
Walpole Editorial
14th Sep 2022
Moments of Majesty
To celebrate Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee earlier this year, we asked Walpole members to share their memories of her through the pictures and artefacts that defined her glorious reign. From her visit to the Wedgwood workshops in Barlaston 1955 to the hat block made by Lock & Co. for her Coronation crown, revisit our Moments of Majesty feature below. If you would like to share your memories of Queen Elizabeth II, please email [email protected]
Moriarty's Sophie Cracknell shares her out of office essentials
Out of Office
7th Feb 2025
Moriarty's Sophie Cracknell shares her out of office essentials
In our Out of Office interview series, we speak to Walpole member and partner executives at the top of their game about how they live their lives away from their desks – the habits that help them decompress, the activities that re-centre their minds, and the little luxuries that they can't live without. This week, we talk Pilates, The Pig and preparing for the week over a glass of red with Sophie Cracknell, Managing Director of global creative events studio Moriarty