Queen Elizabeth II is dead. Here’s what happens now.

CLIP You’re listening to a frequency Podcast Network production in association with City News. Jordan Heath-Rawlings Hey, it’s Jordan. If you’re listening to this episode, it’s because the Queen is Dead. And beyond much of the world mourning one of the largest and most important figures of the past century. A gigantic, intricate machine is swinging into motion around the world right now. This is not a new episode. We recorded it in 2019 when Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second was very much alive. And we’re resurfacing it now to give you an inside look at what is happening in Buckingham Palace in the royal family in the United Kingdom and around the world. When the Queen dies, this is what happens next. One very sad day. In the coming months or years, bells around the world will toll in a way that has not occurred in the living memory of most people on this planet. CLIP His Majesty the King peacefully away at a few minutes before 12.

Jordan It has been more than 66 years since Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second ascended the throne. During her record setting rain, she has come to define royalty for a huge portion of the world’s population. What is royalty in a rapidly changing world or even in a rapidly changing monarchy? What happens in the hours and days after her Majesty who is now 93 passes away? What will change in the Commonwealth in Canada and the world Maven in her own family in the months and years that follow that the royal family is one of the last visible links between Canada and the United Kingdom. And it is woven into our government in a way that most of us probably forgot after that grade school civics class. But the invisible ties are deep and the Queen’s passing will test them in ways that they’ve never been tested. So when the Queen is Dead, how does her reign live on? I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings and this is the big story. Patricia Treble is one of Canada’s preeminent royal watchers and reporters. She is a correspondent from Maclean’s. You can find her at writeroyalty.com Hi, Patricia.

Patricia Treble Hi, Jordan.

Jordan How prepared is the world? Especially Canada but I guess just the world in general for what you called in your piece for McLean’s the inevitable when Queen Elizabeth two passes.

Patricia Treble Queen Elizabeth the Second. I’m going to say.

Jordan See there you go.

Patricia Treble There’s the two as a ship right here. Um, she’s simply the queen. If you if you if you go around the world she’s been she’s been monarch for so long. If you go around the world, you ask kids to draw queen, they will draw her right. They’ll put a tiara crown on her and they will draw her. Are we prepared? She’s 93. I mean, we know that the inevitable. There’s actually a legal term. It’s called the demise of the crown, which I sent a shiver down my throat, my spine. I don’t think anyone’s prepared for it. There are people who have made plans for it. We know what’s going to happen. We know it’s inevitable means she’s 93. Yeah. But I think it’s going to catch everyone off guard and it’s going to be far more far larger and far more emotional. Even though those of us who’ve really thought about it. No, it’s going to catch everyone off guard.

Jordan Well, a while ago, when we were both working for the same publication, you kind of walked me through what happens exactly when the Queen dies. And it was it was fascinating because you can can you explain the protocol like the on the ground protocol.

Patricia Treble So this isn’t something that put together at the last minute. royal officials have been planning this and they update their plans for decades. The we know that the Queen’s funeral the whole the 10 days from her death to her funeral is called London Bridge. And so the first thing that obviously happens, you know is that her family is informed. And then the palace officials will inform the Prime Minister of Britain and the protocol is simply London Bridge has fallen. I mean you That’s the code and everyone knows what that means. And that kicks in a plan into place. So the realm country, so cat nations that have the queen as head of state, Canada, Australia, there’s 16 around the world, including Britain, they are informed the Governor General’s are informed. So everyone’s informed in behind the scenes and everything’s kicking into place. And whatever every nation has, as they have, there’s a box in a closet somewhere. And it has black armbands and the black armbands are put on the left arm closest to the heart, you are in mourning for her. And so you’ll see everyone in our news announcers will have everyone has black, a black jacket in their newsroom, a close tree somewhere, and that’s put on. And then what’s happened is, the announcement will be made through the Press Association. And instantly everyone around the world will break into broadcasts, you know, it is with the greatest sadness that Buckingham Palace has announced today. And what also happens is it everything stops. So if you’re on a hip hop’s listen to a hip hop station, you know, you’re going down the highway, all of a sudden, the music will turn, because this is the sort of thing they prepare for not just the Queen, but huge disasters, you know, the preparations are done, especially in Britain, they’re done very regularly, because they don’t want to catch people off guard. And it can. So when the Queen Mother died in 2002, it was Easter weekend. And the officials famously told the announcer that he didn’t have to change his tie, but he was going to put on a black tie. And they said, Oh, no, you know, she’s 100, unwanted. Nobody’s going to be really that interested. The blowback was significant. And they learned a lesson. And they also thought they thought, Oh, she’s just been around forever, there’s not going to be that much interest. People were lined up to walk by her coffin at Westminster Hall, they were lined up, up over and under something like eight bridges in London, Westminster Hall was open 23 hours a day, it only closed one hour so that they can simply clean it.

Jordan It’s the kind of thing that to people that don’t engage with the monarchy much you kind of forget about it, because it’s been stable for so long. And it lets you maybe not realize the weight of what’s going to come when something like this happens?

Patricia Treble Well, I mean, think about it, she’s been on the throne for 67 years. So she is now she’s 93. So she’s been working three decades past, the normal time people retire. And she’s still going. So I did statistics, and I realized that for Canadian something like more than 85% of Canadians have no no other monarch. Yeah, they were born in her reign, many died in her reign. And so the change will be, will be just shocking. I mean, in many ways, your your daily life is going to continue, you’re going to go to work, you’re going to do everything else short, there is this underlying fundamental process that there will be, as I said to somebody said, The Last Breath of the queen is immediately followed by the first intake of breath of the new King. And that will be Charles, there is no doubt anyone who has this theory that they’re somehow going to bypass him and go to William,

Jordan a lot of people would like to see that.

Patricia Treble I don’t know why, because William has a young family. And the duties are so are so honored, because people think, Oh, she doesn’t really do much. She doesn’t law they you know, and the Governor General here and the vice regels, the the Lieutenants Governor, they do a lot so that why would you want a man who’s got young children to do that? No, Charles has been groomed for this. He’s ready. And he’s taking over more and more of her duties. I mean, she still works about 250 engagements a year. I mean, she is not, you know, she’s not putting putting up her feet.

Jordan One of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is because in your piece, you talked about sort of the context of the Queen’s passing in the larger picture of a monarchy in transition. So in the bigger picture to the world that you described, this basically only ever known one queen, what kinds of things come into play when this happens?

Patricia Treble So you’ve got things so I mean, the first thing is that, you know, Charles has to figure out what name he wants to be known as because it’s not obvious that it’s going to be is it going to be Charles third? Yes, but he could pick other names. He’s Charles Philip Arthur George, he could technically pick any of those. Any of those he could George she would be King George the seventh his grandfather was King George the sixth. So he could be King George seventh. Well, his grandfather was Prince Albert, but when his brother older brother abdicated you know, which was a huge scandal rocked the throne to the foundations he picked the name of his father. So George the fifth George the sixth simply for continuity. He can pick any name he wants so and then what you also have to have is you have to have there’ll be an accession council which is a special version of the privy council will meet you have to swear owes parliament has to be recalled because everyone has to swear an oath to the new monarch. And you’ve got this whole

Jordan Wait, wait, they have to come in like bend the knee?

Patricia Treble No, no, you just you go back -Parliament will get usually get recalled within a few days. You swear an oath of allegiance to the new King? Do you have an oath of allegiance to the to the Queen and when they when they’re sworn in. And that’s it.

Jordan These are the kinds of things I’ve never thought about having never seen this happen.

Patricia Treble Because you were born a Canadian. If you’re if you’re if you’ve ever been to a citizenship ceremony, you swear allegiance to the Queen because she is the head of state, because she is the and this is what people don’t understand. And this is when I was at this, this conference that was in University of Toronto last week, it was organized by the Institute for the Study of the crown in Canada, and one of the big things is that most people don’t understand what the crown is. It’s, it’s at the heart of our entire country. And yet, because we don’t study civics, really anymore, people don’t understand it. And basically, what you’ve got is is the, the monarch is the living embodiment of the state. And so the state always continues, but the monarchs can come and go, the king is dead, long live the queen, the queen is dead, long live the king. And so you’ve got she is the physical embodiment of that. And everything really flows from that. So you’ve got, you know, judicial power flows from the crown legislative power flows from the crown executive power flows through the county, everything flows from that, and that is monarchical. So you have to change everything over and let’s face it, you know, when we’re actually talking about the inevitable when it happens, it’ll be 10 days of British precision. They have everything planned the second, if you’re ever out, sometimes four o’clock in the morning, five o’clock in the morning, you’ll see an entire carriage procession going by and they’ve got men with stopwatches at the top because they know how long does it take to slow march from St. James’s Palace to Westminster Hall where her coffin where she will lie in state for four days. Takes exactly 28 minutes they know it because they’ve timed it repeatedly. And everything is going to be very precise and you’re going to have this in Canada too.

Jordan What will the changing of monarchs mean for the future of the monarchy? There are a lot of people who want to abolish it. And there is a school of thought that the longevity and popularity of this queen was one of the things kind of holding that back?

Patricia Treble Yeah. There’s a lot of people who will say, I’m a Republican, but I like her. Or I’m a Republican. I adore her. And he has she has been the ultimate constitutional monarch. Yeah, she knows her bounds. She knows where she can go. And the question is, Is this the time when you’ve got the changing? You know, I don’t think you’re going to say that the toilet of your ran. I’m sorry, you had a really long way. But we’re gonna you know, we’re gonna throw you over goodbye. Yeah, no, I think everyone’s realized that’s not gonna happen, but is now the time so like Australia’s thinking. I was talking with one of the private secretaries for the governor of Queensland. And he said, you know, we think of it eventually we’re going to have another referendum on the monarchy. The last one, which was back in the 90s was defeated. And it was simply because they couldn’t find a better system. And that’s also the case. But you also have a case of, you know, if you’re going to start opening things up, the problem Canada, of course, is the crown is at the very heart of the constitution. So you’re not just making a tiny tweak. theirs would have to change, you would simply have to rip out and rip out the constitution. It needs unanimous consent, all provinces, everything it’s to which everyone’s kind of going, oh my Yeah, it can be done there are ways you can tweak it. And there are ways that some people think it could also mark a rejuvenation of the crown. So one of the men who is spe aking was a Senator who has, I mean, he’s worked with something like 10, I think Governor generals, and a Secretary of State was on a multiple royal tours. He’s very much a monarchist. And he’s thought really deeply about this. And he’s actually concerned about a few things that he thinks are diminishing the role of the crown in Canada. And he doesn’t think it’s a good thing, and especially the Governor General, who’s Of course, the Queen’s representative here, her role in the legislative process, and that, normally what happens is has to give royal cent for everything, of course, to become law, but only now has to go into parliament to do the signing twice a year, doesn’t have to do it more. They don’t want to they do a bulk signing. No, they just that somebody else can sign it. It can be a Supreme Court justice can sign it. And he was quite critical. He did not name names, but it was clear what he was intending on is it the choices of who are who become Governor General, because he really says the role of the crown is very much shaped by the personalities of those who inhabit the roles. The Governor General’s the left, hence, governor, and one of his big criticisms is that he thinks that the governors are too young. Because this should be the culmination of a long career, they shouldn’t be thinking about what’s the next thing that they’re going to do after this, that this is just, oh, it’s a five year thing, and I’m gonna go on to do something else. These are the things that people never talk about, that are kind of behind the scenes. And I think that in many ways is one of the issues about the crown is that I, in my article, I talked about the fact that it’s like vaccines, there almost is almost been too successful. And so they just become simply assumed as always going to be there. Therefore, why do you need to have it because often what they do when they’re talking with the government, when they’re talking about issues, that might be a conflict, so that there might be an issue where the government and crown might be in conflict, it’s done behind the scenes, it’s done very quietly, somebody called it, it’s the fire extinguisher on the wall getting dusty, you don’t ever want to take it down, because that’s way too public. You want to keep it on the wall and work out the problem and put out the fire. And they’ve done this to such an extent that when things kind of come up, and they’re public people are, are taken aback, I think it would help if if people knew what the crown did, and again, that goes back to school. I mean, the fact that there’s one half course in Ontario is the only mandated civics course in the country is crazy.

Jordan Will that knowledge or lack of knowledge get better or worse? When we actually confront a transition in the monarchy?

Patricia Treble I’m hoping it will get better because what will happen? There’ll be a flood of interest in what is this? The first question is going to be what is the crown?

Jordan I mean, when we read the headline of your piece, it was a, it was a profoundly interesting question, because we’ve never encountered it.

Patricia Treble And getting ready for the inevitable. Yeah, it’s just kind of, you know, nobody wants to talk about death. I mean, nobody wants to talk about death. But we crown experts. And then there were so many at this conference that came from from all over the world, you know, their careers are talking about issues with the crown. And there have been there has been a bubbling up recently of issues involving the crown. So 2008, Stephen Harper was facing a potential defeat in the House of Commons. He wanted to prorogue parliament, he went to the Governor General. And the question was, should the Governor General have allowed him to do it? And she did? And most experts think yes, that was she was probably right. But she has the right to say no, another case came up very recently in British Columbia, because they had an election, it was very, very close the party standings and the premier who was a liberal, went to the Lieutenant Governor and wanted a dissolution wanted to go to the polls again. And she said no, she then called the NDP leader and said, Can you form a government and the NDP leader is now the premier, he could form a government, he could put together a coalition. And that is her right. They had just gone to the polls, they weren’t she didn’t want to have them thrown back into the polls without talking to other leaders about whether they have and that that is the right of the crown. And some, some people you know, think, oh, you know, what can the crown do, the crown actually has a lot of reserve powers because a lot of the powers it’s, there are unwritten. They’re not spelled out. And so people assume that the crown is fixed. It’s a rock, it’s a mobile, we know everything about it. It’s boring. It’s never gonna change. And one, one man said, he says, It’s like water is all it’s malleable. It’s always changing.

Jordan Give me an example from that conference of how drastically things can change for how the crown does business with one of its realms.

Patricia Treble So what you have is when you had the colonial situation, you really had one crown. But now there are 16 crowns, the 16 crown countries. So when you look at the crown in Canada versus the crown and say New Zealand, and this is one that came out in, in the conference, they are actually organized and run. Now completely differently. I mean, a lot of the basic fundamentals are the same, obviously, the monarch is the same, but how they’re run. And so what what came out was, especially in New Zealand is one of the experts was David Williams, he’s from the University of Auckland, he called it the shapeshifting crown. And so they’re they’ve got the Treaty of Waitangi, between the Maori and the Crown from 1840. And for a long time, it was really ignored, it was, you know, it was there. But, you know, like, our situation with our crowns relationship with the indigenous people here, the government’s relationship with the individual, indigenous people here it was, you know, in a family, that has all completely changed since about the early 2000s, especially the Treaty of Waitangi, is now at the foundational document of that country. And it affects the entire everything to do with that country. And he was giving examples, he was saying that when it can be the biggest thing or the smallest thing, and one example he gave us, when diplomats present their credentials, you would present them to the Governor General, well, they have completely reorganized that whole process. So now when the diplomats come, they first meet with the local Maori, they talk to the local maori, they meet the local maoti, there’s a guard from from the local tribe there. And only then once that’s happened, do they then meet the Governor General, and it’s little, it can also be tiny, little things. So it can be the fact that the ropes of the Supreme Court justices, there used to be the big the red robes that we’re used to here. They’re now black, and they have embroidery, which has marked his significance for the maori people. And it’s also the bigger thing. So you’ve got, as he said, his university has a provost who is in charge of maori relations. So it’s becoming simply embedded in the in the DNA of Australia in a way that is not yet here. You can see changes here. But it’d be interesting to see what happens in 20 years from now here versus what’s already happening in New Zealand.

Jordan Is there concern amongst Canadian monarchists that the Queen’s passing will kind of begin the end or begin something totally different for the monarchy in Canada? Or is it just going to be business as usual? I guess? Like, are we going to put Charles on our money? As soon as he becomes king?

Patricia Treble The question of Charles money, it keeps coming up it that is actually a decision that will have to be made. He technically does not have to be okay. I would like to see him on the money.

Jordan I feel like a lot of Canadians would not. I’m making that up.

Patricia Treble And that could very well be. Yeah, I think a lot of the changes are going to come slowly, I think some of the fundamental changes will come slowly. The question is going to be like, when does he do a coronation tour. I mean, to be honest, we didn’t really have the queen, the Queen was, you know, a seat of the throne. And ’52 she came here for a tiny little visit and 57. But she didn’t really come for our next big visit until 59. So I mean, seven years. That’s a long time. I don’t think we’re gonna see that. But the thing is, it’s not so much trust. This is this institution has been around for 1000 years, and they take a long time. And they know, you know, Charles, no, he’s 70. He’s not hip and glamorous, Will and Kate are, Harry and Megan are, you know, you’ve always got the next generation. That’s the one thing about a monarchy, right? You’ve got the next generation, it is very much a family.

Jordan Our culture demands change a lot faster than the royal family.

Patricia Treble It does. But you when you look, when you look at the monarchy, I mean, everyone who everyone who looks at the crown, you know, we’re now up to what the mid 60s, look at how it functions in that Netflix series, then, and look at the look at the monarchy today. It’s a radically different institution, it’s simply that they move at a slower pace that you don’t always notice those changes. When you get back to your question, are monarchists anxious about the change? I think many are because it is the unknown. We’ve known who the queen is for so long, and this is simply the unknown. But that in a way makes it interesting. I mean, you know, and this is the one thing that everyone was talking about at the conference was it it wasn’t, you know, negative. You know, what’s going to happen after the Queen, but it’s simply that it’s simply going to be something we have, we have never witnessed. You know, when I look back, I was talking with my, with my mother, and you know, she remembers the death of the last king and she said she was in a hospital. And the reason she found out was that all of a sudden, everything went very quiet. She went out into the hallway, and the doctors and nurses were weeping, and they were openly weeping for this man. Because he had gotten them through the war. They had all been together and they knew he was woefully ill prepared for the crown but he stepped up. He did his duty, you know, and it was that war generation. And and I remember I asked her not that long I said said, do you think there’ll be like, it’ll be like that for this queen? And she looks? And she said, I don’t know. But I think so. I think it’s going to take people off guard by how much they actually like this lady, how much they miss this lady how much they respect this lady and what she’s done. She’s doing it all so that she can pass it on to the next generation. She’s not doing it for her own, you know, glory. She’s not doing it to be a celeb to be on a cover of any magazine. She’s doing it to pass on the institution better to the next generation. And that’s her entire goal.

Jordan Patricia Treble. A veteran royal watcher and reporter at McLean’s and writeroyalty.com And that was the big story. For more from us. You can find us at the big story podcast.ca You can find us on Twitter at the big story FPN and of course you can find us everywhere you get podcasts Apple, Google Stitcher, Spotify. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.