After the Queen, What Is Britain?
It wasn’t exactly a shock. The ancient and beloved Queen, who had reigned much longer than most of her subjects had lived, was 96 and visibly failing. Leaning on a stick, she managed a smile last week as she invited Liz Truss, Britain’s new prime minister, to form a government. And within 48 hours, she was dead.A huge and complex contraption of official mourning, rehearsed to exhaustion over the past 15 years, lurched into action. Public events were canceled.