Remember when Britannia ruled the waves?
Well, okay, most of us don’t either. But not too long ago, historically speaking, there was a time when the sun never set on the British Empire. The feisty little sea-going nation had spread its grasping tentacles across the globe, sipping foreign tea with abandon and growing rich in the process.
It had colonies all over the place, subjugating millions of people whether those people liked it or not. History lesson, by the way: Many did not like it.
In North America the Brits held onto Canada and a passel of small island possessions, even if the United States had managed to get away. It had India and other Asian nations. It owned Australia. Africa was littered with countries cobbled together arbitrarily by English adventurers and ruled – not always gently – from London.
Then came the latter half of the 20th century, when colonialism went seriously (and bloodily) out of fashion.
Today, the United Kingdom doesn’t even have all the so-called British Isles, not since the bulk of Ireland’s people managed – after years of guerrilla war – to form the independent Republic of Ireland.
But the idea of the British Empire persevered, always punching above its weight, and survived two devastating world wars. For mutual support it had, in 1973, declared itself part of the European Union, a conglomeration of that continent’s nations who’d decided to try to get past centuries of rivalry and wars by banding together peacefully for trade and protection.
And so all thrived without strife, right? Well, yeah, pretty much. Until . . . Brexit!
It seemed that some Brits just couldn’t take so much togetherness with their continental relatives and neighbors, so someone had the bright idea of a nationwide referendum. That is, a nationwide popular vote on whether to stay allied with the European Union.
A referendum – especially a referendum held without a whole lot of preparatory education and serious discussion – is a Very Bad Idea. It results in a lot of uninformed and downright impulsive voting.
And so after 44 years the U.K. voted, narrowly, to leave the E.U. Brexit!
Which – why are we not surprised? – turned out not to be such an easy thing after so many years of linked economies and open borders. As the citizens of the not-really-so-United Kingdom are now learning.
In fact, the outside observer these days has to watch how badly the Brits are bungling the whole mess and wonder how on earth these hapless people’s ancestors even managed to find their way across the English Channel to the European continent, much less to conquer far lands. At the moment there seems to be no one in charge and the future is looking, well, dim.
But not the past! Because, no matter what happens, there will – as Vera Lynn timelessly reminds us – always be an England. Especially as far as its former colony is concerned.
And we can see that simply by turning on the TV or visiting the local cineplex. Because, for some unfathomable reason, our countrymen (and countrywomen) – who couldn’t wait to kick King George III and his Redcoats out of town more than two centuries ago – are besotted with the British royals and the country they have more or less ruled for the past millennium.
Doubt me? In the last few years, red-blooded Americans have flocked to see movies purporting to chronicle the lives of England’s bluebloods – Mary, Queen of Scotts; The Favourite; The Queen; The King’s Speech.
And television over the years has offered a plethora of Brit stuff, starting with The Forsyte Saga in 1967 and continuing this year with PBS’s Victoria – which turns the early reign of starchy Queen Victoria into a beautifully costumed soap opera revolving around the question of whether an unimaginably rich and powerful sovereign can find true happiness with a hot German dude.
Or, as an alternative, check out Netflix’s The Crown, which asks the same question about another British queen, the current monarch, a century or so later. And trivia buffs will surely note that Claire Foy, the English actress who portrays the early years of the current queen, Elizabeth, played another, far less fortunate queen – Anne Boleyn – in an early Masterpiece outing chronicling the life of Henry VIII, Wolf Hall.
And speaking of that much-married king, just the story of Henry and his many wives has been the basis of an endless series of dramas that have filled the coffers of PBS over the years.
In fact, some might say it’s unlikely we’d have a viable public television network without its being able to borrow, liberally, from a whole raft of British television costume dramas, comedies and science-fiction programs.
Think about how much poorer our lives would be without The Benny Hill Show, Downton Abbey, Doctor Who, Fawlty Towers or all things Monty Python. And think about how much better our lives are because, yes, Britannia does still rule. At least on some airwaves and silver screens.
(“Monitor” columnist Katy Burns lives in Bow.)