Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

Lord Judge Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, on behalf of the Cross-Benchers, I have no doubt about one thing. It is the first time—well, the first in my time—that the Cross-Benchers have been absolutely united and of the same voice. On the whole, we tend to disagree; we are rather a disparate bunch.

We heard from the Leader about the promise the young Princess Elizabeth made in August 1947. It is a moving declaration to us, her future subjects. I was alive at the time, and I hope I can weary your Lordships by reading it out:

“I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”


I find that moving. She was 21 years old. How many of us thought we were making promises at the age of 21 which, perhaps memory will teach us, we have forgotten to keep? This was a solemn, unequivocal promise; a living, lifetime promise for her “whole life”, made by a young woman who could not have known that the call to the burdens of duty and the assumption of responsibility, not as a princess but as the Queen—as we now say, the head of the Commonwealth—would come so early or last so long.

During her long reign, as the Lord Speaker touched on, the momentum for change has been irresistible. The speed of change has been explosive. There has never been a reign in which so much has changed more rapidly for so many people in the history of the nation—indeed, as has been touched on by those who spoke ahead of me, the history of mankind—than this reign. During all those years and decades of change, the Queen has been on duty as our Head of State, devoted to our service. I say “on duty” because she could never know, and nobody could ever know, when she might be called on to exercise her responsibilities.

In our celebration—the noble Lord, Lord Collins, touched on this—we should remember not just ourselves, our children, grandchildren and families, but the generations of her subjects who have been overtaken by time and who would have been so enthusiastic in support of these proposals. I am talking about my parents’ generation—most of our parents’ generation, but for some of us perhaps our grandparents’ generation—who endured the casualties, hardships and lamentations of the Second World War and its bleak aftermath with such fortitude and resilience. In 1952, their lovely young Queen was a promise of a brighter future for them. The trumpets no longer sound for that rather remarkable quality of fortitude. It is very self-effacing; people do not highlight their own fortitude, do they? They do not blow their own trumpets.

However, during all the years since 1952, the royal responsibilities have not lightened and the difficulties have not disappeared; they have remained. When we think about it and try to imagine—and we can only imagine—the specific and special demands which rest on the shoulders of the monarch, we can be sure that fulfilling her youthful promise has not always been easy. There must have been times—I am sorry to say so, but we all do it—“Really, do I have to stand up in the House and speak now?” is one such moment. We all have moments when we think, “If only”, and that has never happened here.

It is with fortitude and resilience that, decade after decade, that lifetime promise of service has been and is still being fulfilled. The speakers before me have highlighted individual moments, and no doubt those after me will do so. I shall not do that, but I do adopt everything that has been said. We share on these Benches the national outpouring of affection, admiration, respect and, dare I say it, joy in the fact that we have Her Majesty as our monarch. These moments are a fulfilment of her promises to us, and they have made her an inestimable blessing on this nation. The humble Address is our unemotional but truly heartfelt way of saying thank you.