HOUSE OF COMMONS, 22 OCTOBER 1947— “I am in entire accord with what the Prime Min­is­ter has said about Princess Eliz­a­beth and about the qual­i­ties which she has already shown, to use his words, ‘of unerr­ing gra­cious­ness and under­stand­ing and of human sim­plic­i­ty.’ He is indeed right in declar­ing that these are among the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the Roy­al House. I trust that every­thing that is appro­pri­ate will be done by His Majesty’s Gov­ern­ment to mark this occa­sion of nation­al rejoic­ing.  ‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,’ and mil­lions will wel­come this joy­ous event as a flash of colour on the hard road we have to trav­el. From the bot­tom of our hearts, the good wish­es and good will of the British nation flow out to the Princess and to the young sailor who are so soon to be unit­ed in the bonds of holy mat­ri­mo­ny. That they may find true hap­pi­ness togeth­er and be guid­ed on the paths of duty and hon­our is the prayer of all.” —WINSTON S. CHURCHILL (His quo­ta­tion is from Shakespeare’s Trolius and Cres­si­da, 1602)

LONDON, APRIL 29TH— If the Great Man woke up from his “black velvet—eternal sleep,” per­haps to enjoy a cig­ar and a cognac dur­ing the pageantry in Lon­don, he might have felt a sense of sat­is­fac­tion, and invoked his favorite Boer expres­sion: Alles sal reg kom—“All will come right.” The words he spoke six­ty-four years ago at anoth­er Roy­al Wed­ding have stood the test of time. “We could not have had a bet­ter King,” he said in 1953: “And now we have this splen­did Queen.” The road has indeed been hard these six decades of her reign, but “unerr­ing gra­cious­ness and human sim­plic­i­ty” have marked her every step along the path. We join in wish­ing Prince William and his bride a hap­py life. Live long, and prosper.