60 Years On: “A Sparkling Presence at its Summit”
“We may think of Churchill as an amiable or even reverent agnostic, who conceived of himself not as a pillar of the church but perhaps as a flying buttress. He did not invoke the Deity casually or cynically, a fact which confers its own interest upon his touching and heartfelt reply to the Queen’s letter following his retirement as prime minister in April 1955.
“The monarchy signified for Churchill something of infinite value, at once numinous and luminous; and if you will allow the remark in parenthesis, ladies and gentlemen, do you not sometimes long for someone at the summit of our public life who can think and write at that level?” —Professor David Dilks
Our Island no longer holds the same authority or power that it did in the days of Queen Victoria.…