This past Monday, the United Kingdom laid to rest HRH Queen Elizabeth II, in a state funeral of the grandest, most majestic style. It was, in the view of many, nothing less than the lady deserved, for 70 years of devoted service to a public that loved and respected her in return. Nonetheless, there is some irony to the level of pageantry applied to the farewell, as the Queen herself was rather a modest and private head of state.

In his first speech to the Houses of Parliament on 12 September, King Charles III quoted Shakespeare in referring to the Queen as ‘a pattern to all princes living’, for how she embodied and exemplified what a leader should be. The line comes from Act 5 Scene 5 of Henry VIII (1616), and is spoken by the character of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, in reference to the child Elizabeth, the King’s daughter by Anne Boleyn, who became the admired and revered Queen Elizabeth I of England in the early modern era.

The current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, in his address to Westminster Abbey on Monday, referred to Queen Elizabeth II’s ‘servant leadership’, which she modelled after Christ in her faith. The sense that the Queen served the people was palpable to them, as evinced by the outpouring of emotion after her death. As Welby eulogised, ‘People of loving service are rare in any walk of life. Leaders of loving service are still rarer. But in all cases, those who serve will be loved and remembered when those who cling to power and privileges are long forgotten.’ Such is powerful and poignant ‘pattern’ of Queen Elizabeth II’s legacy.