Who among us cannot sympathize with Elizabeth II’s concern for her ailing husband, Prince Philip? “The Duke of Edinburgh yesterday underwent a successful procedure for a pre-existing heart condition at St Bartholomew’s Hospital,” the London Sun quotes an official statement from Buckingham Palace. “His Royal Highness will remain in hospital for treatment, rest and recuperation for a number of days.” The Prince’s powers of recovery are remarkable, given that, in his 99th year, the inevitable fate of us all is more especially his.

One virtue of monarchy, claim its defenders, is this human element. Republics rather take pride in the “impersonality” of their precedents. The republic in its very concept relegates personal rule to an anachronism. Unlike elected heads of states, whose duration in office is short and subject to frequent elections, monarchs enjoy a term in office the envy of democrats. The obverse is equally true: in their shared human frailties, subjects can identify with their monarch.

Reflections about Prince Philip’s mortality naturally turn to his wife of 74 years. By most accounts, discounting for Netflix’s, it has been a happy marriage. As Royal Consort, the Prince has stood by Elizabeth’s side — and, as protocol dictates, in her shadow — for the 69 years she has been Queen of the United Kingdom and her several dominions. How glaringly Prince Harry’s lament of his “unbelievably tough” exit from royal life clashes with his grandfather’s devotion to duty.

Few are Elizabeth’s subjects who can boast of being ruled by her father, George VI. For most of us, Elizabeth has always been the Crown. It is inconceivable to contemplate anyone else upon “her” throne. Such rude thoughts rush in upon our complacency when mortality comes skulking around.

Not least of which is the realization that Elizabeth’s own conduct during her long reign has been remarkably free of scandal. What unpleasantries exist have been the consequences of her children. Three of whom are divorced. In the mid-1930s, that was so scandalously lèse-majesté that her uncle Edward VIII abdicated so as to marry Wallace Simpson.

The heir apparent, Prince Charles, has redeemed his public image since the uproar occasioned by his divorce from Princess Diana — no doubt because his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, now Duchess of Cornwall, emerged over the years as such a love match. He has the unfortunate distinction of being the oldest royal incumbent — now at 72 and counting — since Edward VII, who was a few months shy of 60 before he succeeded Queen Victoria.

However, fate may have been kind to the Prince, who prefers to dabble in politics rather than merely observe. Witness his various forays into architecture, organic farming, and now, the “Great Reset.” Britons who prefer silence from Buckingham Palace will look askance at what is reported as Prince Charles’s eagerness to have a sit down with President Biden — and, worse, over his worries about the weather.

With mortality touching even the Royal Family, one remembers Elizabeth’s service. Her light touch is praised by many. Others, like historian David Starkey, fault her for standing on the sidelines when circumstances called for a prominent public stance. Doubtless Mr. Starkey favors a muscular interpretation of Walter Bagehot’s dictum that the monarch has “the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn.”

The Queen did speak out during the kerfuffle following Diana’s death. Even now, questions remain whether her public tribute to the fallen Princess was a triumph of public relations or a painful prostration to baying Britons whose grief, at the time, seemed to throw Her Majesty’s reserved personality into relief.

Nevertheless, Elizabeth exemplifies the sometimes seemingly oxymoronic feature of a monarch’s role — service — thus disclosing her own ability to identify with the hopes and aspirations, personal and national, of her subjects. Benjamin Disraeli reckoned that was a signal benefit of monarchical government. She has set quite a mark on that head.

Proponents of republicanism in Commonwealth countries itch for the time when they can free themselves from the Crown’s compass. Nor is the United Kingdom’s own future certain, given the centrifugal forces at play in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Brexit, which ought to have united all behind restoring sovereign independence, is in danger of precipitating less the end of socialism imposed from Brussels and more the restoration of pre-Thatcherite statism at home.

ERII has been all too silent for some of us. Speaking of the United Kingdom as “represented by the Royal Family,” Disraeli averred that “if that family is educated into a sense of responsibility and a sentiment of public duty, it is difficult to exaggerate the salutary influence it may exercise over a nation.” Such as during the Blitz, when the Queen Mother replied that with the bombing of Buckingham Palace, she could now “look the East End in the face.”

But in the time of the coronavirus, and the political, social, and economic devastation it will wreak, who but the Queen can see Britain through to victory? All the stronger the sentiment of warm wishes and a speedy recovery from heart surgery to the Prince who has been there for her for so long.

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