6 September United Kingdom there was a new prime minister, and two days later a new head of state. OUR new prime minister she was elected not by the citizens of the United Kingdom, but by some 200,000 members of the Conservative Party who gave her leadership. Nobody elected a new head of state – he is the heir to the throne, and with the death of his mother, Elizabethhe automatically became king.

Maybe all this sounds strange for a modern Western state, and it is. The institutions that govern one of the oldest parliamentary democracies on the planet make no secret of the fact that they are the product of other centuries. But institutions, ceremonies and traditions are sacred to the British. Perhaps this is why the citizens of the United Kingdom loved Queen Elizabeth II so much, but also why her death marks the beginning of the end of the monarchy. Institutions work only when there are people ready to serve them.

“I declare to you before you that throughout my life, whether long or short, I will faithfully serve you, as well as the great imperial family to which we all belong.” These were the words of Elizabeth when she was 21 years old, in a speech she gave on the radio just 4 years before she became queen. Few will say that she did not keep her promise. She fulfilled her duties to the end, appointing the last prime minister of her term (a total of 15 people, the first of which was Churchill) two days before her death. This sense of duty, and the self-sacrifice it entails, was admittedly one of her key characteristics.

Another key characteristic of her was that she was relatively faceless, despite her image being one of the most recognizable internationally. Queen Elizabeth was loved not because people knew little about her, but because they knew little about her. She has managed all these years to keep her personal life and personal political beliefs out of the public eye. At a time when most of us create an identity based on our beliefs and personal moments on social media, Elizabeth was an example of privacy despite being one of the most public figures on the planet. This relative neutrality and “anonymity” allowed her to act as a symbol of the unity and continuity of the country amidst political upheavals, which is also the modern role of the monarch – head of state.

Its relative neutrality and “anonymity” allowed it to function as a symbol of the country’s unity and continuity amid political turmoil.

Institutions, almost by definition, exist to transcend the individual. These are the rules, written and unwritten, that govern the roles we are called to play in our professional, social, and even family lives. Each such role requires some degree of adaptation of ourselves, even the suppression of elements of our personality. This is highly demanded by the institution of the British monarch, and Elizabeth, conscious of this, fulfilled this role. But this does not apply to her successor.

Charles does not enjoy the wide recognition of his mother, and one of the main reasons is that he did not hide either his personal life or his political beliefs. His divorce from Diana and his long relationship with Camilla are obvious examples, as well as his frequent involvement in political and social situations with strong views, mainly on the environment and climate change. The way he positions himself in such matters goes against the monarch’s politically neutral role. Charles also has another drawback – in an era of gender equality, a king with public office has a particularly patriarchal connotation that can alienate the world.

The paradox of institutions like the monarchy is that their success is based on their ability to outperform the people who serve them, but their proper functioning depends on those people themselves. Elizabeth II successfully coped with this paradox and won the recognition of the whole world. It is doubtful that her successor will do the same.

* Mr. Alexis Papazoglou is editor of the Institute of Art and Ideas in London, host of The Philosopher & The News podcast, and author of Everyday Philosophy: Five Lessons for Our Time.

Moments of her journey on the front pages of “K”