America’s Store, R.I.P.

come and go—the Queen has seen the back of nine, and Tony Blair brings the total of her “chief servants” to ten. Everything operates in the name of the crown, as it did in George Ill’s day, from the postal service to London’s royal parks, and foreign envoys are still accredited to “the Court of St. James’ Palace”—not Downing Street—just as when John Adams was the first U.S. envoy to Britain.

People high and low have turned again to the Queen as a source of comfort and inspiration.