Queen Elizabeth II will address the United Kingdom and Commonwealth nations on Sunday night, and she will tell her citizens that their “quiet, good-humoured resolve” will help them overcome the coronavirus crisis.
In excerpts released late Saturday, the 93-year-old monarch will tell Britons, “I am speaking to you at what I know is an increasingly challenging time.”
“A time of disruption in the life of our country: a disruption that has brought grief to some, financial difficulties to many, and enormous changes to the daily lives of us all,” she will say. “I hope in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge.
“And those who come after us will say that the Britons of this generation were as strong as any. That the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet good-humoured resolve and of fellow-feeling still characterise this country,” she will say.
In the televised broadcast, which was recorded at Windsor Castle “with a sole cameraman dressed in protective clothing,” The Daily Mail reports, the Queen will lay out just what Britons face, invoking the spirit of the Second World War. And, according to Buckingham Palace, the Queen will thank healthcare providers on the front line of the pandemic for their selfless efforts.
The Queen’s address, which will air at 3 p.m. EDT, is just the fifth time in her 68-year reign that she will deliver a special televised speech outside of her annual Christmas Day message.
She first appeared in a special national broadcast in 1991 during the first Gulf War. She delivered another such address on the eve of Diana, princess of Wales’, funeral in 1997 and one after the death of her mother in 2002. And the Queen aslo delivered an address in 2012 was to thank the public after celebrations for her Diamond Jubilee, marking the 60th anniversary of her ascension to the throne.
Her address was filmed in the White Drawing Room at Windsor Castle, where she remains in isolation with the Duke of Edinburgh, The Mail reports. “Prince Philip is understood to have advised on the tone and delivery of the message. The Queen had earlier taken part in her first-ever ‘remote’ video-link Privy Council meeting.”
Details of her speech came as the UK death toll rose by 708 to 4,313. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has tested positive for COVID-19, has called for his government to go on a war footing to handle the virus.
The Queen’s eldest son and heir to the throne Prince Charles, 71, has been in self-quarantine on his sprawling Balmoral estate in northeast Scotland after reportedly developing mild symptoms of COVID-19.
“Having recently gone through the process of contracting this coronavirus, luckily with relatively mild symptoms, I now find myself on the other side of the illness but still in no less a state of social distance and general isolation,” Charles said. “As we are all learning, this is a strange, frustrating and often distressing experience when the presence of family and friends is no longer possible and the normal structures of life are suddenly removed.