Queen Elizabeth

Despite enduring a mystery health crisis and appearing increasingly frail, there's a major reason why the Queen won't just simply step back.

The Queen is clearly a woman still driven by an abiding sense of duty and a desire to serve, but like Benedict, it’s time for her to admit she is no longer up to the job. In 2017 when Prince Philip retired at age 97, the exact age his wife is now, he told the BBC: “I reckon I’ve done my bit.” The Queen has clearly ‘done her bit’, well and truly. In 2013, Benedict, the 265th to hold the title, broke with millennia of tradition and announced his retirement. During her coronation in 1953, the Queen swore an oath to God to serve as Queen for her entire life. Because is a Queen who rules largely from her sitting room really a Queen? (These days historians are divided on whether he was suffering from a liver disease called porphyria, bipolar disorder, or something connected with the high levels of arsenic later found in his blood.) The actions of Edward have meant that Her Majesty does not view abdicating as a dignified stepping back but a dereliction of lifelong sworn duty to serve; an abhorrently self-centred putting of one’s personal needs ahead of the good of the monarchy. To a very large extent, the world’s most famous one-time philanderer is now king in all but name. To this day there is no such thing as a king or queen having ever stepped back due to their advancing years, creaky hips and all-round, well-earned need of a good, long sit down. As esteemed royal historian Hugo Vickers put it to the Guardian: “One main reason why the Queen will absolutely not abdicate is unlike other European monarchs, she is an anointed Queen. The crisis also irreparable and irrevocably shaped her views on this issue. There are only two available constitutional options that the