On Feb. 5, 1952, in London, King George VI, went hare hunting at his estate and returned to the castle, dined with
his wife and Princess Margaret before retiring. Thousands of miles away in Kenya, his older daughter, Elizabeth, on a long-planned international tour of colonies covering Africa, Australia and New Zealand and Ceylon (present Sri Lanka), was having a wonderful day too. She was filming rhinos and Elephants with her movie camera. In Ceylon, their Asian Colony, the Prime Minister, DS Senanayake was making elaborate arrangements to welcome the Princess, heir to the British throne, in April.
One Sellaheva, a little known soothsayer/astrologer declared that the Princess would never make it to Ceylon on the programmed period, according to the planetary arrangement that prevailed. A prediction that received extensive publicity!
The Princess trained as a mechanic while a teenager during World War II, and her husband were spending the night in Kenya, the princess’s father, 56-year-old, His Majesty King George VI, had passed away in his sleep; and she became Queen of the Empire. Her Majesty could not make her scheduled visit as she had to return home to attend to the last rites of the father, thus proving Sellaheva’s forecast true. Sellaheva, became a highly respected ‘Royal Astrologer’ from then on.
Among those who sought his services were top politicians and rich businessmen, for auspicious times and horoscope readings. Even before the Princess was crowned in St. Paul’s Cathedral, we, at home, crowned Sellaheva as the undisputed ‘King’ of soothsayers. Prime Minister, Sir John Kothalawala, dissolved parliament ahead of the scheduled date on his advice, to be knocked out of power, when SWRD Bandaranaike swept the board at the 1956 elections, under his openly declared racist policies. [Remember our royal astrologer from Galle who bestowed a D-rope on President MR to resign two years in advance?]
The Coronation 1953
The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place on June 2, 1953. Our youthful Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake, succeeded his father DS, who suffered a similar fate as his King, 44 days later. [Sellaheva missed it though]. Dudley was invited by the British government to participate at the Coronation of the 25 year old Queen, held at Westminster Abbey, in London. The organizers ran short of a horse – drawn carriage for Heads of State and arranged Dudley from, ‘Lipton’s Tea Estate’ to share a carriage with a lady diplomat from an African Colony. Dudley categorically declined the offer and even threatened to take the next flight home, for the London Home Office authorities to declare, “It is an insult to Her Majesty if you do that.” Our man had retorted, “Officer, your suggestion is an insult to my great nation.” British authorities apologized, expressing their deepest regret before arranging a special carriage for our PM—a lesson for the new generation of politicians who are globetrotting with begging bowls.
Britain had declared war on Nazi Germany in 1939. Princess Elizabeth’s parents King George VI and his wife [the Queen mother] resolved to stay in London, despite German bombing. They stayed in Buckingham Palace throughout the war, usually spending nights at Windsor Castle. The first night of the ‘Blitz’ on London, on September 7, 1940, had killed about one thousand civilians in the East End. On September 13, the Royal family narrowly avoided death when two German bombs exploded in a courtyard at Buckingham Palace while they were there. In defiance, the Queen Mother declared, “I am glad we have been bombed. It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face.” The Royal family was described as sharing the same dangers and denials as the rest of the country. Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone, suggested that Princesses Elizabeth [12] and Margaret [9] should be evacuated to Canada to avoid aerial bombings.
“Lilibet and Maggie won’t go without me. I won’t leave without the King. And the King will never leave England”— declared, the Queen mother. When the queen was a toddler, she couldn’t pronounce her name Elizabeth, but mumbled ‘Lilibet’— thus Elizabeth Alexandra Mary named after her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, got her pet/nickname ‘Lilibet’, which her grandparents, parents and of course, her late husband, Prince Philip, used to call her. The queen had left a note on the coffin of her late husband, last year, reportedly signed “Lilibet”. Also, in 2016, the Royal family’s official Twitter account shared a photo of a note written by the four-year-old Princess to her grandmother, Queen Mary, which she had signed “Lilibet.”
‘The empire where the sun never sets’ was used to describe the British empire which was so extensive that it seemed as though it was always daytime in at least one part of its territory, mainly in the 19th and early 20th centuries, a period in which it achieved a global territorial size, covering the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Colvin R de Silva wasn’t a Marxist then, but was a staunch anti-imperialist when he was reading for his thesis, ‘Ceylon under the British Occupation’ at King’s College, University of London. Responding to the famous British saying: “The Sun never sets on the British Empire”, he said: “That is because God does not trust them in the dark!”
The rescheduled visit, not by a princess, but HM The Queen herself, was to happen in April 1954. DS passed away in March 1952. Son Dudley took over, marking the beginning of family bandysm. The first ever mass uprising on August 12, 1953 compelled him to resign, leaving his successor, Sir John Kothalawala, the honor of receiving Her Royal Highness in 1954.
Interviews: Diana, Camilla, Harry and Meghan
Remembering Diana’s famous 1995 BBC interview, where she referred to her husband’s affair with Camilla [Charles’s present wife, whom he met in the early 1970s], and said, “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded,” Harry, her son and Meghan, the daugheter-in-law, in their award winning Oprah interview, a quarter century later, spoke of their decision to step down as working members of the British Royal Family. Meghan critiqued the British Monarchy as an organization, while they both divulged comments alleged to have been made by the Royal family in relation to the skin color of their then unborn son, Archie, and concerns about them being financially cut off. Harry said the Royal family had, “literally cut me off financially.”
First two Charles’ had a pretty hard time
Charles 1 [1625 – 1649], believed that he ruled by Divine Right and had been experiencing difficulties with the House of Commons from the beginning, resulting in the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642. Charles’s Royalist forces were defeated at the war that lasted four years. King Charles was captured and imprisoned by the Oliver Cromwell-led, New Model Army. The Parliament tried Charles for treason against England and was condemned to death. He was executed on January 30, 1649, ending the British monarchy and beginning a republic called the Commonwealth of England.
Charles II [1660 – 1685], following the death of Oliver Cromwell and the collapse of the Protectorate and the flight of Richard Cromwell, Oliver’s son, to France, the eldest surviving son of Charles 1 was requested by Parliament to take the throne as Charles II. He was popular though being a weak king with an inept foreign policy.
Within three days, the British Premiership changed hands from Male to Female—the Monarchy, from Female to Male. Charles, the ‘tiny tot’ who was oblivious to the ceremonies when he was bestowed with the title ‘Prince of Wales’ and becoming Britain’s longest serving heir-apparent, had it transferred to Princess Diana’s eldest son William, witnessed by the new Queen consort. The disclosures of infidelity in Charles’s marriage to Diana left him and now-Queen consort, rather unpopular. While he has managed to reclaim some positive sentiment in the eyes of the public, he remains less respected than the other members of the family. Examining his ‘years of controversy’ could present some hints as to how King Charles III might act as sovereign.
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