Almost all that you said. Almost, because I didn't expect to weep, but suddenly burst into tears in the last verse of Love Divine at the Abbey service. I'm not sure why then, but I think the Why was a mix of things, including the memory of the Queen sitting alone at her husband's funeral, with only a handful of people able to be there. She set an example all through Covid by obeying the rules, including that terribly painful one.

I've seen a lot of nasty comments about how his inherited wealth will comfort Charles. The thing with Charles is that a lot of billionaires have acquired that wealth through having a strong streak of sociopathy, but for him it is just there; something he dutifully manages for posterity as previous generations managed it for him, rather than using it as a marker in a status game or for indulging a lust for power. It's another part of the "pick someone at random", and we won't always get as lucky as we did with either Elizabeth or Charles, but I think it's still a better chance than many systems. Even a politician with a genuine desire to serve (and I think most of them do) needs to think on a much shorter time scale to have any chance of getting to a level of power where they can do something. A properly functioning constitutional monarchy gives us a good mix of the short and the long view.