Elizabeth served empire in several ways.
It is important to remember that Empire crossed the Atlantic shortly before her reign and was also vindicated in doing so by the success of America in the war, so at her accession, the decisions about how to run the world were no longer being made in London, but in New York and Washington.
After the War, the Empire decided to consolidate power even further away from British aristocrats and the civil service – no more Lord Nonceberry being given personal rule over miles and miles of Africa! – so the decision was made that a heavily endebted British government had to withdraw its militaries and civil servants from various nations painted pink on the map. This had the effect of leaving those nations in need of a new protection racket, which the United States military could happily provide. It also allowed a shaking up of Empire trade to go from serving British capital, to serving Global capital – which is to say until quite recently, American capital.
Elizabeth was the chief mascot of this transition, to pacify domestic and foreign sentiment. Obviously in some places like India or Kenya where the oppression was too much and independence movements were fierce, nobody took it very seriously, but places like the white settler countries, Hong Kong, the various tax exile islands, her lifelong policy of sitting still and appearing to do absolutely nothing did significant moral service to the white governments.
Elizabeth saw herself as an active agent in decolonisation – and the example of South Rhodesia is instructive. The white settlers there declared independence from Britain but, tellingly, acclaimed Elizabeth as Queen of Rhodesia. In response, the British government refused to acknowledge this, but handed power of the colony personally to Elizabeth. Elizabeth refused to accept the South Rhodesian claims to government and cut the Prime Minister, acting as though he were an ordinary citizen. Rhodesia, scorned, declared themselves a republic and were treated as pariahs until ten years later the “International Community” (i.e. Empire) forced them to drop the white nationalism. Elizabeth sided against the local white government in favour of the imperial “multiracial” community.
Now she is dead, independence movements in those small countries are excited and think they have a chance because the spell has been broken. The fall of Babylon has been long expected.
Domestically, her continuity with British imperial power has been invaluable because it has allowed an increasingly gerontocratic government to worship the Old and contemn the Young. Central to the Imperial habit of mind is confidence, externalised in various fetishes of flag, nature, king, the whole kit. While Elizabeth was alive, all the conditioning from the era of her succession was still at work – people have been trained to project a significant amount of their souls onto her, and truly a part of them has died along with her. In this rather soulless age, I do not know what will happen to all these Tories, senior civil servants, churchmen, military officers, judges and so on because they had very little soul left even before she died, but look at the world outlook and tell me it will go well for them, if you can.
The Rhodesia affair, incidentally, happened around the same as the “racist hiring policies” incident, wherein the Palace lobbying exemption from the various race relations in employment laws of the period. It is entirely understandable that the Palace should desire to be free from red tape of this kind because they 1) have the enviable position of any organisation of being literally above the law in so many cases, so are motivated on a matter of principle to push back and 2) are one of the world’s top crime families and have the same incentives as any other gang trying to hide affairs from the authorities. They did not want foreigners to do sensitive work for them for the same reason you can’t get made in the Mafia unless you are Italian. This is the other great service for Empire that Elizabeth performed – a family boss must be a good friend to their friends, be a master of omertà, and not show their feelings even when, for instance, an intergenerational paedophile ring is exposed by the deaths of some infamous cutouts or, in one case, by a member of the ring being killed by a rival gang, or when it is decided that one wife must be killed to make way for a more suitable wife.
god bless king charles and queen camilla