Queen Buried With Broken Stick
That'll be nice for her
Hey, cheer up, Melancholy Molly, and listen to me. You needn’t worry about our beautiful Queen getting lonely without her corgis Sandy and Muick in that vault underneath St. George’s Chapel in Windsor. While the dogs will be doomed to another 10-12 years of hell on earth at Prince Andrew and Fergie’s haunted lodge, the Queen will be buried alongside her other longtime love. No, I’m not talking about Prince Philip, her husband of 73 years, although he will be right next to her too. More importantly though, our favorite Stick Girl will be buried with one of her sticks!
It’s not going to be her ivory-handled cane or her staghorn rod with which she’s going to be buried – those will surely be spray-painted bronze and Command Stripped to the walls of severed-head hunting trophies that line Balmoral Castle. Instead, Lord Chamberlain (whose name is Andrew Parker and who ran household duties for the Queen) threw a device known as the Wand of Office in there with her. It’s apparently a stick with a sorta sexy history.
According to the Independent, “The Wand of Office is a thin white staff, owned by Lord Chamberlain, which was once meant to be a device used to discipline courtiers if they were too rowdy.”
The breaking of the stick is a traditional part of every British monarch’s funeral. But since the last time a sovereign died was in 1952, when neither television nor sliced bread was readily available to the average Brit, this is the first time the world is seeing the ceremony. Deadline is calling it “a final act of pageantry before the Queen’s casket was lowered into the Royal Vault.”
I think the Old Girl would’ve preferred a fully intact stick, but maybe there’s beauty in what’s broken.
