As the French President reminded us last week, we talk about 'our Queen' or 'your Queen', as he was saying, but in France it's simply 'vive la reine', because she is the Queen of the whole world. She is the most recognised person in the world, despite social media. So, it was a little bit disconcerting for me when I visited a primary school in June to be asked by this child was I the Queen. But my office said, 'Of course, you won't have that problem any longer.'

Her passing, we have to remember, marks the final break with somebody who had direct experience of Government during the second world war, and the suffering and sacrifices that were made to overcome the Nazis. Indeed, she was extremely anxious about the first visit that she was asked to make to Germany in 1965, 20 years after the end of the war. She simply didn't know what the reaction either at home or in Germany was going to be. But she had the courage to go anyway and was rewarded with huge crowds who came out to greet her in Berlin and elsewhere.

One of the things that she did most successfully was to enable Britain to make that transition from being an empire into being a country amongst many European nations. She was largely responsible for smoothing the transition of these now independent countries into the Commonwealth of Nations that Mark Isherwood has already referred to. This Commonwealth gave her a platform for expressing ideas that constitutionally she couldn't have uttered in a domestic context. In her 1983 Christmas broadcast, she said:

'in spite of all the progress that has been made the greatest problem in the world today remains the gap between rich and poor countries and we shall not begin to close this gap until we hear less about nationalism and more about interdependence. One of the main aims of the Commonwealth is to make an effective contribution towards redressing the economic balance between nations.'

Well, the balloon went up. Enoch Powell objected hugely, and so did the right-wing press. But the press statement that followed said:

'The Christmas broadcast is a personal message to her Commonwealth. The Queen has all her people at heart, irrespective of race, creed or colour.'

These are really important statements. And behind the scenes, her role in the Commonwealth was to bridge the gap between the position of the UK Government and the rest of the Commonwealth countries, particularly over things like the unilateral declaration of independence by Rhodesia, where it was felt that the Wilson Government was prevaricating over opposing this breakaway when they thought that a black rebellion would have been dealt with by sending in the military. Equally, the Commonwealth was in the process of breaking up in 1986, when the Thatcher Government was refusing to impose sanctions on South Africa, which was demanded by all the other Commonwealth countries. The Queen managed to keep it together by engineering a compromise with the famous working dinner before the heads of state meeting, which enabled them to get involved in getting the apartheid regime to realise it had to release Mandela.

She had Empire Day renamed Commonwealth Day. That was one very important thing. But also, when talking about religion, in 2012, she had the Church of England bishops kicking off. The Queen initiated the multifaith Commonwealth Day observance, reflecting the fact that there were far more Muslims and Hindus than Christians in the Commonwealth. She made it clear that there was no conflict between her role as head of the Church of England and defender of religious freedom:

'The concept of our established Church is occasionally misunderstood and, I believe, commonly under-appreciated. Its role is not to defend Anglicanism to the exclusion of other religions. Instead, the Church has a duty to protect the free practice of all faiths in this country...the Church of England has created an environment for other faith communities and indeed people of no faith to live freely.'

She promised peace and reconciliation in Ireland, as Adam has already referred to, and, importantly, also made that symbolic handshake as a symbol of reconciliation with Martin McGuinness. A commonwealth of nations is so much more satisfying and relevant to delivering a just and peaceful transition out of our climate emergency than any military alliance, and we can but wish Charles III pob lwc in fulfilling the very big shoes that he must now put on.