In 2016, Britain made history by choosing to exit the European Union. Six years later, it made history in connection with another kind of exit: The queue to view the coffin of Britain’s longest-serving monarch lying in state in Westminster Hall. Ten miles or 16 km long at its zenith, some 250,000 people stood in line, some of them up to 24 hours, for a momentary glimpse of the flag-draped coffin of a queen who presided over the dissolution of the British Empire. Watching the dogged determination of those in the queue was both awe-inspiring and comic. Was this the reason Britannia once ruled the waves?
You can see why the British were intensely proud of the queue — it was
