Queen Elizabeth II has died

It's weird, I've never considered myself a "royalist" but this news has affected me quite strongly. I just burst into tears unexpectedly on hearing this news and I don't quite understand why I feel so very sad. I guess I have grown up and lived my whole life (as a Brit) seeing and hearing the Queen, singing "God save the Queen" etc, and this news made me suddenly feel very old, very nostalgic, with the sense that all things pass in time, which makes my heart ache deeply.

The words 'God save the King' in the national anthem are going to feel very alien for a while I think, I feel a genuine sense of loss with the Queen's death. I think it comes from a place of national identity in general rather than royalism specifically, royalist or republican it can't be denied that Queen Elizabeth played a significant role in how the UK sees itself and to an extent how the rest of the world sees us and now she's suddenly not there.

Honestly even the phrase from the article "In a statement, His Majesty the King said" struck me as unfamiliar.

In most of our lifetimes we will also utter “The King and Queen of England” since Charles is already 76. British seem to treasure this tradition, where as we Americans definitely got rid of a Jefferson stature somewhere recently.

struck me as unfamiliar.

Nope, it’s been quite familiar to even someone several hundred years ago.

There are many things (more than monarchy) that sets Americans and UK apart... even Europe generally.

Europeans civilization are 1000s of years old, America is a baby compared to them, the history and memory are very different.

> Europeans civilization are 1000s of years old

Not really. The Greeks, the Arabs, yes. But 2,000 years ago the Europeans were were not "civilised" in the sense that we think of.