On June 5th 2022, Canada’s 96-year-old Head of State, Queen Elizabeth II (her full title, per the Royal Style and Titles Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. R-12): “Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith”) appeared at her Platinum Jubilee pageant riding in the Gold State Coach, “an opulent 260-year-old gilded horse-drawn carriage” built in 17621. Surrounding the coach were the four postilions, nine walking grooms, six footmen, and four Yeoman of the Guard carrying their long partisans. Eight of the grooms walked beside the horses. The more ornately dressed footmen walked beside the body of the coach2. Emanating out from this inner sanctum was a throng of endless ceremonial figures, police officers, journalists and adoring spectators taking photos and videos.
There was only one problem: the gilded carriage was empty. Or rather, the situation was even stranger. It contained only a hologram. An image of Her Royal Majesty captured at her 1953 Coronation (70 years ago) waved mechanically at the dutifully assembled crowd, standing in for the increasingly absent hereditary monarch of 15 countries and territories worldwide, including Canada, the most populous nation ruled by the British Monarchy outside the United Kingdom.
