Mark Pritchard – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II

The tribute made by Mark Pritchard, the Conservative MP for The Wrekin, in the House of Commons on 9 September 2022.

I rise to pay tribute to our late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on my behalf and on behalf of all my constituents throughout the Wrekin constituency. Queen Elizabeth visited Shropshire many times over her long reign, and her visits to the Wrekin, in particular, are still remembered with abiding fondness and deep affection: her visit to Wrekin College in 1967, her visit to the 13th-century Butter Cross in Newport in 1981, her visit to Donnington during the Falklands war in 1982, the occasion she passed through High Ercall and nearby villages, and her last visit to the Wrekin, in 2012, when she visited RAF Cosford as part of her diamond jubilee pageant and a huge crowd of over 35,000 people turned out to greet her.

The late Queen Elizabeth was the personification of duty, integrity, selflessness, steadfastness and resoluteness, and always with a superb sense of humour, observation and wit. Yes, that was born out of her own decency and exemplary character, but it was also born out of her deep and abiding Christian faith—something that she quietly attested to throughout her long reign, and that was so often heard in her comforting and unifying Christmas day messages, which we will all miss.

The Wrekin loved the Queen. Shropshire loved the Queen. She will abide in all our hearts and memories. May she rest in peace and rise in glory. Long live the King.