Nick Baines – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II (Lord Bishop of Leeds)

The tribute made by Nick Baines, the Lord Bishop of Leeds, in the House of Lords on 10 September 2022.

My Lords, when training to be a professional linguist, I was trained to drill down to as few words as possible, so forgive my lack of eloquence now. When I think of Her late Majesty the Queen, I drill down to one word: grace. She exercised grace in her responsibilities at every level, and it was rooted in her avowed and admitted need of the grace of God; it was where her discipline of accountability came from.

It is only by sitting here when the Queen was delivering her gracious Speech one year that I realised that we inhabit the constitution here. We do our business, as the judiciary, the Executive and the legislature, in the name of Her Majesty, but she reads the gracious Speech in the name of God as she looks up and sees the barons of the Magna Carta around this Chamber. It is that accountability that must lie at the heart of her legacy, if our words are not to be merely sentimental, nostalgic or empty. I trust that, in the reign of King Charles, this accountability, rooted in his already stated need of the grace of God, will characterise our common life. Long live the King.