Queen Elizabeth ii, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, died today. She was immediately succeeded by her son, now King Charles iii.

The Queen had been a remarkable example of class, duty and service to her people. Sadly, she represented an era in British history that is virtually gone.

The new king has hinted at plans to take the royal family in a new direction, with a scaled-back public role, a smaller core of working royals, and a loosening of ties with Commonwealth nations.

“[T]he Queen is an irreplaceable constant in the life of the British nation,” British journalist Melanie Phillips wrote last year. “Her public appearances aren’t just the exercise of her role as the symbol of the nation. As so many feel so viscerally, she is the nation. … With her unrivaled sense of duty, her stoicism and her emotional restraint, many see in the Queen the embodiment of a Britain whose cultural identity is inexorably fraying. Many feel in their bones that when the Queen eventually passes, Britain will just not be the same. Despite the fact that the monarchy will continue, something of infinite value will have been lost” (Oct. 29, 2021; emphasis mine).

Royal biographer Penny Juror told Town & Country that Queen Elizabeth’s death would be “traumatic” for Britain. “The Queen is such a tremendously popular figure and during the course of her reign, so much has changed so dramatically. There’s not an aspect of life that hasn’t changed, but the one constant in the midst of this has been the Queen, the rock-solid thing we can hang on to.”

To many, the Queen represented a tie to a fading era of better morals—where the nation was stronger, its people better mannered and infused with higher values. She served with a certain selflessness that is very rare today. The Queen represented a connection to a largely lost past.

In 2016, the bbc produced a beautiful brochure celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s 90th birthday—“Queen Elizabeth: 90 Glorious Years.” In commenting on the death of her father, King George vi, the bbc editors wrote, “Britain 64 years ago was a country almost unimaginably different in outlook, attitudes, morals and ethos than today, to say nothing of technology. Opinion polls into the early 1960s showed that as many as a third of respondents believed that the Queen had been chosen by God rather than by right of succession from her father.”

The coronation ceremony in 1953 was saturated with biblical references and spiritual significance. A choir performed Handel’s choral anthem “Zadok the Priest,” with text from 1 Kings 1:38-40 about Solomon being anointed king. A documentary on the coronation said this about Elizabeth being anointed with oil: “It’s a ceremony so old, history can scarcely go back enough to contain it.”

The priests presented the new queen with a Bible, which they called “the most valuable gift this world affords,” and read Deuteronomy 17:18-19. “These are the lively oracles of God,” the archbishop said.

In the coronation oath, the archbishop asked Elizabeth, “Will you, to the utmost of your power, maintain the laws of God and the true profession of the gospel? Will you, to the utmost of your power, maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline and government thereof, as by law established in England? And will you preserve unto the bishops and clergy of England, and to the churches there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges, as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them?” And she answered, “All this I promise to do.”

But her connection to the past went back much further.

At the time of her coronation in 1953, Lawrence Tanner released a series of articles condensed from his book The History of the Coronation. Notice this statement from the May 21, 1953, installment: “The communion service after the opening ‘recognition’ ceremony changes the atmosphere of the coronation to one of devotion and deep religious significance. It is from this point that the sovereign, having dedicated herself to the service of her peoples, is solemnly consecrated, like a bishop, for her task. … Meanwhile the choir sings, as they have sung at this point in the ceremony since the earliest known English coronation service, the anthem ‘Zadok the Priest.’” A song about Zadok the priest has been sung every time a king or queen has been crowned since “the earliest known English coronation service.”

The ceremony goes back over a millennium. Mr. Tanner wrote that, “It can at least be said that the service which will be used at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth ii descends directly from the service used by Archbishop Dunstan at the coronation of King Edgar at Bath in 973.”

But the use of “Zadok the Priest,” cries for God to save the monarch, and the anointing with oil go back even further—they mirror the coronation of Solomon, three millenniums ago, described in 1 Kings 1.

In 2 Samuel 7:12-16, God promised to establish the throne of King David and to ensure it would have an unbroken dynasty of royal descendants forever. Other prophecies show that throne will eventually transfer to Jesus Christ Himself! (Isaiah 9:7; Luke 1:32).

The United States and Britain in Prophecy shows how God preserved that throne in the kingdom of Judah—then, fulfilling the prophecy of Ezekiel 21:27, overturned it three times: first by moving it to Ireland through the Prophet Jeremiah, then to Scotland about a thousand years later, then later to England. You can follow that royal line through history, along with the movements of the stone of destiny, the stone over which British monarchs have been crowned since Edward i captured it and moved it to Westminster Abbey in 1296.

Britain and the Queen’s heirs have been moving away from what little connection remained with that history.

King Charles said in 1999 that if he were to take the throne, he would want to assume the official title not as “Defender of the Faith” as generations of monarchs have done before him, but “Defender of Faith”—protecting all faiths in Britain. This sounds righteous to a lot of people today. Modern society believes the lie that “diversity is our strength.” But look at the disastrous results of such thinking. It has left Britain faithless, materialistic, divided and vulnerable to foreign extremists. Britain has lost its faith in God and king, and abandoned its moral foundation! The Church of England has surrendered its moral authority, loosening its standards on every issue—women in the clergy, premarital sex, homosexuality. The monarchy, rather than working to prevent the moral slide and uphold godly standards, has watched it happen and even encouraged it! The royal family, including the new king, has been caught up in terrible moral scandals. British society has suffered immeasurably as a result.

Ties to the monarchy around the world are also loosening. Within Britain, YouGov polling in 2021 showed the Queen had the highest favorability rating of any member of the royal family, at 75 percent. King Charles’s favorability was only 42 percent, and his wife’s was 40 percent. Among millennials, those numbers are 34 and 37 percent. The family has been plagued by scandals, including disgraceful conduct by Prince Andrew and Prince Harry’s disgraceful abdication of his royal role and duties. Outrageously, many people consider the monarchy a racist institution, and Prince Harry has publicly and shamefully agreed.

With the Queen gone, what will happen to the royal reputation? What role will the royal family play in Britain’s future?

Britain’s monarch is recognized as head of state in 15 countries outside the United Kingdom out of 54 countries that are part of the British Commonwealth. There are strong movements in Canada and Australia to break from the British crown. Scotland is also trying to leave the UK. Barbados renounced the monarchy last year. Jamaica could be next. How much will King Charles’s rule accelerate this trend?

The Queen’s death could further weaken and dissolve the already fading ties that once formed the greatest empire in history: the British Empire.

Believe it or not, that empire was specifically prophesied in the Bible! It fulfilled a promise God made to the patriarch Abraham and confirmed to his grandson Jacob, whom He renamed Israel, in Genesis 35:11: “a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins.” As Herbert W. Armstrong proved in The United States and Britain in Prophecy, that “company of nations” was the British Empire. At its peak, that empire had immense wealth and power. It controlled one quarter of the world’s land and ruled 1 in 5 people on Earth!

God gave Britain that empire! But the same God who did that also warned that it would collapse if the people rebelled against Him. That has happened. When Elizabeth ii took the throne in 1952, the British Empire was in the early stages of its descent. Under her rule it shrank from empire to commonwealth to a less and less relevant second-rate power. Britain is also far more morally degenerate than it was 70 years ago! This fall will accelerate under the Queen’s successor.

The Bible foretells the dramatic fall of Britain and America in the end time. It warns that what follows is an extremely dark, violent period—one we already see building in the world today!

People today think nothing of tossing aside an institution that has been a constant in British life for over a thousand years!

Believe it or not, God also had a direct hand in the longevity of the British monarchy.

You can be sure the next coronation will be very different from the one 70 years ago! The remaining members of the royal family have rejected the Bible! Britain no longer respects such traditions or the Bible or God!

Anciently, Israel wanted a king so it could be more like the nations around it (1 Samuel 8:4-5). Today, many in the British Commonwealth want to eliminate the monarchy for the same reason!

But God has a plan for correcting this problem, and He has already put it in place!

Hosea 3:4 has this important end-time prophecy about the Great Tribulation, a time of terrible suffering that precedes Jesus Christ’s Second Coming: “For the children of Israel [referring to Britain, America and the Jewish state of Israel] shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image …”—which is referring to Jacob’s pillar stone.

During the Tribulation, Britain will no longer have a king or even a prince! How do you square that with God’s promise that David’s throne would never lack a man sitting on it? (Jeremiah 33:17). God has fulfilled that promise for some 3,000 years—but right at the end will come a point when that king, and that stone, will not be there! This awaits Britain in the time just ahead! Many other prophecies show that nation will be defeated and its people taken into captivity!

Here is what I wrote about these verses in my book The New Throne of David (free upon request): “By the time this prophecy is fulfilled, Britain will have been conquered by the Holy Roman Empire. The British lose their king, and they lose their stone (a symbol of David’s throne) …. What does this mean? God promised to continue that throne forever, yet here we see that suddenly there is no king and no stone, and the prophecy doesn’t even say where they are. During the Tribulation, the king will probably be dead! Jacob’s pillar stone will be lost; we don’t know what will happen to it but it could be destroyed.

“If no one sits on David’s throne, God will have broken His promise!”

Anyone who sees this happen, if he knows anything about God’s promises regarding David’s throne, would have to think that God did break His promise.

But God never breaks His promises!

“The truth is,” I wrote, “by the time this prophecy is fulfilled, the throne in Britain is no longer David’s throne!

“Even before Britain loses its king and stone, the British throne is no longer the throne of David, or God’s promise is broken.

“Hosea’s prophecy shows that before the Tribulation, God must have a new stone and a new king—a new throne. Otherwise He could not allow Hosea 3:4 to happen. How else can you explain what is going to happen in Britain?” (ibid).

This book goes through several prophecies and biblical passages that explain this electrifying truth. God has moved the throne of David out of Britain. So the throne on which Queen Elizabeth sat, and on which her successor will sit, is actually no longer that throne of David.

With the Queen’s death, Britain’s connection with the throne of David is much weaker. It no longer has a monarch that has sat on David’s throne.

Three years ago, I wrote in that book, “Think about this: If Britain no longer has the throne of David, this strongly indicates that Britain is going to go down rapidly! How could it be otherwise? This is a great condemnation by God against that people!”

I believe that now that the Queen has died, Britain’s demise will accelerate. We are about to see a very sad ending for that throne, which is no longer David’s throne.

But I want to encourage you to study the truth about this new throne of David! Amid all the bad news in this world, this is very inspiring truth! It shows how God is watching over these events closely. It also shows just how close we are to the return of Jesus Christ, when He comes to claim His rightful place on that throne of David.