Camilla pays touching tribute to late Queen Elizabeth in first speech

The Queen Consort said Elizabeth II was greatly missed (Image: Getty)In an address at a Buckingham Palace reception for winners of the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition, she said Elizabeth II was greatly missed but added that she and the King had drawn great comfort from messages of condolences they continued to receive. The new Queen Consort compared her ‘dear’ late mother-in-law and her devotion to the Commonwealth to her predecessor Elizabeth I, who famously said of herself: ‘You never had any that will love you better.’She told guests: ‘I cannot begin without paying tribute to my dear mother-in-law, Her late Majesty, who is much in our thoughts today and who is so greatly missed by us all.  ‘She had been patron of The Royal Commonwealth Society since 1952 and throughout her remarkable reign, its vision to improve the lives and prospects of all Commonwealth citizens remained, as you know, very close to her heart. ‘It was on this date,  November 17, that Queen Elizabeth I came to the throne, in 1558.  She once said of herself that, while she was aware of the merits of the monarchs who had preceded her, ‘you never had any that will love you better’. A description that might just as well apply to Queen Elizabeth II and her enduring love for the Commonwealth.’The Queen Consort added: ‘Over the past few months, my husband and I have drawn immense comfort from the messages of condolence that we have received, and continue to receive, from the four corners of the world.  They have reminded us that the written word has a unique ability to connect, to heal, to reassure and to offer hope, even in the midst of grief.’She drew inspiration from the writing and speeches of Nelson Mandela and his devotion to the Commonwealth. ‘He was, like you, a man who understood the power of language,’ she told the young winners. ‘In 2011, my husband and I were very moved when we visited the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory in Johannesburg and saw a selection of his prison notebooks.  He had lost the liberty to fight against the unnatural evils of apartheid, and it was in prison that, over the course of 27 years, he wrote speeches and letters that would change his country, his continent and the globe forever.  The Queen Consort with Ayesha Dharker, Alexandra Burke and Geri Horner (Image: Getty)’Mandela was a great writer.  He was also described as ‘a man of the Commonwealth’, famously saying, on entering Marlborough House, ‘the Commonwealth makes the world safe for diversity’. The Commonwealth, like writing, touches the whole world. She told the audience: ‘All of us are bound together by a profound appreciation of the written word and of our Commonwealth.  This wonderful, extraordinary, richly diverse association of independent and equal nations, and friends, is, truly, ‘ours’, belonging to each one of us, and the connections between us run deep.’At the reception, the Queen Consort met the young winners of this year’s children’s essay competition and praised their work, chosen from a record 26,322 entries from every corner of the Commonwealth. This year’s competition theme was ‘Our Commonwealth’, reflecting on Queen Elizabeth II’s seven decades of service to the association of 56 mainly former British Empire countries.Extracts from their winning entries were read by four Royal Commonwealth Society ambassadors: Booker Prize-winning novelist and poet Ben Okri, singer Alexandra Burke, actress Ayesha Dharker, and former Spice Girl Geri Horner.  Camilla speaks with Maulika Pandey (Image: Getty)The two winners and two runners-up were all girls: Sawooly Li, 17, a student from Rangitoto College in Auckland, New Zealand, won in the senior category. Madeleine Wood, 14, from Melbourne, Australia, was junior winner.Amaal Fawzi, 17, who was born in Egypt, raised in Lebanon, and now lives in East London, was senior runner-up and Maulika Pandey, 13, from India, came second in the junior category.They were joined by three previous winners from the past two years who had been unable to attend an award ceremony because of the Covid-19 pandemic. All have spent the past week in the UK, taking part in writing workshops and going on visits to institutions ranging from the BBC to Stratford-upon-Avon.Camilla is vice patron of the Royal Commonwealth Society, which has organised the competition, the world’s oldest international literary prize for schools, since 1883.Okri paid tribute to her work for the society and her wider efforts to promote literacy and love of literature. ‘You have in fact become our great literary Queen Consort,’ he said.Camilla shows every sign of continuing in the same vein as Queen Consort. She greeted Horner, an old friend, with a hug and urged her to join her online book club, The Reading Room. ‘Get on to it quick,’ she said.