The monarchy has never been so revered as under Queen Elizabeth II, and never will be again.

In 2013, Russian presidency spokesman Dmitry Peskov privately told journalists that Britain is just a ‘small island that nobody listens to’. In political terms he isn’t far wrong, but that just makes the fact the Queen rules over lands on every continent all the more remarkable.

Throughout history, Britain has had a more powerful monarchy than it does today. In terms of pure influence around the world, Queen Elizabeth II will never be able to compete with Queen Victoria, for example. And she certainly doesn’t boast an individual triumph to rival that of Elizabeth I defeating the Spanish Armada.

Elizabeth II’s test has been to keep the monarchy relevant and popular through a lifetime of global upheaval the likes of which, arguably, has never been seen in history. She has passed with flying colours.

Consider that when Elizabeth was born ninety years ago, empires were still as common as nation states. And yet, even back then, monarchy was starting to be seen as a thing of the past, with the arrival of ideologies like communism and fascism. Elizabeth has easily outlasted both.

The Queen still serves as our link between today and a time that no longer exists, and that is something that will be impossible for her successors to do.

Prince Charles will no doubt maintain order and traditional values, but has promised to be more public in his views than Queen Elizabeth. The opinionated monarchy of Charles will no doubt remain popular, but not without attracting criticism and more opposition than the monarchy of today.

And then we come to Prince William and his successors. William has grown up in our generation and has seen everything we have seen. However, while nobody will admit it, that’s not really what people want from their king.

The monarchy is so loved in Britain and the world because it is like something from a museum that simultaneously walks among us.

When people see a normal bloke like Prince William, with many of the same priorities and challenges as the rest of us, parading around as king, they may question why he is worthy of such riches, or why he is worthy of being our national figurehead at all. He simply doesn’t have the ability to bring the past into the present the way the Queen does.

When the Queen and Charles are gone, with it will go most of the romance of the monarchy. This may be the time when the sulky republican establishment in countries like Australia and New Zealand, where they are currently totally out of kilter with the population, finally get their way and abolish the monarchy, remove the union flag from their own flags and attempt to create new national identities with popular support.

At the moment, leaders in some of the Queen’s realms, Jamaica for example, talk about removing her as the head of state. But they are committed to doing so without a referendum as they know they would lose.

That’s because nobody in their right mind would want to get rid of a symbol like Queen Elizabeth, who offers those she rules over nothing but goodwill. A woman who is passionate about all the countries where she is sovereign, but never interferes in their affairs.

People know that freedom under the Queen’s rule is real freedom, perhaps even more so than it would be without her. And that is an incredible thing to say about a monarch who is a foreign ruler to most of her subjects.

Queen Elizabeth II’s biggest achievement is that in a lifetime of such upheaval, she has boosted, not taken away, the self-esteem of those she rules over, wherever they are in the world.