A Royal Maze story for the 50th anniversary of John’s passing
Among the many strange threads woven through John Starr Cooke’s life, few are as curious as his sense of connection to Queen Elizabeth II. This account comes from the unpublished manuscript of Rosalind Sharpe Wall, told in John’s own words — a tale of ancient trees, uncanny timing, and a garland of royalty gathered, it seemed, for a coronation.
It was the summer that the young Princess Elizabeth had gone to Tanganyika, and one day during that period John and Mary returned to Hatfield House — a place that, as ever, brought back a flood of happy memories.
“Curiously,” John recalled, “we sat under the tree — a tree still partially alive — under which Elizabeth Tudor had been told that her sister Mary was dead, and that she herself was now Queen of England.”
There, beneath those ancient boughs, John and Mary were overcome. “We were sitting there feeling very full of light. It was as though we were being blessed — literally blessed.” So deeply were they moved that when they went on into Hatfield House they were hardly speaking. All through Sunday the silence held, no matter whose company they were in. The feeling would not lift.
It was the next morning that Mary came to him, quietly, a newspaper in her hand.
“Look at this,” she said.
King George VI was dead. And the Princess Elizabeth, the paper reported, had been high in a tree in Tanganyika, waiting for the animals to show themselves, at the very moment the news reached her that her father had died and she was Queen.
A girl in a tree in Africa, becoming Queen. Two travellers beneath a tree in England, blessed by a light they could not explain — at the exact hour of the old King’s death. “It seemed very startling and moving,” John said, and one can hardly wonder.
King George VI had died on the 6th of February, 1952. The coronation would not come until June of the following year — and John determined at once to return to England for it. He felt himself bound, somehow, to this young Queen.
What followed only deepened the mystery. Travelling through Eritrea, Egypt, Greece, and Crete in the months between, John found himself running into royalty and heads of state at nearly every turn — as though, he remarked afterward, he were quietly collecting a diadem, a garland of royalty, to present to Elizabeth II on her coronation day.
It was capped by the strangest meeting of all. Arriving at Westminster Abbey, he came upon Elizabeth herself, alone, rehearsing for the ceremony to come. He bowed. She bowed. Nothing more — and yet everything.
Whatever it was, John felt sure it was more than coincidence — no more coincidence than that light beneath the ancient tree at Hatfield, falling upon two travellers at the precise moment a King passed and a Queen was made.
ONE IS IN MOTION!
For more on the story of John Starr Cooke and the Book of T, check out Mark Walker’s YouTube series, The Time of Telling, at https://www.youtube.com/@TimeofTelling.
The above photo is of the young Elizabeth, still a princess, and John Starr Cooke (from the 1940s).