Queen Elizabeth II addressed Great Britain about the novel coronavirus on Sunday in a televised speech that was at once straightforward and inspirational, without a word of blame or self-aggrandizement.

What a relief.

And what a contrast.

This was calm, collected leadership and a call to arms of a unique sort, as she noted.

“While we have faced challenges before, this one is different,” the queen said near the end of the four-minute taped address. “This time we join with all nations across the globe in a common endeavor, using the great advances of science and our instinctive compassion to heal. We will succeed — and that success will belong to every one of us.”

Imagine that. Shared success, with no one boasting or taking undue credit for it, even before credit is due. She also thanked health care workers and sought to reassure people who are understandably afraid.

Queen Elizabeth's lessons for Trump

It seems ridiculous that this kind of thing — the typical type of leadership we expect of heads of state during a crisis — seems so foreign to us now, but here we are.

Compare the queen’s talk with U.S. President Donald Trump’s daily media briefings, which grow seemingly longer by the day and frequently devolve into contentious mini-rallies in which he touts his achievements, berates journalists who ask fair questions and offers medical information that's often corrected or walked back my medical experts — sometimes during the same briefing.

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Granted, a pretaped address to the nation is not a live media briefing. No one asked the queen questions, and she wasn’t giving England an update on the number of cases or deaths. (Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has tested positive for COVID-19, was admitted to the hospital on Sunday; Prince Charles, the queen’s son and heir to the throne, has tested positive.)

But when Trump addressed the nation about the pandemic from the Oval Office on March 11, he seemed unprepared, and his remarks immediately were clarified.

It was only the fifth time the queen has addressed Britain in this kind of speech. She recalled the first time, in 1940 when she was 14. She and her sister spoke on the radio to children being evacuated from England to escape German Luftwaffe bombing. It was touching, kind of sweet and a reminder that she’s been around the block a time or two when it comes to national crises.

We don't need an Abraham Lincoln

The queen is 93; she spoke slowly from prepared remarks. Don’t be misled — this wasn’t Abraham Lincoln appealing to the better angels of our nature or anything. It was simply a solid reminder of the dangers the world faces, and a reassurance that if people take the right measures, it helps everyone.

“We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return,” she said. “We will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again.”

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That was quite nice, actually, as was her nod to British characteristics and how they will serve the country well.

“I hope in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge,” she said. “And those who come after us will say the Britons of this generation were as strong as any. That the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet good-humored resolve and of fellow-feeling still characterize this country.”

This country too, one hopes. It would be nice to hear that from the top.

Bill Goodykoontz is a columnist at the Arizona Republic, where this piece first appeared. Follow him on Twitter: @goodyk.