The queen of England would not know even that I exist, so I’m sure she could not care less that, had I been invited to Monday evening’s official state dinner in her honor -- the “hottest ticket in town,” says The New York Times -- I would have declined. To put it in decidedly unregal terms, I cannot stomach the old girl.

For me, she is the embodiment of much, if not most, of what I’ve resisted and resented since childhood -- elitism, privilege by heirloom, conquest and colonialsm, exploitation, prudery, hypocrisy, detachment and absurd wealth in hands that don’t bother to so much as turn their own door knobs.

Why, I had forgotten she was even coming to America 'til I looked up from my desk on Friday morning and glimpsed her arrival in Jamestown, Va., there to help mark the 400th anniversary of the township’s settlement -- King George’s first charter on these shores.

In a little more than a decade, Jamestown would be the birthplace of something else -- U.S. slavery. It commenced on an August day in 1619, as “20 and odd” African men stepped ashore for a life of forced labor, incarceration and abuse.

It was repugnant but only appropriate that the country’s official greeter would be Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne. They must have been beside themselves to be in the company of someone who has actually lived the life for which they so clearly lust -- a life where the rich do not mingle with and need not suffer the annoyances of the poor or lesser-thans, whose ranks, in their minds, include practically everyone else.

For a little while, at least, they could indulge the nostalgia of bygone days when Anglo-Saxons reigned supreme and without apology, keeping up proper appearances at all costs and making sure everyone stayed in his or her proper place.

Cheney, the sure-footed supremacist, had to have approached nirvana as he stood there with the hard-shelled queen and her steel-plated husband, so content in the shadows, having long ago decided the trade-offs were worth it.

Like the monarchy itself, the Jamestown era has long passed its usefulness, except as a history lesson and a cautionary tale. Settling Jamestown was not like moving to the untamed suburbs where only wild deer, forage and a few shanties had to be cleared. The soldiers and others who came over from merry old England were killers too. Many of the original landholders -- the Powhatan tribe -- were slaughtered in the takeover; others succumbed to disease introduced by the newcomers.

One Virginia lawmaker called on the queen to issue an apology for the vicious truths about what settling Jamestown really entailed. Surely even the demand was only symbolic. After all, this is a woman who knows that, when she has had her fill at the table, everyone else in the dining area is expected to stop eating. Could anyone that removed from the real world ever think of succumbing to a mere mortal’s call for some late justice?

Lest she had even a whit of temptation to make so grand a gesture, Cheney’s mere presence would have surely disabused her of any such notion. In him, she could see  denial in the flesh, smugness on the hoof and utter disregard for public sensibilities and wishes on parade. Apologies? Not on this watch.

The war king would have reminded her that supremacy means never having to say you’re sorry. Not even if history and justice and simple human decency themselves are crying out for it.