The long and eventful life of Queen Elizabeth II ended peacefully during the afternoon of 8 September 2022, in the year of her Platinum Jubilee, at her Scottish Highland holiday home in the Balmoral Estate in Aberdeenshire, and in the presence of her immediate family. On a rainy day, as if to match the sombre mood of the nation, the passing of the longest-reigning British monarch, also the longest-lived monarch in the world, the Head of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Head of State of the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth countries, the Head of Britain’s Armed Forces, and the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, was followed by a steady stream of tributes from world leaders of all persuasions and by a spontaneous outpouring of grief from both her subjects and her well-wishers around the world.
Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was delivered by Caesarean section at 2:40 AM on 21 April 1926 at 17 Bruton Street in Mayfair, the central London home of her maternal grandfather, the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, which has since been demolished to make way for Berkeley Square House. Even though it was a low-key event, Sir William Joynson-Hicks, the Home Secretary of the day, was present for the occasion, as was customary at Royal births to ensure that all was above board. The first of two children of the Duke and Duchess of York was christened at Buckingham Palace on 14 May, after the end of the General Strike, which had begun at midnight on 3 May-a scenario that is being replicated today as the nation faces another series of strikes in the year of her demise. The following year, her parents moved into 145 Piccadilly, a five-storey, 26-bedroom Georgian town house which was to become the family home between 1927 and 1936, only to be demolished during the post-war widening of Park Lane. Weekends were spent at Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park, while summer holidays took the family to Birkhall, a Georgian house on the Balmoral Estate.
Being a Royal child, Elizabeth was reared by governesses, nannies and nursemaids, who spent much more time with her than her parents. She was tutored at home, as Heiress Presumptive, in the British Constitution (Henry Marten, Vice-Provost of Eton College) and French language and literature and European history (vicomtesse Marie-Antoinette de Bellaigue). From an early age, she took riding lessons and became accomplished on horseback. Her lifelong love of horses motivated her ownership of a stable of successful race horses and ensured her regular attendances at Royal Ascot and the Epsom Derby. When it came to smaller animals, she preferred the rather temperamental and fox-like corgi dogs instead.
The abdication of Elizabeth’s uncle, King Edward VIII, on 11 December 1936 propelled her unprepared and reluctant father, the second son of King George V and hampered by a pronounced stammer, into the limelight as he inherited the throne as George VI, with Elizabeth his anointed heir. She first addressed the nation from Windsor Castle on 13 October 1940 on BBC’s Children Hour, when she assured her listeners that “My sister, Margaret Rose, and I feel so much for you, as we know from experience what it means to be away from those we love most of all.” She also did her own bit for the war effort, volunteering in 1945 as a driver/mechanic with the Auxiliary Training Service.
On 20 November 1947, the future Queen married Greek-born naval Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, a second cousin once removed, at Westminster Abbey. Not all were enamoured of her choice of a man who had renounced his Greek citizenship to become a British subject and converted to the Church of England, given his weak financial status, his Germanic origins, and his family connections with the Nazis. Over time, he was to prove any doubters wrong, as the couple’s strong, stable, and supportive relationship thrived for 73 years until his death in 2021. A honeymoon at the home of Philip’s uncle, Lord Mountbatten, at Broadlands, near Romsey in Hampshire, was followed by time at Windlesham Moor, near Sunningdale in Berkshire, before the couple moved into Clarence House in the summer of 1949. Philip’s naval duties meant the couple fitted in a blissfully happy year, based at Villa Guardamangia in Malta. The union produced four children: Charles on 14 November 1948, Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise on 15 August 1950, Andrew Albert Christian Edward on 19 February 1960, and Edward Antony Richard Louis on 10 March 1964. Eight grandchildren and twelve great-grandchildren were to follow in due course.
A six-month tour of East Africa, Australia, and New Zealand was abruptly ended by the death of her father on 6 February 1952. At the time, she was staying at a hunting lodge in the Aberdare Forest game reserve, on the slopes of Mount Kenya, where the couple had gone to watch elephants. The 25-year-old princess soon returned home to take her place as Queen, beginning an uninterrupted reign of 70 years and 214 days.
The Coronation, on an unseasonably rainy day, on Tuesday, 2 June 1953, was marked by an outpouring of patriotism, leading a million people to line the seven-mile processional route from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace for the occasion. The ancient and elaborate spectacle of Coronation, fully televised for the first time, was followed by the Coronation Ball at the Savoy Hotel on the night, two state banquets on 3 and 4 June, and two evening receptions on 4 and 9 June. The festivities coincided with news of the conquest of Mount Everest by a British expedition on 29 May. It was a time for great hope and optimism, just as Britain was finally emerging from the tribulations of the Second World War.
The Royal Family was generally held in high esteem during the 1950s, with particular reverence accorded to the Queen. An early example of irreverent reporting, innocuous by today’s standards, saw John Grigg, 2nd Baron Altrincham describing her as ‘a priggish schoolgirl, captain of the hockey team, a prefect and a recent candidate for Confirmation’ in the August 1957 issue of the National and English Review, earning him a slap in the face from an enraged member of the League of Empire Loyalists for his disrespectful comments. Since then, a number of Royal scandals, none of which were directly related to the Queen’s actions, have significantly dented public perceptions of the Royal family, without diminishing her personal popularity in any way.
The Queen’s reign ended with the installation of the fifteenth British Prime Minister, as well as seeing through fourteen American Presidents. The New Elizabethan era was a time of profound technological advance, marked by space travel, the moon landings, the digital revolution (Internet, smartphones, social media, etc), and creeping globalisation, while on the political front the British Empire finally disintegrated, the Cold War ended with the fall of Communism, only to be replaced by fresh East-West tensions, and Britain both entered and exited the European Union, deeply dividing its citizenry in the process. British society was transformed by relaxed sexual mores and the impact of mass immigration, while deindustrialisation shrunk the nation’s once formidable manufacturing capacity, making the Britain Elizabeth had taken charge of in the early 1950s a very different place to the one she left behind. The Queen’s longevity meant she was able to celebrate Silver (1977), Golden (2002), Diamond (2012), and, uniquely, Platinum (2022) Jubilees, while towards the end the Covid pandemic saw her both fall victim to the virus and become an exemplar of good public health practice for her citizens.
The Queen’s overriding sense of public duty may have come at the cost of family connections, keeping her somewhat aloof and emotionally detached from those closest to her, at least in the earlier years of her reign. Her duties kept her occupied throughout most of her reign, although she gradually withdrew from public life towards the end. Her busy travel itinerary was to include visits to at least 126 countries, with Canada and Australia topping the number of Royal visits. Her longest foreign trip took her to 13 countries between November 1953 and May 1954, and her last overseas visit was to Malta in November 2015. At home, she received 112 visiting Heads of State and presided over numerous State Banquets. As a constitutional monarch, she appointed governments, delivered the Queen’s Speech at the State Opening of Parliament, gave the Royal Assent to over 4,000 items of legislation, and had weekly private audiences with her Prime Ministers. The Queen’s other public duties included Investitures, Garden Parties, Palace Lunches, Christmas Broadcasts, and countless Royal tours and visits to all kinds of places.
The very length of her reign made it inevitable that there were to be some turbulent moments. The Queen thus referred to her 40th year of reign as her “annus horribilis” in a Guildhall speech on 24 November 1992, towards the end of a year during which her daughter Anne divorced, her sons Charles and Andrew separated from their spouses, and her beloved Windsor Castle was devastated by fire only four days earlier. Two days later, Prime Minister John Major informed the House of Commons that the Queen and the Prince of Wales would start paying income tax from the next year, and that Civil List payments to five other members of the Royal Family would be stopped. Her initial silence following the tragic death of Princess Diana in August 1997 saw a momentary dip in popularity, which was soon restored after she made her way back from Scotland to share in the nation’s grief. The Queen’s last years were marred by the fallout from the controversial actions of her ‘favourite son’, Prince Andrew, the withdrawal of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex from their Royal duties, and, above all, Prince Philip’s death in April 2021.
The Queen, unlike many populist leaders of the day, consistently set an example by her dignity of bearing, her heart-felt empathy, her personal integrity, and her steadfast ability to rise above political intrigue and to eschew controversy. A good example of the Queen’s efforts at reconciliation was provided by her visit to neighbouring Ireland in 2011. The baton of monarchy has now been handed over to her successor, King Charles III, who faces an unenviable task in the years ahead, given the incredibly high bar she set during her lifetime. We will never be privy to her private thoughts, but at least she did reveal, right at the end, what she carried in her handbag. May her kind soul rest in peace.
Ashis Banerjee