Queen Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, Princess of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, died on September 8, 2022. And although after her death the traditional monarchy phrase “The Queen is dead, long live the King” inevitably sounded, because the life of the state must continue, the void she left could hardly be filled even by the most devoted King Charles III.
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When on April 21, 1926, the eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of York, Elizabeth, was born in London’s Mayfair district, no one thought that one day she would sit on the throne of Great Britain. The world was ruled by men. Women had only gained the right to vote a few years earlier. Europe had survived a war, and a global economic crisis awaited ahead.
Moreover, Elizabeth was not a son but the daughter of a prince who was not considered an heir to the throne. Her father, Prince Albert, Duke of York, was the second son of King George V – sickly, shy in childhood, and hardly regarded as a person who could one day rule Great Britain and its empire.
Elizabeth’s mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, whom the Duke of York married in 1923, came from a Scottish aristocratic family. She was intelligent, strong-willed, and well aware of the duties of the monarchy.
In 1936, when Elizabeth was only ten years old and already had a sister two years younger but still no brother, the princess’s life changed completely.
King George V died. His heir became his son Edward VIII, but he reigned for only eleven months. He abdicated the crown because he could not reconcile the duties of a monarch with his desire to marry the divorced American Wallis Simpson.
This was a huge scandal that forced the entire royal family to fundamentally change their lives. Edward, who became the Duke of Windsor, went abroad with his beloved, and Elizabeth’s shy and still somewhat stammering father, called Bertie in the family, became King George VI.
Elizabeth unexpectedly became the heir to the throne.
A new life for the royal family
The family moved from cozy homes to the palace. Until then, Elizabeth had been taught at home with her sister; she began studying constitutional law, law, and history.
However, the girls were protected as much as possible from public appearances and official trips. When the parents traveled abroad, the princesses stayed at home but kept in touch with them by letters and phone.
How strong the family bond was became especially evident during World War II.
The government offered Queen Elizabeth and her daughters to go abroad for safety. But the then queen replied: “The princesses will not go without me, I will not go without the king, and the king will never go.”
So the family stayed in Great Britain during the war – at Balmoral, later Sandringham, and Windsor – and tried to maintain the spirit of the country’s people.
The princesses raised funds, and in October 1940 Elizabeth gave her first radio speech on the BBC program “Children’s Hour,” addressed to other children in the country.
Before turning sixteen, she became the honorary colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and at eighteen, a member of the Privy Council. Royal childhood, no matter how protected, sometimes ends much earlier than that of other children.
Elizabeth joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service – a women’s military auxiliary unit – where she learned not only to drive trucks but also to repair them.
Knowing this experience makes it easier to understand how deeply the future queen grew into a life where duty was more important than anything else, and service to people became the most important principle. She never saw any other example from her parents.
Great love – Prince Philip
One of the few areas where young Elizabeth put her desires above the most convenient choice for the royal family was love.
There were probably no shortage of more suitable candidates than a naval officer with Greek, Danish, and German aristocratic roots. But Elizabeth fell in love with Philip in her teenage years and did not want another man.
Eight years after their first meeting, the engagement of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten was announced. Before that, he renounced the royal titles of Greece and Denmark, became a British citizen and a member of the Anglican Church, and chose his mother’s family name Mountbatten.
The couple married in November 1947.
Philip was still serving in the military at the time. Initially, he was stationed in Greenwich, and in 1949 he was transferred to Malta. Elizabeth went with him.
Later she called this period one of the happiest. But it lasted only a year. Philip received new duties in the navy and traveled a lot, while King George VI’s health rapidly deteriorated. From 1951, Elizabeth’s place was already in England.
Therefore, considering the close family bond and Elizabeth’s strong sense of duty, it was especially painful that due to her duties she could not be by her father’s side when he died in February 1952.
At the end of January, the king, despite doctors’ advice, personally saw Elizabeth and Philip off on a state trip to Africa.
The news of the king’s death reached the couple on February 6 in Kenya. It was Philip who had to tell his wife that her father had died.
Philip was her “strength and support,” as Elizabeth herself described him on their 70th wedding anniversary, through this and many other moments over their long life together.
A man unafraid to argue, secular, critical, and strong-willed undoubtedly had a huge influence on her. Elizabeth has said that she first discussed many of her speeches with her husband, and he never shied away from critical remarks.
Of course, their marriage also had difficult periods – rumors of affairs circulated, disagreements over child-rearing, family conflicts, and residence arose. Nevertheless, even in old age, they managed to inspire, support, encourage, and make each other laugh.
Elizabeth’s determined decision to marry Philip became one of the most important choices of her life.
Coronation in 1953
When Elizabeth was crowned in 1953, it was raining. However, this did not stop thousands of people from flooding the streets. About ten thousand people connected to the royal palaces from various Commonwealth countries participated in the huge procession.
Equally impressive was another idea of the young queen – a six-month trip from November 1953 to May 1954 through the Commonwealth countries. Her route covered almost 65,000 kilometers.
The new monarch wanted to be seen, meet people, and strengthen ties with the Commonwealth countries.
Charles and Diana’s marriage
The marriage of Charles and Diana and its consequences probably became one of the greatest challenges of Elizabeth’s reign, although at first glance it was supposed to be a private matter of her son’s life.
However, the heir to the throne’s marriage is never just a private affair.
Pressure on Charles to marry, the chosen bride, good intentions, wrong decisions, and a sensationalist press created a dangerous combination of circumstances.
In 1981, the “wedding of the decade” of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer was held in front of the whole world, ultimately turning into a dramatic marriage that ended in divorce in 1996 and Diana’s death a year later.
For a long time, the queen managed to stay away from overly personal family conflicts. She did not publicly comment on Charles and Camilla’s affair, Diana’s television interview, or the divorce.
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But at one point, this distance became a problem.
When Diana died in a car accident in Paris in 1997, trying to avoid paparazzi chasing her, the queen stayed at Balmoral with her grandchildren. She did not go to London and did not publicly mourn with the people for their “people’s princess.”
It was a mistake that was later acknowledged.
Eventually, Elizabeth addressed the public from Buckingham Palace, behind whose gates millions of flowers were laid in memory of Diana. She spoke as a grandmother and as a family member.
This speech helped at least partially reduce the distance that had arisen between the monarch and the public and show genuine sorrow and human warmth.
However, the situation was extremely fragile – the Windsor monarchy was probably never as vulnerable as in those summer days of 1997.
Golden, diamond, and platinum jubilees
For many people, it seemed that Elizabeth had always been on the throne – her reign accompanied entire generations.
In 2002, when her 50th year of reign was celebrated, the circumstances were difficult. Before the celebrations, both her sister and her mother, called the Queen Mum, had died. But the queen had to appear in public and even went on major trips around the Commonwealth countries. Her 50th anniversary of reign was celebrated in London for three days.
Even more impressive was the diamond jubilee celebrated in 2012. The queen patiently watched a parade of a thousand ships and boats on the Thames with her family.
That same year, the Summer Olympic Games were held in London, and Elizabeth showed the world her sense of humor.
Together with Daniel Craig, who played James Bond, she appeared in a short video in which agent 007 comes to pick her and the corgis up from the palace, and later both parachute down over the Olympic stadium.
The public was impressed. In 2022, the 70th anniversary of Elizabeth’s reign was marked by four days of celebrations. However, the question accompanied the celebration: how much longer could the 96-year-old monarch endure?
The COVID-19 pandemic was not yet completely over; the queen herself had contracted the virus. Her strength, especially mobility, was weakening.
The “Trooping the Colour” military parade was received in her name by Prince Charles. The queen did not participate in the thanksgiving service and concert.
However, she did appear on the famous Buckingham Palace balcony to watch the Royal Air Force flypast and greet the gathered people. She also appeared there during the grand final parade.
The monarch who seemed eternal
As early as September 2015, Elizabeth surpassed her famous predecessor Queen Victoria and became the longest-reigning monarch of Great Britain.
Her list of reign records was impressive. But Elizabeth herself seemed to react to them as to many other things – with a reserved smile, an iron sense of duty, and a brightly colored hat, simply continuing her work.
She had already handed over foreign trips to younger generations in the last decade of her life, but her work schedule remained surprisingly intense.
She patronized more than 600 charitable and public organizations, all of which required her attention.
Farewell to Prince Philip
Even after Philip retired from public life and spent more time at Sandringham, the queen hardly reduced her work pace.
Their relationship in a way became a weekend marriage, as Elizabeth lived and worked in London on weekdays. But seeing them together, it was obvious that the old closeness had not disappeared anywhere.
Therefore, it was no surprise that the death of the Duke of Edinburgh on April 9, 2021, became one of the most painful blows in the queen’s life.
Her strong support could no longer be replaced. From that moment, it seemed that age finally began to take its toll even on the monarch who until then seemed almost timeless to many.
The woman behind the queen’s title
For most of her life, Elizabeth managed to be a queen in public first and almost never let anyone see the woman behind the monarch’s role.
This was due to her deep conviction that the royal family must be above everyday fashion and symbolize tradition and continuity.
At the same time, she was firmly determined to remain politically neutral and not divide society. This required some distance from everyday life and mystery, which excessive publicity should not destroy.
However, over time, the royal family found ways to become closer to the public. In jubilee TV features about Elizabeth, who avoided interviews, her children and grandchildren spoke, communication changed with social networks, and family events such as weddings and the birth of children helped the Windsors show a more human side.
The queen herself experienced negative consequences after documentaries intended to reveal the royal family’s life, so she remained cautious.
But in those rare cases when she abandoned this reserve – during photo shoots, an appearance with James Bond, a humorous video with Prince Harry before his “Invictus Games,” or a rare interview about crowns and wearing them – one could see a different Elizabeth.
Practical, ironic, with a sense of humor, and by no means as detached from reality as she sometimes seemed.
A woman who loved her children, horses – it was enough to see her genuine joy when her horses won at Ascot races – and her dogs.
A woman who devoted her entire life to serving her country and almost never publicly complained about it.
A witty saying from her circle remains: “She would be a wonderful friend if only she were not a queen.”
If one had to look for a person embodying a sense of duty and discipline, endurance, and the ability to communicate with the most diverse people, Queen Elizabeth II became such an example for many.
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