Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s 63rd monarch, has steered the monarchy through decades of social change while remaining a symbol of national stability in a shifting world.
Monday (February 6) marks her Sapphire Jubilee – 65 years on the throne, the first ever British monarch to have reached such a milestone.
The 90-year-old queen acceded to the throne on February 6, 1952 when her father died.
The eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of York, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary would have been expected to play merely a supporting role in the monarchy. At the time of her birth on April 21, 1926, her uncle was the Prince of Wales and heir apparent to George V, her father being only second in line to the throne.
Elizabeth’s life changed abruptly on December 11th, 1936, when her uncle, now King Edward VIII, announced he was renouncing the throne to marry twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. The crown passed to his brother, who became George VI, and Queen Elizabeth became heir presumptive on the assumption that her father would have no sons to take precedence over her.
Two years after the end of World War Two, Queen Elizabeth celebrated her 21st birthday while visiting South Africa and marked the occasion with a broadcast address dedicating herself to the service of the Commonwealth.
Shortly after her return from South Africa came the announcement of the Princess’s engagement to her distant cousin Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, son of Prince Andrew of Greece and great-great-grandson of Britain’s QueenVictoria.
They were married in Westminster Abbey on November 20, 1947.
The couple’s first child, Prince Charles, was born in 1948, followed by Princess Anne in 1950, Prince Andrew in 1960 and Prince Edward in 1964.
Social divisions and respect for the old order began to wane but the queen was seen as an important symbol of unity and remained stoically true to the guidelines she set herself on her 21st birthday.
In July 1969, Prince Charles was invested as Prince of Wales at a ceremony in the 700-year-old Caernarfon Castle. During the ceremony the Prince, following ancient tradition, pledged his loyalty to the queen before being vested with the emblems of office.
In 1981, an annual event famed for its pageantry, the Trooping the Colour, was marred by an incident in which a man fired six blanks from a replica pistol as the queen rode along the route of the parade. Her horse shied but she was unhurt.
The following decade saw the royal family under the public spotlight as never before. Queen Elizabeth referred to 1992 as an “annus horribilis”, or horrible year, during a banquet to mark her 40th year on the throne.
During the year Princess Anne’s 18-year marriage ended in divorce; Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson announced their formal separation after six years of marriage; the queen‘s favourite royal home, Windsor Castle, was badly damaged by a fire; the perilous state of Prince Charles’ and Princess Diana’s marriage was revealed in the biography “Diana, Her True Story” and in December they announced their separation.
During her reign, the queen has broken new ground for the British monarchy during many of her overseas visits. In 1975 she was the first British monarch to visit Japan. She met Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and became the first British monarch to walk on the Great Wall of China when she visited the country in 1986.
The queen has also acted as host to many state leaders visiting Britain including former United States President Ronald Reagan, leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), former President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and former South African President Nelson Mandela.
Queen Elizabeth celebrated her 80th birthday with a walkabout in Windsor on April 21st, 2006, and accepted flowers and cards from some of the thousands of well-wishers who had gathered to mark her octogenarian milestone.
She has shown little sign of slowing down in her ninth decade. In April 2009 she welcomed newly elected U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama to Buckingham Palace. During her reign the queen has met all 12 serving U.S. presidents except Lyndon B Johnson.
As Head of State the queen formally opens each new session of parliament in a lavish ceremony steeped in pageantry and tradition.
In May 2011 Queen Elizabeth made an historic State visit to the Republic of Ireland, the first by a British monarch since Ireland won independence from the United Kingdom in 1921. The Queen was greeted by Irish President Mary McAleese at her official residence in Dublin and the visit included a wreath laying ceremony at the Garden of Remembrance, Ireland’s monument to its fallen nationalist heroes.
On the 60th anniversary of the queen‘s accession to the throne and the beginning of her Diamond Jubilee celebrations, February 6, 2012 was marked with a traditional 41-gun salute fired in London’s Hyde Park. She is now the second-longest reigning British monarch in more than a 1,000 years of history, surpassed only by Queen Victoria, who reigned for more than 63 years. A record she went on to break.
The queen and Prince Philip spent the next six months taking part in Jubilee events across the United Kingdom.
In June the celebrations included a spectacular flotilla of 1,000 vessels taking part in the largest display of pageantry seen on London’s River Thames for 350 years. Typically inclement British weather failed to dampen the enthusiasm of the thousands of well-wishers taking part or watching from the river embankments.
The following month the 86-year-old monarch became the unlikely star of the London Olympics opening ceremony, making her film debut with James Bond star Daniel Craig in a spoof video that ended with her appearing to jump from a helicopter and make a parachute landing in the Olympic stadium.
With the birth of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s son in July 2013, for the first time in over a hundred years there were three generations of direct living heirs to the throne. Prince George, named after the Queen‘s father, became third in line to the throne, after his father and grandfather.
Prince Charles has taken over some of the queen‘s royal duties who has scaled back on international travel, but in June this year the queen and Prince Philip spent a few days in Germany for a state visit.
On September 9, 2015, the nation celebrated the queen becoming Britain’s longest-serving British monarch. Elizabeth II surpassed the 63 years, 7 months, 2 days, 16 hours and 23 minutes that her great-great-grandmotherQueen Victoria spent on the throne.
Despite her age, Queen Elizabeth remains active in her state duties, in the autumn of 2015 she hosted Chinese President Xi Jingping for a lavish state visit and a few weeks later Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
On April 21, 2016, the queen turned 90-years-old. She celebrated with a walkabout in Windsor.
The official celebrations took place in June, culminating in a giant street party on the Mall in front of Buckingham Palace. The Patron’s Lunch was to thank all the charities the queen is patron of. As guests took their places on the Mall it poured with rain, which mercifully stopped when the royal family came out to greet the guests.
Earlier that year, the queen appeared with Obama and his wife Michelle in a light-hearted video to promote the Invictus Games, a sporting event for injured British, American and allied military personnel launched in 2014 by Prince Harry.
In May, she was caught on camera saying Chinese officials were “very rude” during the 2015 state visit to Britain by President Xi Jinping. Under her constitutional role, the 90-year-old monarch never makes any politically or diplomatically sensitive comments in public, and it is rare for the content of her private conversations to be revealed.
After the death of Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej in October 2016,Queen Elizabeth became the longest-serving living monarch in the world.
In December the palace announced the queen would be giving up patronage of some of her charities, but she remains patron of more than 600.
During her reign the queen‘s personal standing has remained high in spite of the occasionally strong criticism attracted by other members of the royal family.
(Reuters)
