SPAIN (AP) — After 70 years on the throne, Britain’s longest-reigning queen and a steadying force during much of this century, Queen Elizabeth II passed away on Thursday. The 96-year-old lady had reached a milestone.
The palace stated that she passed away at her Scottish vacation estate, Balmoral Castle, where members of the royal family had hurried to her side following a decline in her health.
She was the last living member of the generation that fought in World War II, and she was the only monarch that the majority of Britons had ever known.
It was stated by his office that upon her passing, her 73-year-old son Prince Charles became king and thereafter will be styled, King Charles III. If Charles ever has a third wife, it will be Camilla, and she will be called Queen Consort.
With her passing, the second Elizabethan era came to a stop, and the flag over Buckingham Palace was lowered to half-staff while the national song, “God Save the Queen,” was played over a photograph of her in full regalia.
The country and the monarchy, an institution she helped stabilise and modernise through decades of enormous social change and family scandals, will feel the effects of her death in profound and unexpected ways.
In a statement, Charles said, “I know her loss will be greatly felt throughout the country, the Realms, and the Commonwealth, and by countless people around the world.”
Government officials from around the globe have offered their sympathies and paid tribute to the late monarch.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau praised the Queen for her “knowledge, compassion, and warmth” because she is the head of state in the country. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, “She exemplified respect and decency in public life.” India was the “jewel in the crown” of the British Empire. disturbed by her passing away.”
Just 48 hours after being nominated by the queen, British Prime Minister Liz Truss declared the country “devastated” and referred to Elizabeth as “the rock on which modern Britain was constructed.”
Elizabeth has been the monarch since her coronation on February 6, 1952. During her reign, Britain has gone through many changes, including recovering from war, losing its empire, joining the European Union, and eventually leaving. She was able to outlast 15 different prime ministers, from Winston Churchill to Truss, and as a result, she became an icon and an institution, providing stability and stability to those who otherwise rejected or despised the monarchy.
Due to age and weakness, she made fewer public appearances throughout her last years. Britain celebrated her Platinum Jubilee with days of parties and pageants in June 2022, but she remained firmly in charge of the monarchy and at the centre of national life throughout.
In the same month, she surpassed King Louis XIV of France, who became king at the age of 4, to become the longest-reigning monarch in history. On Tuesday, she accepted Boris Johnson’s resignation as prime minister and formally appointed Truss as Johnson’s successor during a ceremony held at Balmoral Castle.
Before becoming queen, Elizabeth pledged to the people of Britain and the Commonwealth when she was 21: “my whole life, whether it be long or short, should be devoted to your service.”
More than seven decades later, she still abides by her word.
Despite the troubled history between Britain and her former colonies, Elizabeth was nonetheless recognised as the monarch by more than a dozen nations, from Canada to Tuvalu. There are currently 54 countries that make up the Commonwealth, which was created around Britain and its former colonies.
Elizabeth was the matriarch of the royal family, which attracted worldwide attention due to scandals such as the death of Prince Philip, Elizabeth’s husband of more than seventy-three years, at the age of ninety-nine, in 2021. She leaves behind four kids, eight grandkids, and a dozen great-grandkids.
There is a good chance she met more people than anyone else in history due to her participation in innumerable public events. Stamps, coins, and banknotes with her likeness were among the most widely circulated in the world.
Her thoughts and feelings, though, were largely mysterious. The public got a limited glimpse into her character. She was a horse owner who always seemed most content during the week of the Royal Ascot races. She cherished the company of her two Welsh corgi dogs and never grew tired of their company.
Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York, was born on April 21, 1926, in London. She was not meant to rule; her father’s older brother, Prince Edward, and his heirs were the ones who were supposed to take the throne.
However, when Elizabeth was just 10 years old, her father, King George VI, succeeded his brother Edward VIII as monarch after Edward married the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson.
Margaret, Princess of Scotland, once asked her sister, Elizabeth, if this meant that Elizabeth would eventually become queen. Yes, I suppose it does,” Margaret said Elizabeth said. Not once did she bring it up again.
By the time the United Kingdom went to war with Germany in 1939, Elizabeth was barely a teenager. While King George VI and Queen Elizabeth spent the Blitz in Buckingham Palace and toured the bombed-out neighbourhoods of London, Elizabeth and her sister Margaret spent most of the war in Windsor Castle to the west of the city. Still, 300 bombs landed in the park next door, forcing the princesses to spend many nights underground.
In 1940, at the age of 14, she made her first public broadcast as Princess Elizabeth, speaking to youngsters who had been evacuated to the country or overseas because of the war.
As a blend of stoicism and hope, her words, “We children at home are full of brightness and courage,” would ring true throughout her reign. We’re doing everything we can to support our brave servicemen and women. And we’re doing our best to deal with the risks and losses that come with being at war, too. We are all certain that everything will work out in the end.
Longing to contribute to the war effort, the future queen enlisted in the Auxiliary Territorial Service as Second Subaltern Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor in 1945. She took to learning how to operate and maintain large trucks with great enthusiasm.
May 8, 1945, the night the war in Europe ended, she and Margaret were able to blend in unnoticed with the jubilant people in London, “carried along on a sea of euphoria and relief,” as she described it to the BBC decades later.
She met Philip Mountbatten, a prince of Greece and Denmark, in 1939 when she was 13 and he was 18, and they were married in Westminster Abbey in November 1947. In postwar Britain, where resources were scarce due to rationing, few decorations were put up on the streets, and no special day was recognised. However, the bride was given 100 additional ration coupons to use toward her trousseau.
While Philip was stationed in Malta, the couple made their home there, and Elizabeth experienced what seemed to be a regular life as a navy wife. Prince Charles was born on November 14, 1948, the first of the couple’s four children. Later on, on August 15, 1950, Princess Anne was born; on February 19, 1960, Prince Andrew; and on March 10, 1964, Prince Edward joined the royal family.
After years of illness, George VI passed away peacefully in his sleep in February 1952, at the age of 56. During her trip to Kenya, Elizabeth learned that she had been crowned queen.
Martin Charteris, her secretary, said that the new queen was “sitting erect, no tears, colour up a little, totally accepting her destiny” when he first saw her at her desk.
When asked about her lack of an apprenticeship, Elizabeth said, “in a manner, I didn’t have an apprenticeship,” in a 1992 BBC documentary that provided an intimate glimpse into her personal life. “My father died when I was quite young, and so it was all a very sudden taking on, and making the best job you can,” he said.
More than a year later, in a great spectacle at Westminster Abbey, millions of people watched on the then-novel medium of television to see her coronation as queen.
After the death of King George VI, Prime Minister Winston Churchill initially remarked that the new queen was “just a child,” but he quickly came around and became a passionate supporter.
The Queen of the United Kingdom is the head of state, but in a constitutional monarchy, she is limited in her ability to make decisions independently and must follow the government’s directives. She did have some sway, though. She reportedly said, “I can always say that I should want more information,” when asked if she could do anything to stop the nomination of a bishop legally. That’s a sign the Prime Minister won’t be absent.
While Elizabeth was still in power, there was some suspicion about the scope of the monarch’s political involvement, but not much criticism. Charles, who has been known to have strong opinions on everything from design to the environment, may have more divisive viewpoints.
She had to meet with the prime minister every week and they found her to be knowledgeable, interested, and current on issues. Except, maybe, for Margaret Thatcher, who was rumoured to have chilly, if not frigid, ties with her, though neither woman ever remarked on the rumour.
In an era of declining deference and rising celebrity, when the royal family’s troubles became public property, speculation ran rampant about the queen’s views in those private meetings, providing fertile ground for dramatists like Peter Morgan, author of the play “The Audience” and the hit TV series “The Crown.”
Troubles arose inside “The Firm,” the royal family, as early as Elizabeth’s reign when Princess Margaret’s affair with a divorced man became a national scandal.
The divorce of the Queen’s daughter, Princess Anne, as well as the splits of Prince Charles and Princess Diana and Prince Andrew and his wife, Sarah, all occurred in 1992, which the Queen described as “annus horribilis.” In the same year, a devastating fire ravaged Windsor Castle, the royal family’s much-beloved alternative to Buckingham Palace.
The shock of Charles and Diana’s public separation—Diana famously declared, “There were three of us in that marriage,” referring to her husband’s affair with Camilla Parker Bowles—was followed by the tragedy of Diana’s death in a car crash in Paris in 1997. The queen was once again at odds with her subjects.
Amid enormous public grieving, Elizabeth’s decision not to make a public display of grief was seen by many as heartless. She addressed the public through national television after several days had passed.
Her fame recovered quickly from that setback. By this point, she had become a national grandma, a figure known for her severe demeanour and a wry grin.
While Elizabeth was one of the world’s wealthiest individuals, she was known for her thrift and wisdom. She was infamous as a monarch who would turn out the lights when no one was in the room and a fearless pheasant strangler from the countryside.
That the royal family is approachable was bolstered by photos taken by a newspaper reporter posing as a palace footman, who revealed the royal family’s Tupperware on the breakfast table and a rubber duck in the bathroom.
Neither the sight of a disturbed intruder sitting on her bed at Buckingham Palace in 1982 nor the experience of a young man firing six blanks at her from a pistol as she rode by on a horse in 1981 could break her cool.
Private Eye magazine made fun of the monarch by referring to her as “Brenda,” mocking her representation as a model of common British decency. Her anti-monarchist detractors branded her “Mrs While the queen was still living, support for republicanism was minimal.
The nation, she declared at its Golden Jubilee in 2002, could “look back with tempered pride on the history of the last 50 years.”
In a public speech, she remarked, “It has been a very wonderful 50 years by any criteria.” Though there have been setbacks, “everyone who remembers what circumstances were like after those six long years of war realises what great advances have been achieved since then.”
In addition to being a steadying influence at home, her presence overseas represented a type of soft power that the world acknowledged regardless of who was in political power in Britain at the time. It seemed only natural that she and another hero, James Bond, both be present during the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. She appeared to skydive right into the Olympic Stadium, but it was only the enchantment of the movies.
She became Britain’s longest-reigning monarch in 2015, surpassing Victoria by a full year and seven months and two days. Although Prince Charles and his eldest son, Prince William, increasingly took up the brunt of royal duties—including visits, ribbon-cuttings, and investitures—she continued working into her 10th decade.
It was a tragic moment for her when Philip died in 2021 and she was unable to attend his funeral with the rest of the royal family due to coronavirus limitations.
In addition, the familial problems persisted. Her son, Prince Andrew, got caught up in the scandal surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, an American businessman and a friend of the family who was convicted of sexually assaulting several women. One of the ladies who claimed to have been trafficked by Epstein has accused Andrew of having sexual relations with her.
In 2018, Prince Harry, the queen’s grandson, married an American actress and promptly abandoned his duties as a royal. In an interview, he said that not everyone in the royal family was thrilled to meet his new wife.
She lived into her 90s in good health, but she did walk with the use of a cane after Philip’s passing. After calling off a trip to Northern Ireland in October 2021, she spent the night in a London hospital undergoing diagnostic procedures.
Guests at a reception a few months later heard her say, “as you can see, I can’t move,” with the palace remaining tight-lipped about the nature of the queen’s “episodic mobility difficulties.”
She increasingly conducted her diplomatic and political business via videoconference from Windsor Castle, although her public appearances decreased. The queen stopped attending traditional royal events like Remembrance Sunday and Commonwealth Day, though she did go to Philip’s burial service at Westminster Abbey in March.
During this time, she started making plans for future change. When her son becomes king “in the fullness of time,” the Queen declared in February that she wants Camilla to be known as Queen Consort. This cleared up any confusion about the part played by the woman who, according to some, was responsible for the end of Charles’s marriage to Princess Diana in the 1990s.
During May, the Queen delegated one of her most important constitutional duties—reading the Queen’s Speech at the State Opening of Parliament—to Prince Charles.
Seventy years after the end of World War II, Elizabeth found herself at the centre of national attention again in February, this time due to the fear and tragedy surrounding the newly discovered COVID-19 virus.
She issued an unusual video message to the nation in April 2020, when the country was on lockdown and Prime Minister Boris Johnson was sick with the virus.
She called upon the spirit of World War II, a pivotal period in her life and the life of the nation, by singing a version of Vera Lynn’s patriotic ballad “We’ll Meet Again.”
Although we may still face additional hardships, we can take solace in the fact that better times will eventually come. The good news is that we’ll soon be reunited with our pals. Our reunion with our loved ones is imminent. She affirmed that we would eventually cross paths again.
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