Her reaction was characteristic: “Oh, thank you. After she was told the news, Lady Pamela Mountbatten, her cousin, came to console her. The queen and Prince Philip were on a visit to Kenya at the time. In 1951, after years of heavy smoking, her father was diagnosed with lung cancer. They had only five years of married life before the event she had dreaded came to pass. The British aristocracy was not much impressed-it was noted at their engagement party that his naval uniform was shabby-but she had made her mind up to have him, and she did. He was a penniless young royal who as a baby had slept in an orange crate when his itinerant family was evacuated from Corfu. She met Philip of Greece when she was a teenager and became smitten. The only matter on which she proved intractable was love. According to her grandmother, when Elizabeth heard that her father was to be king, she began “ardently praying for a brother”. The Duke of York recorded in his memoir that when he told his mother the outcome of his brother’s negotiations with the government, he “broke down and sobbed”. In earlier times, the crown was something that members of the royal family murdered and fought for. Elizabeth’s uncle, the heir to the throne, was determined to marry Wallis Simpson the prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, concluded that because she was a divorcee, he could not do so and remain king. Until she was 11, the four seemed destined to be one of Britain’s many comfortable, privileged and fairly unremarkable upper-class families. Even for the time, Elizabeth’s education was somewhat lacking. The girls did not go to school, but had lessons from their nanny, Marion Crawford those were later supplemented by tutorials from a vice-provost of Eton who kept a pet raven that would peck at his ear. “We four”, as they referred to themselves, were written up in magazines as the ideal version of the nuclear family to which modern Britons aspired.

Her parents were as domesticated as her glamorous uncle was social. Her younger sister Margaret soon arrived, and the royal foursome made a happy little family. According to the duchess’s authorised biographer, Lady Cynthia Asquith, when her mother returned, the child was “almost as pleased” to see her as if she had been “quite a large crowd”. Elizabeth’s routine in her parents’ absence involved daily promenades in Hyde Park with her nanny during which, as a famous baby, she was constantly greeted by strangers, to whom she waved back enthusiastically. When she was less than a year old, the king dispatched the Duke and Duchess of York to Australia for six months, and she was left behind.

Queen Victoria had decreed that those in direct line to the throne should be christened after her or Albert, but given the new baby’s low chances of acceding, “I hardly think it necessary,” wrote George V to his wife.Įlements of her childhood, which was quite normal for an upper-class girl then, would be regarded now as, at best, bizarre. But since she was only the niece of the unmarried heir to the throne, her birth was not regarded as of great significance. There was plenty of interest when she was born, for the press was eager for good-news stories at a bad time. The home secretary, who was required to be present at the birth of a royal, even a relatively minor one like her, was called to 17 Bruton Street on April 21st 1926, in the midst of negotiations to avert a general strike. The country she was born into, like the one she leaves, was turbulent and divided. When George VI, Elizabeth’s father, became king he feared that the crown would “crumble” under the strain of the abdication crisis. Edward VII was so depressed by the national mood that on one occasion he introduced his son, the future George V, as “the last king of England”. That unwavering professionalism helped ensure the survival of the British monarchy.Īt the start of the 20th century, class tensions were so high that many predicted the crown’s demise, including those who had to wear it.

Any sign of partiality would have undermined her ability to represent all her compatriots instead she appeared always to be interested, without ever saying anything of interest. The royal role involves being constantly in the public eye while keeping personal views entirely private.

Film: Queen Elizabeth II’s reign in numbers.How does the British monarchy’s line of succession work?.Elizabeth II was the longest-reigning monarch in British history.Britain’s longest-serving ruler strengthened the monarchy.The death of Elizabeth II marks the end of an era.Obituary: Elizabeth II never laid down the heavy weight of the crown.

Ruler in inches