Elizabeth II

• 1. Introduction

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  Elizabeth II reigned for 70 years and 214 days, the longest of any British monarch and the longest of any queen regnant in history. She was born on the 21st of April 1926 at 2:40 am, by Caesarean section, in a London townhouse at 17 Bruton Street in Mayfair. At her death she was monarch of 15 realms, having been queen regnant of 32 sovereign states across her lifetime. She was advised by more than 170 prime ministers throughout those realms, met five popes and fourteen US presidents, and died at 96 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. How did a girl who was never expected to become queen end up reigning over seven decades of constitutional upheaval? What did she actually believe, behind a face that almost never revealed it? And how did the monarchy survive its lowest moments with her at the centre?

• 2. The Accidental Heir

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  Edward, Prince of Wales, was young and expected to marry and father children, which placed the infant Elizabeth only third in line and unlikely ever to inherit. Her early life ran instead on family nicknames and quiet routine. Her close relatives called her "Lilibet", from the way she first said her own name, and she called her grandfather King George V "Grandpa England". Her regular visits during his serious illness in 1929 were credited in the popular press with raising his spirits.

  Winston Churchill, observing her at the age of two, described "a character" with "an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in an infant". She was schooled at home alongside her only sibling, Princess Margaret, born in 1930, under their mother and their governess, Marion Crawford. Lessons concentrated on history, language, literature, and music. Crawford later wrote a book about their childhood, The Little Princesses, published in 1950, much to the dismay of the royal family.

  The constitutional crisis came in 1936, when Edward, by then Edward VIII, abdicated over his proposed marriage to the divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. Elizabeth's father became king as George VI, and with no brothers she became heir presumptive. The succession then ran by male-preference primogeniture, meaning any son later born to her parents would have leapt ahead of her in line.

• 3. A Princess At War

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  "The children won't go without me. I won't leave without the King. And the King will never leave." That was the reply of Elizabeth's mother when Lord Hailsham suggested the princesses be evacuated to Canada to escape Luftwaffe bombing of London. The girls stayed instead at Windsor Castle for most of the next five years, staging Christmas pantomimes to raise money for the Queen's Wool Fund.

  At 14, Elizabeth made her first radio broadcast during the BBC's Children's Hour, addressing children who had been evacuated from the cities. "We know, every one of us, that in the end all will be well," she told them. In February 1945 she was appointed an honorary second subaltern in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, with the service number 230873, and trained as a driver and mechanic.

  On Victory in Europe Day she and Margaret slipped into the celebrating crowds, terrified of being recognised. Decades later, in 1985, she recalled "lines of unknown people linking arms and walking down Whitehall, all of us just swept along on a tide of happiness and relief". On her 21st birthday, during a 1947 tour of southern Africa, she made a pledge by broadcast: "my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service".

• 4. Philip

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  She was 13 when she met Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark for the third time, at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth in July 1939, and said she fell in love. He was 18. They were second cousins once removed through King Christian IX of Denmark and third cousins through Queen Victoria, and they began to exchange letters.

  The engagement, announced when she was 21 in July 1947, drew controversy. Philip had no financial standing, was foreign-born, and his sisters had married German noblemen with Nazi links. Marion Crawford wrote that "some of the papers played long and loud tunes on the string of Philip's foreign origin". Elizabeth's mother reportedly teased him as "the Hun", though she later told biographer Tim Heald that Philip was "an English gentleman".

  Before the wedding he renounced his Greek and Danish titles, converted from Greek Orthodoxy to Anglicanism, took the surname Mountbatten, and was created Duke of Edinburgh. They married on the 20th of November 1947 at Westminster Abbey and received 2,500 wedding gifts. Britain had not recovered from the war, so Elizabeth needed ration coupons to buy the material for her gown, designed by Norman Hartnell. Prince Charles was born in November 1948, Princess Anne in August 1950, and for stretches between 1949 and 1951 the couple lived in Malta while Philip served in the Royal Navy.

• 5. Becoming Queen

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  On the 6th of February 1952, Elizabeth and Philip had just returned to Sagana Lodge in Kenya, after a night at Treetops Hotel, when word came that her father had died. Philip broke the news. She was 25, and chose to keep Elizabeth as her regnal name, becoming Elizabeth II; the numeral offended some Scots, since she was the first Elizabeth to rule in Scotland.

  A quieter fight followed over the family name. Lord Mountbatten pushed for House of Mountbatten and Philip suggested House of Edinburgh, but Churchill and Queen Mary favoured keeping Windsor. Elizabeth declared on the 9th of April 1952 that the house would remain Windsor. Philip complained, "I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children." In 1960 the surname Mountbatten-Windsor was adopted for their male-line descendants without royal titles.

  Queen Mary died on the 24th of March 1953, but at her own request the coronation went ahead on the 2nd of June. The ceremony at Westminster Abbey was televised for the first time, excepting the anointing and communion, and on Elizabeth's instruction her gown was embroidered with the floral emblems of Commonwealth countries. In 1953 she and Philip embarked on a seven-month round-the-world tour, visiting 13 countries and covering more than 40,000 miles; an estimated three-quarters of Australia's population saw her.

• 6. The Discreet Hand In Politics

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  The Suez crisis of 1956 brought the first major personal criticism of her reign. Britain and France invaded Egypt that November in a failed attempt to capture the Suez Canal, and when Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigned, the Conservatives had no formal mechanism for choosing a leader. The choice of his successor fell to Elizabeth, who on senior advice appointed Harold Macmillan. In a magazine he owned, Lord Altrincham accused her of being "out of touch", and a member of the public, appalled, slapped him.

  Decolonisation accelerated through the 1960s and 1970s, with more than 20 countries gaining independence from Britain. In 1965 the Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith unilaterally declared independence with Elizabeth as "Queen of Rhodesia"; she formally dismissed him, yet his regime survived over a decade. At the height of the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis, Speaker Gordon Scholes appealed to her to reverse the dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam by Governor-General Sir John Kerr. She declined, saying she would not interfere in matters reserved by the Constitution of Australia for the governor-general.

  Her working relationships with prime ministers drew constant speculation. The Sunday Times of the 20th of July 1986 reported she was alarmed by Margaret Thatcher's economic policies and her refusal to apply sanctions against apartheid South Africa. The sources included royal aide Michael Shea, who said his remarks were taken out of context. Still, Elizabeth later gave Thatcher two honours in her personal gift, membership of the Order of Merit and the Order of the Garter.

• 7. Threats And Scandals

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  Six shots were fired at Elizabeth from close range during the 1981 Trooping the Colour ceremony, as she rode down The Mall on her horse, Burmese. Police found the shots were blanks; the 17-year-old assailant, Marcus Sarjeant, was sentenced to five years. That October a 17-year-old named Christopher John Lewis fired a .22 rifle from a building overlooking a parade in Dunedin, New Zealand, but missed. In July 1982 she woke at Buckingham Palace to find an intruder, Michael Fagan, in her bedroom, and help arrived only after two calls to the Palace police switchboard.

  The press turned the family into a soap opera. Kelvin MacKenzie, editor of The Sun, told his staff: "Give me a Sunday for Monday splash on the Royals. Don't worry if it's not true." The year 1992 was the worst. Andrew separated from Sarah, Anne divorced Captain Mark Phillips, demonstrators in Dresden threw eggs at the Queen, and a large fire broke out at Windsor Castle in November. In a speech marking her Ruby Jubilee she called the year her annus horribilis.

  Death struck the family's image hardest in August 1997, when Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris. Elizabeth kept Princes William and Harry at Balmoral to grieve in private, but the royal silence and the absence of a flag at half-mast over Buckingham Palace caused public dismay. Pressured, she returned to London and addressed the nation on the 5th of September, speaking of her admiration for Diana and her feelings "as a grandmother". Much of the public hostility then evaporated.

• 8. The Long Reckoning

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  By the 21st of December 2007 Elizabeth had surpassed Queen Victoria to become the longest-lived British monarch, and on the 9th of September 2015 she became the longest-reigning. She crossed milestones that no British sovereign had reached: a sapphire jubilee in 2017, a platinum wedding anniversary later that year, and a Platinum Jubilee on the 6th of February 2022. She had opened two Olympic Games in two countries, Montreal in 1976 and London in 2012, where she appeared in a short film alongside Daniel Craig as James Bond.

  Philip retired from official duties in August 2017 and died on the 9th of April 2021, after 73 years of marriage, leaving her the first British monarch to reign as a widow since Victoria. COVID-19 restrictions meant she sat alone at his funeral. In her last Christmas broadcast she paid tribute to her "beloved Philip", recalling "that mischievous, inquiring twinkle".

  Elizabeth never intended to abdicate. She had told Adrienne Clarkson in 2002, "It is not our tradition," adding only that "if I became completely gaga, one would have to do something". On the 6th of September 2022 she appointed her 15th British prime minister, Liz Truss, at Balmoral, the only time she received a new premier outside Buckingham Palace. Two days later she died there, aged 96, at 3:10 pm. Her death certificate recorded the cause as "old age", and because she died in Scotland she became the first monarch to do so since James V in 1542. Her coffin lay at rest in St Giles' Cathedral, where around 33,000 people filed past, before her state funeral at Westminster Abbey on the 19th of September, the first monarch's funeral held there since George II in 1760.