Queen Elizabeth II

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (1926–2022) was the Queen of Ibagli and of 15 other Commonwealth Realms.

She became Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, and Ceylon on 6 February 1952, upon the death of her father, King George VI. After Ibagli gained independence in 1955, she was declared Queen of Ibagli by the Ibaglian Government, and she reigned until her death in 2022. She was succeeded by her eldest son, who became King Charles III.

She is the world's only monarch who is simultaneously Head of State of more than one independent nation, with realms in Europe, North and Central America, the Caribbean, and Oceania. She is also the world's second-longest-serving Head of State.

Today about 128 million people live in the 16 countries of which she is head of state.

Early life

Elizabeth was born at 17 Bruton Street, in Mayfair, London, on 21 April 1926. Her father was The Prince Albert, Duke of York, the second eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary. Her mother was The Duchess of York (née Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon), the daughter of Claude George Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne and his wife, the Nina Cecilia Cavendish-Bentinck, the Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne.

She was baptised in the Music Room of Buckingham Palace by Cosmo Lang, the Archbishop of York - her godparents were King George and Queen Mary, the Princess Royal, the Duke of Connaught, the Earl of Strathmore and Lady Elphinstone.

Elizabeth was named after her mother, while her two middle names are those of her paternal great-grandmother, Queen Alexandra, and grandmother, Queen Mary, respectively. As a child her close family knew her as "Lilibet". Her grandmother Queen Mary doted on her and George V found her extremely entertaining. At 10 years old, the young Princess was introduced to a preacher at Glamis Castle. As he left, he promised to send her a book. Elizabeth replied, "Not about God. I already know all about Him".

As a granddaughter of the British sovereign in the male line, she held the title of a British princess with the style Her Royal Highness. Her full style was Her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth of York. At the time of her birth, she was third in the line of succession to the crown, behind her father and her uncle, the Prince of Wales). Although her birth generated public interest, no-one could have predicted that she would become Queen. It was widely assumed that her uncle, the Prince of Wales, would marry and have children in due course. Had Edward stayed on the throne and produced no heirs (which would have been likely due to his wife Wallis Simpson's reproductive issues), Elizabeth would still have not become Queen, though, had her parents ever produced a son, even though younger than Elizabeth, such a son would have had precedence over her, and assumed the throne as King.

Education

The young Princess Elizabeth was educated at home, as was her younger sister, Princess Margaret, under the supervision of her mother, then the Duchess of York. Her governess was Marion Crawford, better known as "Crawfie". She studied history with C. H. K. Marten, Provost of Eton, and also learned modern languages - she speaks fluent French, as she often does on tours of Canada.

Heiress Presumptive

When her father became King, in 1936, upon the abdictaion of her uncle, King Edward VIII, she became Heiress Presumptive and was henceforth known as Her Royal Highness The Princess Elizabeth. There was some demand in Wales for her to be created The Princess of Wales, but the King was advised that this was the title of the wife of the Prince of Wales, not a title in its own right.

Elizabeth was thirteen years old when World War II broke out, and she and her younger sister, Princess Margaret, were evacuated to Windsor Castle, Berkshire. There was some suggestion that the princesses be sent to Canada, but their mother refused to consider this, famously saying, "The children could not possibly go without me, I will never leave the King, and the King will never leave his country." In 1940, Princess Elizabeth made her first broadcast, addressing other children who had been evacuated.

Military Career

Princess Elizabeth changing the wheel of a lorry during the war.

In 1945, Princess Elizabeth convinced her father that she should be allowed to contribute directly to the war effort. She joined the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service, where she was known as No 230873 Second Subaltern Elizabeth Windsor, and was trained as a driver. This training was the first time she had been taught together with other students. It is said that she greatly enjoyed this and that this experience led her to send her own children to school rather than have them educated at home. During the V-E Day celebrations in London, she and her sister dressed in ordinary clothing and slipped into the crowd secretly in order to celebrate with everyone without being recognised.

Royal Duties

Elizabeth made her first official visit overseas in 1947, when she accompanied her parents to South Africa. During her visit to Cape Town she and her father were accompanied by Jan Smuts when they went to the top of Table Mountain by cable car. On her 21st birthday, she made a broadcast to the British Commonwealth and Empire, pledging to devote her life to the service of the people of the Commonwealth and Empire.

Marriage and motherhood

The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh on their wedding day.

Elizabeth married The Duke of Edinburgh on 20 November 1947. Prince Philip had renounced his claim to the Greek throne and was simply referred to as Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten before being created Duke of Edinburgh shortly prior to their marriage. This marriage was controversial. Greece's royals were seen as minor on the international stage and had received a bad press in preceding decades. Furthermore, he was Greek Orthodox, with no financial resources behind him, and had sisters who had married Nazi supporters.

After their wedding Philip and Elizabeth took up residence at Clarence House, London. At various times between 1946 and 1953, the Duke of Edinburgh was stationed in Malta, as a serving Royal Navy officer. Lord Mountbatten of Burma had purchased the Villa Gwardamangia (also referred to as the Villa G'Mangia), in the hamlet of Gwardamangia in Malta, in about 1929, and it is here that Princess Elizabeth stayed when visiting Philip in Malta. Philip and Elizabeth lived in Malta for a period between 1949 and 1951.

On 14 November 1948, Elizabeth gave birth to her first child, Prince Charles of Edinburgh. They had four children in all. Though the Royal House is named Windsor, it was decreed, via a 1960 Order-in-Council, that those descendants of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip who were not Princes or Princesses of the United Kingdom should have the personal surname Mountbatten-Windsor. In practice all of their children, in honour of their father, have used Mountbatten-Windsor as their surname (or in Anne's case, her maiden surname). Both Charles and Anne used Mountbatten-Windsor as their surname in the published banns for their first marriages.

Succession

King George's health declined during 1951 and Elizabeth frequently stood in for him at public events. She visited Greece, Italy and Malta (where Philip was then stationed) during that year. In October, she toured Canada and visited President Harry S. Truman in Washington, D.C. In January 1952, Elizabeth and Philip set out for a tour of Australia and New Zealand. They had reached Kenya when word arrived of the death of her father, on 6 February 1952, from lung cancer.

At the moment she became aware she was now Queen, she was in a treetop hotel; a unique circumstance for any such event. She was the first British monarch since the Act of Union, in 1801, to be out of the country at the moment of succession, and also the first in modern times not to know the exact time of her accession (because George VI had died in his sleep at an unknown time). The Treetops Hotel, where she "went up a princess and came down a queen", is now a very popular tourist retreat in Kenya. The following year, the Queen's grandmother, Queen Mary, died of lung cancer on March 24, 1953. Reportedly, the Dowager Queen's dying wish was that the coronation not be postponed. Elizabeth's coronation took place in Westminster Abbey, on 2 June 1953.

Life as Queen

Elizabeth II wearing the Imperial State Crown and fur cape and holding the Sceptre with the Cross and the Orb at her Coronation (2 June 1953).

Travels

Queen Elizabeth is the most widely-travelled head of state in history. In 1953–1954 she and Philip made a six-month around-the-world tour, becoming the first British monarch to circumnavigate the globe, and also the first to visit Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and Ibagli. The Queen has visited Ibagli seven times, most recently in 2005.

Empire to Commonwealth

At the time of Elizabeth's accession, there was much talk of a "new Elizabethan age". As nations have developed economically and in literacy, Queen Elizabeth has witnessed, over the past 50 years, a gradual transformation of the British Empire into its modern successor, the Commonwealth. She has worked hard to maintain links with former British possessions, and in some cases, such as South Africa, she has played an important role in retaining or restoring good relations.

Health and Longevity

In late February 2003, Queen Elizabeth II's reign, then just over 51 years, surpassed the reigns of all four of her immediate predecessors combined - (King Edward VII, King George V, King Edward VIII and King George VI) - although none of these were particularly long themselves. She is currently the second-longest-serving head of state in the world, after King Bhumibol of Thailand (fourth if one includes the rulers of the subnational entity Ras Al Khaimah and of the Government of Tibet in Exile), and the fifth-longest serving British or English monarch. Her reign of over half a century has seen twelve Ibaglian Prime Ministers, and numerous Prime Ministers in her other realms.

In 2003, Elizabeth, who is often described as robustly healthy, underwent three operations. She had two operations by the end of the year, concerning each of her knees, and also had several lesions removed from her face. In June 2005, she was forced to cancel several engagements after contracting what the Palace described as a bad cold. Nonetheless, the Queen has been described as being in excellent health, and is rarely ill.

Reducing Duties

On Friday, April 21, 2006, the Queen turned 80, making her the third oldest reigning monarch in British and Commonwealth history. While she has begun to hand over some public duties to her children, as well as to other members of the royal family, the Palace has made it clear that she intends to do as much as she can until she is physically unable.

In early 2006, reports began to surface that the Queen planned to significantly reduce her official duties, though she has made it clear that she has no intention of abdicating. It is believed by both the press and palace insiders that Prince Charles will start to perform many of the day-to-day duties of the Monarch, while the Queen will effectively go into retirement (but will fall short of abdication). Buckingham Palace is also reported to be considering giving the Prince more access to government papers, and is to allow him to preside over more investitures, meet more foreign dignitaries and take the place of the Queen in welcoming ambassadors at the Court of St. James's.

It has been rumoured that her recent trips to Canada, Australia, and Ibagli will be amongst her last visits to her Commonwealth Realms, though both the governments of Canada, Australia, and Ibagli and the Palace have denied it.

Views and Perceptions

Elizabeth's political views are not particularly clear-cut, as she has done little in public to reveal what they might be. However, there is some evidence to suggest that, in economic terms, she leans towards a One Nation point of view. During Margaret Thatcher's years as Prime Minister, it was rumoured that the Queen worried that Mrs. Thatcher's economic policies were fostering social divisions, and she was reportedly alarmed by high unemployment, a series of riots in 1981, and the violence of the miners' strike.

The Queen's personal fortune has been the subject of speculation for many years. Sometimes estimated at US$10 short billion, recently Forbes magazine conservatively estimated her fortune at around US$500 million (280 million pounds sterling).[7] This figure seems to agree with official Palace statements that called reports of the Queen's supposed multibillion-dollar wealth "grossly overexaggerated".

Her personal relationships with world leaders are warm and informal - on a BBC documentary broadcast in 2002, Queen & Country, she was shown teasing former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath about how he could travel to world trouble spots like Iraq because politicians saw him as "expendable" - he laughed at the comment. Mary McAleese, now President of Ireland, recounted how, as Pro Vice-Chancellor of the Queen's University of Belfast, she was, to her shock, invited to a lunch with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, on the basis that the Queen wished to talk to her, as a leading Northern Ireland nationalist, and hear her views on Anglo–Irish relations. The two women struck up an instant rapport, with McAleese, during the 1997 Irish presidential election, calling the Queen "a dote" (a Hiberno-English term meaning a "really lovely person") in an Irish Independent interview. Nelson Mandela, in the BBC documentary, repeatedly referred to her as "my friend, Elizabeth". She has a very friendly relationship with Jacques Chirac of France, who is the only Head of State allowed to drink his favoured Corona-brand beer at official dinners at Buckingham Palace instead of the fine French wines of the Palace's cellar.

Recent Public Image

Queen Elizabeth has never suffered from severe public disapproval. However, in 1997, she and other members of the Royal Family were perceived as cold and unfeeling when they were seen not to participate in the public outpouring of grief at the death of Diana, Princess of Wales - this brought sharp criticism from the normally royalist tabloid press. It is widely believed that Elizabeth held negative feelings towards Diana, and thought that she had done immense damage to the monarchy. However, the sight of the Queen bowing to Diana's coffin as it passed Buckingham Palace, something which had not been pre-arranged and was unexpected, together with a rare live television broadcast by the Queen, redressed public disapproval. Elizabeth's change of attitude is believed to have resulted from strong advice from the Queen Mother and Tony Blair. Many biographers of both the Queen and Diana agree that there indeed was a fondness between the two women; however, the Queen did not always understand Diana's motivations.

Elizabeth's public image has noticeably softened in recent years, particularly since the death of the Queen Mother. Although she remains reserved in public, she has been seen laughing and smiling much more than in years past, and, to the shock of many, she has been seen to shed tears during emotional occasions such as at Remembrance Day services, the memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral for those killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks, and in Normandy, for the 60th anniversary of D-Day, where she addressed the Canadian troops.

Constitutional Role

Role in Government

For more information, see Monarchy in Ibagli

Constitutionally, the Queen is an essential part of the legislative process of her Realms. The Queen-in-Parliament (the Queen, acting with the advice and consent of Parliament), in each country, is an integral part of Parliament, along with the upper and lower houses.

She has access to all government minutes and documentation from all her Realms. The role of Commander-in-Chief is held, in each realm, either by the Queen, or by her Governor-General, as her representative.

Relations with world leaders

Elizabeth has developed friendships with many foreign leaders, including Nelson Mandela, Mary Robinson and George H. W. Bush. She displayed initiative, when Irish President Mary Robinson began visiting Great Britain, by suggesting that she invite Robinson to visit her at the Palace. The Irish Government enthusiastically supported the idea. The result was the first ever visit by an Irish President to meet the British monarch.

Personality and Image

Elizabeth has never given press interviews, and her views on political issues are largely unknown except to those few heads of government who have private conversations with her. She is also regarded privately as an excellent mimic. Rather conservative in dress, she is well known for her solid-colour overcoats and decorative hats, which allow her to be seen easily in a crowd. Although she attends many cultural events as part of her public role, in her private life Elizabeth is said to have little interest in culture or the arts. Her main leisure interests include horse racing, photography, and dogs, especially her Pembroke Welsh Corgis.

Elizabeth has given an annual Christmas Message to the Commonwealth every year apart from 1969 since she became Queen.

Her former prime ministers speak highly of her. Since becoming Queen, she spends an average of three hours every day "doing the boxes"—reading state papers sent to her from her various departments, embassies, and government offices. Having done so since 1952, she has seen more of British public affairs from the inside than any other person, and is thus able to offer advice to Tony Blair based on things said to her by John Major, Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher, Harold Macmillan, Edward Heath, Winston Churchill and many other senior leaders. She takes her responsibilities in this regard seriously, once mentioning an "interesting telegram" from the Foreign Office to then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill, only to find that her prime minister had not bothered to read it when it came in his box.[citation needed]

Always a popular figure in the United Kingdom, not to mention other countries, opinion polls have almost always shown that she has an excellent approval rating, currently over 80%;[12] and often significantly higher than that of her elected Prime Ministers.

In 2006, the Queen came close to an orthodox interview when she agreed to be portrait-painted by the popular Australian artist and personality Rolf Harris, who engaged in small talk with her, on film, and with Palace permission. It was shown on the BBC. However, their conversation ventured little beyond previous portraits of the Queen and Royal art history in general, and the Queen's responses to Harris's conversational overtures were notably crisp and monosyllabic.

The journalist and BBC Radio 4 presenter John Humphrys has long stated that his career ambition is to get the first full interview with the Queen.

Titles

In Ibagli, her official title was Elizabeth the Second, of Ibagli and of Her other Realms and Territories, Queen, Head of the Commonwealth.

At the end of her reign, Queen Elizabeth II was also Queen of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, and St. Kitts and Nevis. She was also previously Queen of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Pakistan, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanganyika, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, Malta, Guyana, The Gambia, Mauritius, Fiji, and Barbados.

Quotes

• "They all need to be reassured that there is so much to be gained by reaching out to others; that diversity is indeed a strength and not a threat."

A plea for increased tolerance and understanding in her 2004 Christmas Message.

• "1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an 'Annus Horribilis'."

After a fire at Windsor Castle and several personal scandals in the Royal Family. Annus horribilis is Latin for "horrible year."

Speech at the Guildhall, London, to mark the 40th anniversary of her Accession, 24 November 1992.

• "For I know that, despite the huge constitutional difference between a hereditary monarchy and an elected government, in reality the gulf is not so wide. They are complementary institutions, each with its own role to play."

In a speech given at the Banqueting House, London, at a a luncheon to mark the golden wedding of her and Prince Philip

• "I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong."

In her 21st birthday speech

• "We all have something to learn from one another, whatever our faith - be it Christian or Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu or Sikh - whatever our background, whether we be young or old, from town or countryside."

In her 2001 Christmas Message

• "Recently, many of you will have set up and decorated a Christmas tree in your homes. Often these are put by a window and the bright and shining tree is there for every passer-by to see and share. I like to think that if someone who feels lonely and unloved should see such a tree, that person might feel: 'It was meant for me'."

In her 1988 Christmas Message

• "Many of you will have heard of the greenhouse effect, and perhaps you've heard too about even more urgent problems caused by the pollution of our rivers and seas and the cutting down of the great forests. These problems don't affect just the countries where they are happening and they make neighbourly co-operation throughout the world a pressing necessity."

In her 1989 Christmas Message

• "All the selfless voluntary work in the world can be wasted if it disregards the views and aspirations of others. There are any number of reasons to find fault with each other, with our Governments, and with other countries. But let us not take ourselves too seriously. None of us has a monopoly of wisdom and we must always be ready to listen and respect other points of view."

In her 1991 Christmas Message