Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; born 21
April 1926
[a])
is, and has been since her accession in 1952, Queen of the United
Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and
Head of the Commonwealth. She is
also Queen of 12 countries that have become independent since her
accession:
Jamaica,
Barbados,
the
Bahamas,
Grenada,
Papua New Guinea,
Solomon Islands,
Tuvalu,
Saint Lucia,
Saint Vincent and the
Grenadines,
Belize,
Antigua and Barbuda, and
Saint Kitts and Nevis.
[b]
Elizabeth was born in London to the Duke and Duchess of York,
later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, and
was the elder of their two daughters. She was educated privately at
home. Her father acceded to the throne on the abdication of his brother
Edward VIII in 1936, from which time she was the
heir presumptive. She began to undertake
public duties during World War II, serving in the Auxiliary Territorial
Service. In 1947, she married Philip, Duke of
Edinburgh, with whom she has four children: Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward.
Elizabeth´s many historic visits and meetings include a state
visit to the Republic of Ireland and reciprocal visits to and
from the Pope. She has seen major constitutional changes, such as
devolution in the
United Kingdom, Canadian patriation, and the decolonisation of Africa. She has
also reigned through various wars and conflicts involving many of
her realms. She is the
world´s oldest reigning monarch as well as Britain´s longest-lived. In
2015, she surpassed the reign of her great-great-grandmother,
Queen Victoria, to become the longest-reigning
British head of state and the longest-reigning queen
regnant in world history.
Times of personal significance have included the births and
marriages of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren,
her coronation in 1953,
and the celebration of milestones such as her Silver, Golden and Diamond Jubilees in
1977, 2002, and 2012, respectively. Moments of sadness for her
include the death of her father, aged 56; the assassination of
Prince Philip´s uncle, Lord
Mountbatten; the breakdown of her children´s marriages in 1992
(her annus horribilis); the death in
1997 of her son´s former wife, Diana, Princess of Wales; and the
deaths of her mother and sister in 2002.
Elizabeth has occasionally faced republican
sentiments and severe press criticism of the royal family, but support for the
monarchy and her personal popularity remain high.
Elizabeth was born at 02:40 (GMT) on 21
April 1926, during the reign of her paternal grandfather, King
George V. Her father, Prince
Albert, Duke of York (later King George VI), was the second son
of the King. Her mother, Elizabeth, Duchess of
York (later Queen Elizabeth), was the youngest daughter of
Scottish aristocrat Claude
Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. She was
delivered by Caesarean section at her maternal
grandfather´s London house: 17 Bruton Street, Mayfair.[2]
She was baptised by the Anglican Archbishop of York, Cosmo Gordon Lang, in the private chapel of
Buckingham Palace on 29 May,[3][c]
and named Elizabeth after her mother, Alexandra after George V´s mother, who had died six
months earlier, and Mary after her paternal grandmother.[5]
Called "Lilibet" by her close family,[6]
based on what she called herself at first,[7]
she was cherished by her grandfather George V, and during his
serious illness in 1929 her regular visits were credited in the
popular press and by later biographers with raising his spirits and
aiding his recovery.[8]
Elizabeth´s only sibling, Princess
Margaret, was born in 1930. The two princesses were educated at
home under the supervision of their mother and their governess, Marion Crawford, who was casually known as
"Crawfie".[9]
Lessons concentrated on history, language, literature and
music.[10]
Crawford published a biography of Elizabeth and Margaret´s
childhood years entitled The Little Princesses in 1950,
much to the dismay of the royal family.[11]
The book describes Elizabeth´s love of horses and dogs, her
orderliness, and her attitude of responsibility.[12]
Others echoed such observations: Winston Churchill described Elizabeth when
she was two as "a character. She has an air of authority and
reflectiveness astonishing in an infant."[13]
Her cousin Margaret Rhodes described her as "a
jolly little girl, but fundamentally sensible and
well-behaved".
Elizabeth met her future husband, Prince Philip of Greece
and Denmark, in 1934 and 1937.[39]
They are second cousins once removed through King Christian IX of Denmark and third
cousins through Queen Victoria. After another meeting at the
Royal Naval College in
Dartmouth in July 1939,
Elizabeth—though only 13 years old—said she fell in
love with Philip and they began to exchange letters.[40]
Their engagement was officially announced on 9 July
1947.[41]
The engagement was not without controversy: Philip had no
financial standing, was foreign-born (though a British subject who
had served in the Royal
Navy throughout the Second World War), and had sisters who had
married German noblemen with Nazi links.[42]
Marion Crawford wrote, "Some of the King´s advisors did not think
him good enough for her. He was a prince without a home or kingdom.
Some of the papers played long and loud tunes on the string of
Philip´s foreign origin."[43]
Elizabeth´s mother was reported, in later biographies, to have
opposed the union initially, even dubbing Philip "The Hun".[44]
In later life, however, she told biographer Tim
Heald that Philip was "an English gentleman".[45]
Before the marriage, Philip renounced his Greek and Danish
titles, converted from Greek Orthodoxy to Anglicanism, and adopted the style Lieutenant
Philip Mountbatten, taking the
surname of his mother´s British family.[46]
Just before the wedding, he was created Duke of Edinburgh and granted the style
His Royal Highness.[47]
Elizabeth and Philip were married on 20 November 1947 at
Westminster Abbey. They received 2500
wedding gifts from around the world.[48]
Because Britain had not yet completely recovered from the
devastation of the war, Elizabeth required ration coupons to buy
the material for her gown, which was
designed by Norman Hartnell.[49]
In post-war Britain, it was not acceptable for the Duke of
Edinburgh´s German relations, including his three surviving
sisters, to be invited to the wedding.[50]
The Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII,
was not invited either.[51]
Elizabeth gave birth to her first child, Prince Charles, on 14 November 1948.
One month earlier, the King had issued letters patent allowing her children to use
the style and title of a royal prince or princess, to which they
otherwise would not have been entitled as their father was no
longer a royal prince.[52]
A second child, Princess Anne, was born in
1950.[53]
Following their wedding, the couple leased Windlesham Moor, near Windsor Castle, until 4 July 1949,[48]
when they took up residence at Clarence House in London. At various times
between 1949 and 1951, the Duke of Edinburgh was stationed in the
British Crown Colony of Malta as a serving
Royal Navy officer. He and Elizabeth lived intermittently, for
several months at a time, in the hamlet of Gwardamanġa, at Villa Guardamangia, the rented home of
Philip´s uncle, Lord
Mountbatten. The children remained in Britain.
During 1951, George VI´s health declined and Elizabeth
frequently stood in for him at public events. When she toured
Canada and visited President Harry S. Truman in Washington, D.C., in
October 1951, her private secretary, Martin
Charteris, carried a draft accession declaration in case the
King died while she was on tour.[55]
In early 1952, Elizabeth and Philip set out for a tour of Australia
and New Zealand by way of Kenya. On 6 February 1952, they had just
returned to their Kenyan home, Sagana Lodge, after a night spent at Treetops Hotel, when word arrived of the death
of the King and consequently Elizabeth´s immediate accession to the
throne. Philip broke the news to the new Queen.[56]
Martin Charteris asked her to choose a regnal name; she chose to remain Elizabeth, "of
course".[57]
She was proclaimed
queen throughout her realms and the royal party hastily
returned to the United Kingdom.[58]
She and the Duke of Edinburgh moved into Buckingham Palace.[59]
With Elizabeth´s accession, it seemed probable that the
royal house would bear her husband´s name,
becoming the House of Mountbatten, in line with the custom
of a wife taking her husband´s surname on marriage. The British
Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and Elizabeth´s
grandmother, Queen Mary, favoured the retention of the
House of Windsor, and so on 9 April 1952
Elizabeth issued a declaration that Windsor would continue
to be the name of the royal house. The Duke complained, "I am the
only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own
children."[60]
In 1960, after the death of Queen Mary in 1953 and the resignation
of Churchill in 1955, the surname Mountbatten-Windsor was adopted for
Philip and Elizabeth´s male-line descendants who do not carry royal
titles.[61]
Coronation portrait of Queen Elizabeth II
and the Duke of Edinburgh, June 1953
Amid preparations for the coronation,
Princess
Margaret informed her sister that she wished to marry Peter Townsend, a
divorcé‚ 16 years Margaret´s senior, with two sons from his
previous marriage. The Queen asked them to wait for a year; in the
words of Martin Charteris, "the Queen was naturally sympathetic
towards the Princess, but I think she thought—she
hoped—given time, the affair would peter out."[62]
Senior politicians were against the match and the Church of England
did not permit remarriage after divorce. If Margaret had contracted
a civil marriage, she would have been expected to renounce her
right of succession.[63]
Eventually, she decided to abandon her plans with
Townsend.[64]
In 1960, she married Antony
Armstrong-Jones, who was created Earl of Snowdon the following year. They
divorced in 1978; she did not remarry.[65]
Despite the death of Queen Mary on 24 March, the coronation on 2
June 1953 went ahead as planned, as Mary had asked before she
died.[66]
The ceremony in Westminster Abbey, with the exception of
the anointing and communion, was televised for the first
time.[67][d]
Elizabeth´s coronation
gown was embroidered on her instructions with the floral
emblems of Commonwealth countries:[71]
English Tudor rose; Scots thistle; Welsh leek; Irish
shamrock; Australian wattle; Canadian maple
leaf; New Zealand silver fern; South African protea;
lotus flowers for India and Ceylon; and
Pakistan´s wheat, cotton, and jute.
Ancestry
