British Queen Elizabeth, 96, passes away peacefully in her residence in Scotland

Elizabeth Alexandra Mary
House	Windsor
Father	George VI
Mother	Elizabeth Bowers-Lyon

Queen of the British monarchy as well as the other Commonwealth nations
Reign	6 February 1952 –8 September 2022
Coronation	2 June 1953
Predecessor	George VI
Successor	Charles III
Born	Princess Elizabeth of York 21 April 1926 Mayfair, London, United Kingdom
Died	8 September 2022 (aged 96)Balmoral Castle, Aberdeen shire, United Kingdom
Burial	TBD King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle
Spouse	Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (m. 1947; died 2021)​

Background

In the private chapel of Buckingham Palace, she was baptized on May 29 by the Anglican Archbishop of York, Cosmo Gordon Lang. She was given the names Elizabeth after her mother, Alexandra after her paternal great-grandmother, who had passed away six months earlier, and Mary after her paternal grandmother.
 

In a statement, Buckingham Palace said, "The Queen passed away peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon." The King and the Queen Consort will stay at Balmoral until this evening and travel back to London the next day.

Elizabeth was named after her mother, Alexandra was named after her great-paternal grandmother's side who had passed away six months before, and Mary was named after her grandmother's paternal side. She was loved by her grandfather, George V, whom she adored and affectionately called "Grandpa England," and her regular visits during his serious illness in 1929 were credited in the popular press and by later biographers with lifting his spirits and assisting his recovery. She was known as "Lilibet" by her close family, based on what she initially called herself.

The personalities and other subjects that appeared on the Time magazine cover in the 1920s are listed below. The first issue of Time came out in 1923. A presence on the Time cover has become a sign of notoriety as Time has grown to become one of the top news magazines in the United States.

Charles, her 73-year-old eldest son, immediately ascends to the throne of the United Kingdom and 14 other nations, including Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.

After doctors voiced concern over her health, her family hurried to be by her side at her Scottish residence, Balmoral Castle. Since the end of last year, she had been experiencing what Buckingham Palace has referred to as "episodic mobility issues," which had forced her to cancel almost all of her public appearances.

Elizabeth was the first child born to the Duke and Duchess of York and was born in Mayfair, London (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth). Elizabeth was the presumed heir when her father assumed the throne in 1936 following the abdication of his brother, King Edward VIII. She received a private home education before starting to serve in the Auxiliary Territorial Service during the Second World War. She wed former Greek and Danish royal Philip Mountbatten in November 1947; their union lasted 73 years until he passed away in April 2021. Charles III, Anne, Princess Royal, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex are their four offspring.

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At the age of 25, Elizabeth succeeded her father as head of the Commonwealth and queen of seven sovereign Commonwealth nations: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The Troubles in Northern Ireland, devolution in the UK, the end of African colonialism, and the UK's membership in the European Communities and exit from the European Union all occurred during Elizabeth's constitutional monarchy. Her realms changed in number throughout time as other lands attained independence and some realms established republics. Among her several notable encounters and travels are state visits to China in 1986, Russia in 1994, and the Republic of Ireland in 2011, as well as meeting with five.

2nd World War

World War II, sometimes known as the Second World War or just World War II, lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's nations—including all the great powers—formed the Allies and the Axis powers, two military coalitions that opposed one another.

Elizabeth's 1953 coronation and the observances of her Silver, Golden, Diamond, and Platinum Jubilees in 1977, 2002, 2012, and 2022, respectively, are notable occasions. Elizabeth was the second-longest reigning queen in history, only trailing Louis XIV of France, and the longest-living and reigning monarch in British history. She occasionally dealt with republican sentiment and criticism of her family from the media, especially following the dissolution of her children's marriages, her "annus horribilis" in 1992, and the passing of her ex-daughter-in-law Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997. However, both her personal popularity and support for the monarchy remained continuously strong in the United Kingdom. At Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire, Elizabeth passed away on September 8, 2022. Charles III, her oldest son, took over as her successor.

The United Kingdom joined the Second World War in September 1939. Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret's mother rebuffed Lord Hailsham's suggestion that they be evacuated to Canada in order to avoid the Luftwaffe's regular aerial bombings of London, saying, "The children won't go without me. I won't leave without the King. And the King would never leave.

 Douglas McGarel Hogg

In addition to holding a number of other Cabinet roles, Douglas McGarel Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham was a British barrister and Conservative politician who served as Lord Chancellor twice. suggested as a potential party leader to succeed Stanley Baldwin

 Evacuation of civilians in Britain

In Britain during the Second World War, citizens were moved to locations deemed to be less dangerous in order to safeguard people, particularly children, from the risks connected with aerial bombing of towns.

Strategic bombing, which first became common in warfare during World War I, expanded to a gigantic scale in World War II, and is still used today, can include the aerial bombing of cities. The advent of aircraft bombardment signalled an improvement in the military's ability to.

The Luftstreitkräfte of the Imperial Army and the Marine-Fliegerabteilung of the Imperial Navy, Germany's military air arms during World War I, had been disbanded in May 1920 in accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The Luftwaffe was the aerial-warfare branch of the German Wehrmacht before and during World War II

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Up until Christmas 1939, the princesses resided at Scotland's Balmoral Castle before relocating to Norfolk's Sandringham House. They lived at Windsor's Royal Lodge from February to May 1940 before relocating to Windsor Castle, where they spent the majority of the following five years. While there, the princesses performed pantomimes at Christmas to raise money for the Queen's Wool Fund, which was used to purchase yarn for knitting military apparel. Elizabeth, then 14 years old, addressed other children who had been evacuated from the cities during the BBC's Children's Hour in 1940. She said: "We are trying to do all we can to help our brave sailors, soldiers, and airmen, and we are trying, too, to bear our own share of the danger and sadness of war.

Auxiliary Territorial Service 

 

The British Army's female division during World War II was known as the Auxiliary Territorial Service. It was established on September 9, 1938, at first as a women's voluntary service, and it lasted until it was combined with the Women's Royal Army Corps on February 1, 1949.

Elizabeth made her first solo public appearance in 1943 while visiting the Grenadier Guards, where she had been made Colonel the year before. In order for her to serve as one of the five Counsellors of State in the event of her father's disability or absence abroad, such as during his trip to Italy in July 1944, parliament altered the statute as she got closer to turning 18 years old. She was given the service number 230873 and appointed an honorary second subaltern in the Auxiliary Territorial Service in February 1945. Five months after completing her training as a technician and driver, she was promoted to honorary junior commander, the female equivalent of captain at the time.

Victory in Europe Day 

On Victory in Europe Day, which marked the conclusion of the European War, Elizabeth and Margaret mingled covertly with the revellers in the streets of London. "We asked my parents if we could go out and see for ourselves. I remember we were afraid of being recognised. I remember lines of unknown people locking arms and strolling down Whitehall, all of us just swept along on a flood of ecstasy and relief," Elizabeth later recalled in a rare interview.

The celebration of Victory in Europe Day commemorates the Allies' formal recognition of Germany's total and utter surrender of her military forces on May 8, 1945. On May 9, Russia and a few other former Soviet nations celebrate the Eastern Front's victory in World War II. Several

From 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill led the United Kingdom as Prime Minister. He was a British statesman, soldier, and author. Between 1922 and 1924, there were only two exceptions

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Plans were made during the war to ally Elizabeth more closely with Wales in order to stifle Welsh nationalism. For a variety of reasons, including concern that Elizabeth might be associated with conscientious objectors in the Urdd at a time when Britain was at war, proposals to make her the Constable of Caernarfon Castle or a patron of Urdd Gobaith Cymru (the Welsh League of Youth) were dropped. She should become Princess of Wales when she turns 18 years old, according to Welsh MPs. The King disagreed, believing that such a title belonged only to the wife of a Prince of Wales, who had always been the heir apparent. The notion was supported by Home Secretary Herbert Morrison. She was admitted to the Gorsedd of Bards in 1946.

In 1947, Princess Elizabeth travelled to her first foreign country with her parents, seeing southern Africa. "I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be committed to your service and the service of our great imperial family, to which we all belong," she said in a broadcast to the British Commonwealth on the occasion of her 21st birthday during the visit. Dermot Morrah, a journalist for The Times, wrote the speech.

Marriage

Elizabeth first met Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark in 1934, and they reconnected in 1937. Through King Christian IX of Denmark, they were second cousins once removed, and through Queen Victoria, third cousins. Elizabeth, then 13 years old, claimed to have fallen in love with Philip during their third encounter at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth in July 1939. She was 21 when their engagement was formally announced on July 9, 1947.

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

The longest-serving royal consort in history, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was married to Queen Elizabeth II and served as her consort from her coronation on February 6, 1952, until his death in 2021.

The relationship was not without controversy because Philip had no money, was foreign-born (despite being a British national who had fought in the Royal Navy during World War II), and had sisters who had wed Nazi-affiliated German noblemen. Writing as Marion Crawford, "A few of the King's advisers didn't believe he was suitable for her. A prince without a castle or realm, he was. On the thread of Philip's foreign ancestry, some of the papers played protracted and loud tunes." Later histories claimed Elizabeth's mother initially had misgivings about the union and called Philip "The Hun." However, the Queen Mother later said to Tim Heald, a biographer, that Philip was "an English gentleman."

Elizabeth and Philip were married on November 20, 1947, at Westminster Abbey. Prior to their wedding, Philip renounced his Greek and Danish titles, converted formally from Greek Orthodoxy to Anglicanism, and took the name Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, which was that of his mother's British family. Shortly after, he was made Duke of Edinburgh and given the style His Royal Highness. They received 2,500 wedding gifts from people all over the world. Because Britain had not yet fully recovered from the effects of the war, Elizabeth had to use ration coupons to pay for the fabric for her gown, which was designed by Norman Hartnell. The invitation of Philip's German relatives, including his three surviving sisters, to the wedding was not acceptable in post-war Britain.

On November 14, 1948, Elizabeth gave birth to Prince Charles, her first child. The King had granted letters patent to her children a month earlier, allowing them to adopt the title and style of a royal prince or princess, to which they would not have otherwise been entitled since their father was no longer a royal prince. Princess Anne was born on August 15, 1950, as the second child.

The United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth kingdoms are ruled by Charles III. After his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, passed away on September 8, 2022, he succeeded to the throne as the Duke of Rothesay and Cornwall from 1952 until his succession.

When they got married, the pair rented Windlesham Moor, which was close to Windsor Castle, until July 1949, when they moved into Clarence House in London. The Duke of Edinburgh served in the Royal Navy and was stationed in the British Crown Colony of Malta at various points between 1949 and 1951. He and Elizabeth spent sporadic periods of time in Malta, residing in the hamlet of Gwardamana at Villa Guardamangia, a rental property owned by Philip's uncle, Lord Mountbatten. Their two kids stayed in the UK.

Entry and royal wedding

Elizabeth frequently filled in for George VI at major engagements as his health deteriorated during 1951. In case the King passed away while she was on tour, her private secretary Martin Charteris brought a draught accession proclamation with him when she travelled to Canada and met with President Harry S. Truman in Washington, D.C. in October 1951.

Early in 1952, Elizabeth and Philip left for a trip through Kenya to Australia and New Zealand. When word of George VI's passing and Elizabeth's subsequent succession to the throne with immediate effect reached them on February 6, 1952, they had just arrived back to Sagana Lodge in Kenya after spending the previous night at Treetops Hotel. She decided to keep Elizabeth as her regnal name after Philip imparted the news to her.

Elizabeth was the first Elizabeth to rule Scotland, therefore she was given the moniker Elizabeth II, which many Scots found offensive. The royal entourage immediately returned to the United Kingdom, where Elizabeth and Philip settled into Buckingham Palace.

With Elizabeth's ascension, it was likely that the royal family would take the Duke of Edinburgh's surname in keeping with the tradition of a wife adopting her husband's surname upon marriage. The moniker "House of Mountbatten" was promoted by Lord Mountbatten. With reference to his ducal title, Philip proposed House of Edinburgh.

Elizabeth said on April 9, 1952, that the House of Windsor would continue to be the name of the royal house because Queen Mary and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill supported keeping the name. The surname Mountbatten-Windsor was adopted in 1960 for Philip and Elizabeth's male line descendants who do not hold royal titles in response to the Duke's complaint that "I am the only man in the kingdom not entitled to give his name to his own offspring."

In the midst of coronation preparations, Princess Margaret revealed to her sister that she wanted to wed Peter Townsend, a divorcee who was 16 years Margaret's senior and had two boys from a previous marriage. According to her private secretary, Elizabeth encouraged them to wait a year because she was "naturally sympathetic toward the Princess, but I think she thought—she hoped—given time, the affair would fade out."

Senior politicians opposed the union, and the Church of England forbade remarriage following divorce. Margaret made the decision to break off her engagement to Townsend. Had she entered into a civil union, she would have been required to give up her right to succeed.

Despite Queen Mary's passing on 24 March 1953, the coronation took place as scheduled on 2 June, as Mary had requested before she passed away. The Westminster Abbey coronation, with the exception of the anointing and communion, was broadcast on television for the first time. Elizabeth's coronation gown was embroidered with the floral symbols of Commonwealth nations as per her request.

Following Eden's departure, it was up to Elizabeth to choose who to appoint to lead the Conservative Party because there was no formal process in place for doing so. Eden advised her to speak with Lord Salisbury, the Council's Lord President. Harold Macmillan was chosen by Elizabeth after Lord Salisbury and Lord Kilmuir, the Lord Chancellor, consulted Churchill, the British Cabinet, and the head of the backbench 1922 Committee.

Elizabeth travelled to the US as part of a state visit in 1957, and while there, she spoke to the UN General Assembly on behalf of the Commonwealth. Two years later, solely in her capacity as Queen of Canada, she returned to the United States and toured Canada. In 1961, she toured Cyprus, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Iran. That same year, on a trip to Ghana, she dismissed concerns for her safety despite the fact that her host, President Kwame Nkrumah, who had taken over as head of state, was a target for assassination. She became the first monarch of Canada to open a parliamentary session.

"The Queen has been absolutely determined all through," Harold Macmillan wrote. "She is impatient of the attitude toward her to treat her as... a film star... She has indeed "the heart and stomach of a man"... She loves her duty and means to be a Queen." Prior to her tour through parts of Quebec in 1964, the press reported that Quebec separatist movement extremists were plotting Elizabeth's assassination. No attempt was made, but a riot did occur while she

The birth of a reigning British monarch since 1857 occurred when Elizabeth gave birth to her third child, Prince Andrew, on February 19, 1960. Her fourth child, Prince Edward, arrived on March 10, 1964.

Elizabeth performed the customary rites and introduced new customs. Her first royal outing, where she interacted with members of the general public, was in 1970 while she was touring Australia and New Zealand.

Decolonization is Accelerating

Africa and the Caribbean's decolonization accelerated in the 1960s and 1970s. A planned transition to self-government saw more than 20 nations sever ties with Britain. However, the Rhodesian prime minister, Ian Smith, unilaterally declared independence in 1965, referring to Elizabeth as "Queen of Rhodesia," while opposing efforts toward majority government. Despite the fact that Elizabeth legally ousted him and the world community imposed sanctions on Rhodesia, his government persisted for more than ten years. The British government sought admission to the European Community as its links to its old empire deteriorated; it was successful in this endeavour in 1973.

Elizabeth was the first British monarch to travel to a communist nation when she visited Yugoslavia in October 1972. President Josip Broz Tito met her at the airport, and hundreds of people greeted her in Belgrade.

Silver Anniversary

Elizabeth celebrated her Silver Jubilee of accession in 1977. Parties and events were held all around the Commonwealth, many of which coincided with her corresponding national and Commonwealth tours. Even though Princess Margaret's divorce from her husband, Lord Snowdon, received bad press coverage almost coincidentally, the celebrations reaffirmed Elizabeth's popularity. Elizabeth put up with Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena's state visit to the UK in 1978, even though she secretly believed they had "blood on their hands." 

Two tragedies occurred the next year: the first was the revelation that Anthony Blunt, a former surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, was a communist spy, and the second was the murder of her relative and in-law Lord Mountbatten by the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

Paul Martin Sr. claims that towards the 1970s' end, Elizabeth was concerned that Pierre Trudeau, the Canadian prime leader, "had little meaning" for the Crown. Trudeau, according to Tony Benn, was "quite disappointing" to Elizabeth. By engaging in pranks like pirouetting beside Elizabeth in 1977 and sliding down stairwells at Buckingham Palace, as well as by removing many Canadian royal emblems while in office, Trudeau's purported republicanism appeared to be supported. 

In 1980, Canadian MPs who had been sent to London to debate the patriation of the Canadian constitution discovered Elizabeth to be "more informed... than any of the British politicians or bureaucrats." The rejection of Bill C-60, which would have compromised her position as head of state, piqued her curiosity in particular.

Press coverage and Thatcher's presidency

Six shots were fired at Elizabeth while she was riding down The Mall in London at the 1981 Trooping the Colour ceremony, six weeks before Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer were wed. The shots were actually blanks, the police later learned. Marcus Sarjeant, a 17-year-old attacker, was given a five-year prison term and released after three. Many people applauded Elizabeth for maintaining her composure and her expertise in handling her mount. While Elizabeth was in Dunedin, New Zealand, that October, she was the target of another assault. 17-year-old Christopher John Lewis attempted to shoot the parade from the fifth floor of a building with a.22 rifle but missed.

Elizabeth's son, Prince Andrew, participated in the Falklands War from April to September 1982 as a member of the British military, which apparently caused her both fear and pride. She found an intruder, Michael Fagan, in the room with her when she woke up in her bedroom at Buckingham Palace on July 9. Assistance didn't arrive until after two calls to the Palace police switchboard, a severe security violation. Elizabeth was incensed when Ronald Reagan's administration planned the invasion of Grenada, one of her Caribbean realms, without her knowledge after she hosted him at Windsor Castle in 1982 and paid a visit to his ranch in California in 1983.

During the 1980s, there was a great deal of media interest in the views and personal lives of the royal family, which resulted in a number of dramatic articles that were not totally accurate. Give me a Sunday for a Monday splash on the Royals, The Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie instructed his staff. If it turns out to be false, don't worry as long as there isn't a big fuss made about it. The line separating fact from fiction has been lost sight of, according to newspaper editor Donald Trelford, who wrote this in The Observer on September 21, 1986.

1990s turmoil and Annus Horribilis

Elizabeth referred to 1992 as her "annus horribilis" in a speech she gave to commemorate the Ruby Jubilee of her ascension to the throne on November 24. (a Latin phrase, meaning "horrible year"). Because of journalistic accounts of Elizabeth's private fortune, which the Palace disputes, and accounts of her extended family's extramarital affairs and unhappy marriages, Republican sentiment in Britain had increased.

Diana, the wife of Prince Charles, and he filed for divorce. Elizabeth filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against The Sun tabloid at the end of the year after it released the content of her yearly Christmas speech two days before it was broadcast. The newspaper was compelled to cover her legal costs and make a £200,000 charitable donation. Five years previously, after The Sun published a picture of Elizabeth's granddaughter Princess Beatrice and her daughter-in-law the Duchess of York, Elizabeth's lawyers filed a lawsuit against the newspaper for violating copyright. An out-of-court settlement that mandated the newspaper pay $180,000 resolved the issue.

Gold Anniversary

Elizabeth celebrated her Golden Jubilee in 2002, the 50th anniversary of her coronation. In February and March of that year, her sister and mother passed away, prompting media rumours over whether or not the Jubilee would be a success. She once more completed a thorough tour of her kingdoms, beginning in February in Jamaica, where she described the farewell luncheon as "memorable" when a power outage left the King's House, the governor-official general's house, in the dark. Similar to 1977, there were street celebrations, memorial services, and memorials dedicated to the event. Each day of the three-day major Jubilee celebration in London had one million attendees, and the level of public support for Elizabeth was more than many journalists had anticipated.

Longevity and the Diamond Jubilee

Celebrations were organised across Elizabeth's territories, the wider Commonwealth, and abroad to honour her Diamond Jubilee in 2012, which marked 60 years as monarch. While her children and grandchildren undertook royal tours of other Commonwealth nations on her behalf, she and her husband completed a lengthy trip of the United Kingdom. Jubilee beacons were lit on June 4th all throughout the world. Elizabeth made an unexpected visit at a wedding party in Manchester Town Hall while on a Jubilee tour of the city, which attracted media attention throughout the world. Elizabeth and her husband celebrated their anniversary with a blue sapphire in November (65th).

Pandemic COVID-19

As the COVID-19 pandemic struck the UK on March 19, 2020, Elizabeth relocated to Windsor Castle and went into seclusion there. [216] Public events were postponed, while Windsor Castle adhered to a stringent hygienic standard known as "HMS Bubble."

During the COVID-19 pandemic, in a virtual meeting with Dame Cindy Kiro, October 2021

She urged people to "take comfort that while we may have much still to endure, brighter days will return: we will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again" in a televised address on April 5 that was seen by an estimated 24 million viewers in the UK. In a TV broadcast on May 8th, the 75th anniversary of VE Day, at exactly 9 p.m.

Platinum Jubilee 

On February 6, 2022, Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee officially began, marking 70 years since she succeeded to the throne following the passing of her father. She hosted a reception at Sandringham House on the night before the event for retirees, neighbourhood Women's Institute members, and charity workers. Elizabeth reiterated her 1947 promise to devote her life to public service in her address for Accession Day.

Death

On February 6, 2022, Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee officially began, marking 70 years since she succeeded to the throne following the passing of her father. She hosted a reception at Sandringham House on the night before the event for retirees, neighbourhood Women's Institute members, and charity workers. [240] Elizabeth reiterated her 1947 promise to devote her life to public service in her address for Accession Day.