Queen Elizabeth II, who ruled the UK for 70 years, died at Balmoral at the age of 96. She was the monarch who ruled the country the longest.
Queen Elizabeth II, who held the title of longest-reigning queen of the United Kingdom, passed away at the age of 96 at her Scottish estate, Balmoral. Concerns about her health led her family to gather at her Scottish estate on Thursday.
Since 1952, when she became Queen, a lot has changed in society. Liz Truss, the Prime Minister, said that the Queen was the foundation of modern Britain and that the new King would be called King Charles III.
In a statement, His Majesty the King, who will also be the head of state for 14 Commonwealth realms, said, “The death of my beloved mother, Her Majesty the Queen, is a time of great sadness for me and all of my family.” We are very sad about the death of a much-loved sovereign and mother. I know that her death will hurt a lot of people in the country, the realms, the Commonwealth, and all over the world. “
He said that during the time of grief and change, he and his family would be “comforted and sustained by the fact that the Queen was held in such high regard and deep affection by so many. The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon,” Buckingham Palace said in a statement. This evening, the King and Queen Consort will stay at Balmoral. Tomorrow, they will go back to London.
After doctors put the Queen under medical care, all of her children went to Balmoral, which is near Aberdeen. Prince William, her grandson, is also there, and his brother, Prince Harry, is on his way there. Ms. Truss, who was named by the Queen on Tuesday, said that the monarch “gave us the stability and strength we needed” and that the country would support the new king. “We’ll be loyal to him, just like his mother was loyal to so many people for so long,” she said.
Queen Elizabeth II was in charge of the government after World War II, during the change from empire to Commonwealth, at the end of the Cold War, and when the UK joined and left the European Union. Her rule covered 15 prime ministers, from Winston Churchill, who was born in 1874, to Ms. Truss, who was born in 1975, 101 years later. During her reign, she met with her prime minister once a week. People waiting outside Buckingham Palace in London to hear about the Queen’s health started to cry when they heard she had died. At 18:30 BST, the Union flag on top of the palace was brought down to half-mast.
Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor was born on April 21, 1926, in Mayfair, London. Few people thought she would become queen, but in December 1936, her uncle, Edward VIII, gave up the throne to marry Wallis Simpson, an American who had been married twice before.
Elizabeth’s father became King George VI, and when she was 10, she became the heir to the throne. Her family called her “Lilibet.”
In just three years, Nazi Germany and Britain were at war. During the war, Elizabeth and her younger sister, Princess Margaret, spent a lot of time at Windsor Castle because their parents didn’t want to send them to Canada. After she turned 18, Elizabeth joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service for five months. There, she learned how to drive and do basic car repairs. “I started to understand the team spirit that grows when things go wrong,” she said later. During the war, she wrote letters to Philip, Prince of Greece, who was in the Royal Navy and was her third cousin. Their love grew, and on November 20, 1947, they got married at Westminster Abbey. The prince became the Duke of Edinburgh. She would say that after they were married for 74 years, he was “my strength and stay.” He died in 2021 at the age of 99.
Their first son, Charles, was born in 1948. Princess Anne, Prince Andrew, and Prince Edward all came along after that. They gave their parents eight grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren between the two of them. In 1952, Princess Elizabeth was in Kenya taking care of the sick King. It was there that Prince Philip told her that her father had died. She went back to London right away as the new Queen. “It all happened very quickly, and you just have to do the best you can,” she said later.
Elizabeth was crowned at Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953, when she was 27 years old. More than 20 million people watched the event on TV, which was a record at the time. In the following decades, there would be a lot of change. The British Empire would end overseas, and the swinging ’60s would change social norms at home. Elizabeth changed the monarchy to fit a time when people were less respectful. She did this by going on walkabouts, visiting royal residences, and going to public events. She always cared about the Commonwealth, and she went to every country in the Commonwealth at least once.
But there were times when the pain was both private and public. The Queen’s “year from hell” was 1992, when a fire destroyed Windsor Castle, which was both her home and a working palace, and three of her children’s marriages ended. After Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a car accident in Paris in 1997, people said the Queen didn’t seem to want to talk about it in public. There were questions about how important the monarchy was in the modern world.
“No institution… should expect to be free from the scrutiny of those who are loyal and support it, let alone those who aren’t,” she said.
