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Portrait of Elizabeth II

Monarchs · Saxe-Coburg & Windsor

Elizabeth II

1926–2022

House of Windsor — the longest reign in British history

In office: 1952–2022

Elizabeth II reigned for seventy years and 214 days, longer than any other British monarch, from the last years of empire to the age of the smartphone. She had fifteen UK prime ministers, from Churchill to Truss, presided over the transformation of the Commonwealth, and made the monarchy's survival look like an act of sheer constancy. She died at Balmoral in September 2022 and was buried beside her husband and parents at Windsor.

How to spot them

  • ▸Lilibet; the longest-reigning British monarch; Head of the Commonwealth
  • ▸Married Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh, in 1947; four children
  • ▸Corgis, Balmoral, red boxes and a weekly audience with the prime minister
  • ▸Silver, Golden, Diamond, Sapphire and Platinum jubilees

In the reign

A princess in a Kenyan treehouse learns that she has become queen (1952)

Treetops Hotel, February 1952; she acceded on 6 February on the death of her father

The first coronation to be televised, watched by some twenty million people in Britain (1953)

2 June 1953; Churchill had opposed the cameras and was overruled

A colliery spoil tip slides onto a village school in south Wales, killing 116 children (1966)

Aberfan; the Queen's delay in visiting was among her lasting regrets

A sovereign describes a year of fires and marital collapse in Latin as not one on which she will look back with undiluted pleasure (1992)

The annus horribilis speech at Guildhall, after the Windsor Castle fire

A first state visit by a British sovereign to a neighbouring republic, opened with a few words in Irish (2011)

The state visit to Ireland, May 2011; 'A Uachtaráin agus a chairde'

A filmed sketch in which a monarch appears to parachute into a stadium with a fictional secret agent (2012)

The London Olympics opening ceremony, with Daniel Craig as James Bond

A broadcast during a national lockdown that ends by borrowing the title of a Vera Lynn song (2020)

'We will meet again', 5 April 2020

Seventy years on the throne, marked by four days of pageant and a balcony appearance (2022)

The Platinum Jubilee, June 2022 — the first in British history

Quick-fire facts

  • •Born 21 April 1926 in Mayfair; she became heir presumptive when her uncle abdicated in 1936
  • •She trained as a driver and mechanic in the Auxiliary Territorial Service in 1945
  • •She married Philip Mountbatten on 20 November 1947; he died on 9 April 2021, aged 99
  • •Her children are Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward; her coronation was on 2 June 1953
  • •Fifteen UK prime ministers served under her, from Winston Churchill to Liz Truss, whom she appointed at Balmoral two days before her death
  • •She became the longest-reigning British monarch on 9 September 2015, passing Victoria
  • •She was Head of the Commonwealth and, at her death, sovereign of fifteen realms
  • •Her reign was the first to be marked by a Sapphire Jubilee (2017) and a Platinum Jubilee (2022)
  • •She died at Balmoral on 8 September 2022; her state funeral was on 19 September and she is buried in the King George VI Memorial Chapel, Windsor

Drill it — 9 cards

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Sources