Elizabeth II, fully Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, formally Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the uk of nice {britain|United Kingdom|UK|Great Britain|GB|Britain| the United Kingdom of nice Britain and Northern Ireland|kingdom} and European nation and of her different realms and territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, (born Apr 21, 1926, London, England), queen of the uk of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from Feb 6, 1952. In 2015 she surpassed Victoria to become the longest-reigning monarch in British history.
childhood
Elizabeth was the elder female offspring of blue blood Albert, duke of York, and his wife, woman Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. because the child of a younger son of King patron saint V, the young Elizabeth had very little prospect of acceding to the throne till her uncle, Edward VIII (afterward duke of Windsor), abdicated in her father’s favour on Gregorian calendar month 11, 1936, at which period her father became King George VI and he or she became heir presumptive. The aristocrat’s education was supervised by her mother, who entrusted her daughters to a governess, Marion Crawford; the princess was additionally grounded in history by C.H.K. Marten, subsequently academic administrator of Eton College, and had instruction from visiting academics in music and languages. throughout war II she and her sister, aristocrat Margaret Rose, perforce spent a lot of of their time safely far from the London blitz ANd separated from their parents, living largely at castle in Scotland and at the Royal Lodge, Windsor, and Windsor Castle.
Early in 1947 aristocrat Elizabeth went with the king and queen to South Africa. once her come there was an announcement of her betrothal to her distant relative Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten of the Royal Navy, erst Philip of Balkan country and Denmark. the wedding passed in Westminster Abbey on Gregorian calendar month 20, 1947. On the eve of the marriage her father, the king, presented upon the bridegroom the titles of duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth, and Baron Greenwich. They took residence at carriage House in London. Their initial child, Prince of Wales (Charles prince Arthur George), was born Gregorian calendar month 14, 1948, at Buckingham Palace.
Accession to the throne
within the summer of 1951 the health of King George VI entered into a heavy decline, and aristocrat Elizabeth diagrammatic him at the Trooping the color and on numerous different state occasions. On October seven she and her husband commenced on a extremely triple-crown tour of Canada and Washington, D.C. once Christmas in European nation she and also the duke commenced in January 1952 for a tour of Australia and New Zealand, however en route, at Sagana, Kenya, news reached them of the king’s death on Feb 6, 1952. Elizabeth, currently queen, quickly flew back to England. the primary 3 months of her reign, the amount of full mourning for her father, were passed in comparative seclusion. however within the summer, after she had enraptured from carriage House to Buckingham Palace, she undertook the routine duties of the sovereign and administrated her American state gap of Parliament on Gregorian calendar month 4, 1952. Her initiation was command at Westminster Abbey on Gregorian calendar month 2, 1953.
starting in November 1953 the queen {and the|and therefore the|and additionally the} duke of capital created a six-month round-the-world tour of the Commonwealth, including the primary visit to Australia and New Zealand by a powerful British monarch. In 1957, once state visits to numerous European nations, she and the duke visited North American nation and the United States. In 1961 she made the first royal British tour of the Indian landmass in fifty years, and he or she was also the first reigning British monarch to visit South America (in 1968) and also the gulf countries (in 1979). throughout her “Silver Jubilee” in 1977, she presided at a London banquet attended by the leaders of the thirty six members of the Commonwealth, traveled everywhere United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, and toured overseas within the South Pacific and Australia, in Canada, and in the Caribbean.
On the accession of Queen Elizabeth, her thusn Prince of Wales became heir apparent; he was named blue blood of Wales on Gregorian calendar month 26, 1958, and was so invested with on July 1, 1969. The queen’s different youngsters were aristocrat Anne (Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise), born August 15, 1950, and created princess in 1987; blue blood Saint Andrew the Apostle (Andrew Albert Christian Edward), born Feb 19, 1960, and created duke of York in 1986; and Prince Edward (Edward Anthony Richard Louis), born March 10, 1964, and created Earl of geographical region and Viscount Severn in 1999. of these youngsters have the family name “of Windsor,” however in 1960 Elizabeth determined to make the combined name Mountbatten-Windsor for different descendants not titled prince or aristocrat and royal highness. Elizabeth’s initial offspring (Princess Anne’s son) was born on Gregorian calendar month 15, 1977.
the fashionable monarchy
The queen appeared progressively conscious of the fashionable role of the autarchy, allowing, for example, the televising of the royal house’s domestic life in 1970 and condoning the formal dissolution of her sister’s wedding in 1978. within the 1990s, however, the royal family baby-faced variety of challenges. In 1992, a year that Elizabeth remarked because the royal family’s annus horribilis, Prince of Wales and his wife, Diana, aristocrat of Wales, separated, as did blue blood Saint Andrew the Apostle and his wife, Sarah, noblewoman of York. Moreover, Anne divorced, and a hearth gutted the royal residence of Windsor Castle. In addition, as the country struggled with a recession, bitterness over the royals’ manner mounted, and in 1992 Elizabeth, though in person exempt, united to pay taxes on her personal income. The separation and later divorce (1996) of Charles and also the vastly in style Diana more worn support for the royal family, that was viewed by some as archaic and unfeeling. The criticism intense following Diana’s death in 1997, particularly once Elizabeth ab initio refused to permit the allegory to fly at half-staff over Buckingham Palace. In line together with her earlier makes an attempt at modernizing the monarchy, the queen later on wanted to gift a less-stuffy and less-traditional image of the monarchy. These makes an attempt were met with mixed success.
In 2002 Elizabeth celebrated her fiftieth year on the throne. As a part of her “Golden Jubilee,” events were command throughout the Commonwealth, as well as many days of festivities in London. The celebrations were somewhat diminished by the deaths of Elizabeth’s mother and sister early within the year. starting in the latter part of the primary decade of the twenty first century, the general public standing of the royal house rebounded, and even Charles’s 2005 wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles found a lot of support among Brits people. In Apr 2011 Elizabeth diode the family in celebrating the marriage of blue blood William of Wales—the elder son of Charles and Diana—and Catherine Middleton. the subsequent month she surpassed George III to become the second longest-reigning monarch in British history, behind Victoria. additionally in May, Elizabeth created a historic trip to eire, turning into each the primary British monarch to go to nation republic and also the first to line foot in Ireland since 1911. In 2012 Elizabeth celebrated her “Diamond Jubilee,” marking sixty years on the throne. On Gregorian calendar month 9, 2015, she surpassed Victoria’s record reign of sixty three years and 216 days.
In August 2017 Philip formally retired from public life, tho’ he sporadically appeared at official engagements once that. within the meantime, Elizabeth began to scale back her own official engagements, passing a little duties on to Prince of Wales and different senior members of the royal house, though the pool of stand-ins shrank when Charles’s younger son, blue blood Harry, duke of Sussex, and his wife, Meghan, noblewoman of Sussex, polemically selected to offer up their royal roles in March 2020. throughout this period, public interest in the queen and also the royal family grew as a result of the widespread quality of The Crown, a Netflix tv series concerning the Windsors that debuted in 2016. Having handled many physical setbacks in recent years, Philip, who had been Elizabeth’s husband for over seven decades, died in Apr 2021. On their fiftieth wedding anniversary, in 1997, Elizabeth had same of Philip, “He has, quite simply, been my strength and keep of these years.”
Elizabeth is understood to favour simplicity in court life and is additionally known to require a heavy and knowledgeable interest in government business, apart from the standard and ceremonial duties. Privately, she became a keen horsewoman; she keeps racehorses, ofttimes attends races, and sporadically visits the American state stud farms within the United States. Her monetary and property holdings have created her one in every of the world’s richest women.
