The Queen was on the throne for longer than some other monarch in British historical past.
In seven many years, Britain lived by the Cold War and 9/11, whereas international locations within the Commonwealth fought for his or her independence.
In her household, the Queen noticed three of her youngsters get divorced, the demise of Princess Diana, and considered one of her grandsons sensationally accusing the Royal Family of racism.
Here Sky News appears to be like backs at six moments that outlined her reign.
1952 – When ‘every little thing modified’
Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip have been in Kenya on their option to a tour of Australia and New Zealand when King George VI died.
The information broke on 6 February, however due to the couple’s distant location, in a treetop resort 100 miles from Nairobi, it took longer than typical to achieve them. Philip was tasked with informing the Queen.
The 56-year-old King had been in unhealthy well being for a while and had undergone a lung operation 4 months earlier than.
“He had suffered ill health for years, but it didn’t seem like his death was imminent,” historian Professor Anna Whitelock instructed Sky News.
“Everything changed at that point.”
And because the British hunter Jim Corbett, who was staying on the identical lodge because the royal couple, put it: “For the first time in the history of the world, a young girl climbed into a tree one day a Princess and after having what she described as her most thrilling experience she climbed down from the tree the next day a Queen.”
Elizabeth and Philip flew house the following day, touchdown at London Airport, the place she had waved goodbye to her father only a week earlier than.
“It would have been a pretty stressful and traumatic flight for her,” Prof Whitelock stated.
“At that time she was only 25 – she was coming home to mourn her father, but also landing as Queen.”
She was met by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his deputies Clement Attlee and Anthony Eden.
Twenty-four hours later, following a 20-minute assembly of the Accession Council at St James’s Palace, formally introduced her as Queen and Philip as royal consort.
They moved into Buckingham Palace and the road of succession was given the brand new identify of Windsor.
But Elizabeth nonetheless had so much to show.
“It was Britain in the 1950s – a patriarchal society where women were still seen as second class to men,” Professor Whitelock stated.
“Not only was a woman taking the throne, but also her husband was being told he always had to be one step behind her, which wasn’t the norm.
“She needed to get used to the thought of turning into Queen, however so did Winston Churchill and the opposite ‘males of the day’, who weren’t positive how a younger lady with younger youngsters was going to have the ability to play the position.”
Months later, in November, the nation got their first glimpse of Queen Elizabeth when she opened parliament for the first time.
But it wasn’t until 2 June 1953 that she was officially crowned.
The Duke of Edinburgh fought for the coronation to be televised, whereas Churchill had reservations.
“Prince Philip saw the importance of the coronation as a national event and the value of television at its advent,” Prof Whitelock stated.
“The Queen was initially quite shy, so he was that supportive and encouraging presence for her.”
With virtually three million individuals camped out in London on the day, and lots of extra watching all over the world, the coronation was an “intimidating spectacle” for the brand new Queen.
But not lengthy after, she sought to show herself with one of many greatest royal excursions so far.
“It was one of the most ambitious tours ever seen, which was quite remarkable,” Prof Whitelock added.
1977 – The Silver Jubilee
By the time the Queen reached her Silver Jubilee in 1977, she had spent extra years as sovereign than her father had.
The celebrations started quietly, precisely 25 years after his demise and her accession on 6 February, with church companies and household time at Windsor.
After she revealed to parliament that the theme of her jubilee can be unity of the nation, in May she set off on the busiest royal tour in historical past.
No different king or queen had visited a lot of the UK – 36 counties throughout Britain and Northern Ireland – in simply three months.
Record-breaking crowds turned out, with greater than 1,000,000 in Lancashire on a single day.
In February, she started a world tour that took her throughout the South Pacific to Australia and New Zealand and, months later, to Canada and the Caribbean.
In whole, her Silver Jubilee excursions noticed the Queen journey 56,000 miles.
“She was a Commonwealth Queen,” Prof Whitelock stated. “That was a defining motif of her reign.”
At that point, a number of Commonwealth international locations have been looking for their independence, however this didn’t seem to remove from the Queen’s position as their head of state.
Back in England, the Jubilee celebrations started in earnest on the night of 6 June, when the Queen lit a bonfire beacon in Windsor, sparking a series across the nation.
The following day she travelled by the Gold State Coach to St Paul’s Cathedral in central London for a thanks-giving service.
In spite of poor climate, 1000’s camped out in a single day to see her move down the Mall and in the direction of the City, cementing the Queen’s reputation.
After the service, she stated: “When I was 21 I pledged my life to the service of our people and I asked for God’s help to make good that vow.”
“Although that vow was made in my salad days, when I was green in judgement, I do not regret nor retract one word of it.”
The Silver Jubilee broke tv viewers data, with 500 million tuning in to look at the celebrations the world over.
While the Jubilee noticed cities and villages up and down the nation coated in bunting for road events to mark the events, a small quantity in London had different plans.
Following the discharge of their single God Save the Queen, the supervisor of the Sex Pistols organised for the punk group to carry out the track as they sailed on a ship down the River Thames.
They managed to move Westminster Pier and the Houses of Parliament, in a mockery of the Queen’s Jubilee boat journey in two days’ time, however the stunt resulted in chaos, with police forcing them to dock and lots of being arrested.
Prof Whitelock stated: “The 1970s weren’t a particularly stable period politically. There were strikes, austerity and hardship.
“So there have been some individuals who protested about a lot cash being spent on that sort of festivity, whereas others have been struggling.
“But the Jubilee being seen as the success that it was is a credit to her. It was a moment of national affirmation of her,” she added.
“She was looking back on her earlier reign, with not just wisdom but also confidence. She felt more secure as Queen.”
1992 – ‘Annus horribilis’
The Queen famously described 1992 – when she marked 40 years on the throne – as her “annus horribilis”.
Three of her 4 youngsters’s marriage collapse and a fireplace at Windsor Castle prompted greater than £36m in harm.
“It was an unrelenting succession of scandals and setbacks,” former BBC royal correspondent Michael Cole stated.
“There was a building sense of crisis, which was exacerbated by these royal divorces. You got the sense the monarchy was having major problems.”
In March, Prince Andrew separated from Sarah Ferguson, who was later photographed frolicking along with her billionaire lover round a pool within the south of France.
That identical month Princess Anne divorced her husband of virtually 20 years Captain Mark Phillips.
In December, it was introduced Charles and Diana have been getting a divorce.
Republican sentiment ran excessive, with widespread dissatisfaction in regards to the public financing of the Royal Family.
In a bid to mitigate a number of the ill-feeling, the Queen began paying revenue tax the next 12 months – and there was a discount within the civil listing.
In May, extra particulars got here out as biographer Andrew Morton launched his guide Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words.
In August, the royals suffered an extra setback when The Sun revealed the so-called ‘Squidgygate tapes’ of a personal dialog between Diana and a pal from 1990, by which she made a number of damning revelations in regards to the Royal Family.
“1992 was a catalogue of woes,” Cole instructed Sky News.
“The Queen by and large stayed above the fray, but her children and their spouses did not.”
He added: “She wasn’t at all squeamish or coy about these things but the monarch is still the Head of the Church of England – a position where you are supposed to show a good example.”
The fireplace at Windsor in November was “devastating” for the Queen, he added. But equally tough was the “public pressure of who should pay for the repairs”.
In an unusually private speech in November, she stated: “1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure.
In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an ‘Annus Horribilis’. I suspect that I am not alone in thinking it so.”
She stated criticism is “good” for establishments just like the Royal Family, however prompt that the scrutiny that 12 months might have been finished with a “touch of gentleness, good humour and understanding”.
1997 – Diana’s demise
Up till Princess Diana’s demise on 31 August, 1997 had been a “fairly routine year” for the royals.
“Charles and Diana had divorced the previous July,” stated Cole, who gave proof at Diana’s inquest. “So that was that to some extent.”
While there was nonetheless controversy round Charles and Diana’s respective love lives, the scenario had “stabilised”.
When information of Diana’s demise broke from Paris, the Queen was at Balmoral along with her sons Harry and William.
They remained in Scotland for 5 days till the day earlier than the funeral on 6 September. In a BBC documentary the princes later praised their grandmother for taking the “difficult” resolution to allow them to grieve in non-public.
But the general public, who laid flowers exterior each royal residence of their 1000’s, appeared to disagree.
“It sparked the most remarkable, dreadful, appalling week for the Royal Family since the abdication of King Edward VIII,” Cole stated.
“There was a most extraordinary feeling in London at that time – a mood of public distaste and anger at the lack of response to Diana’s death.”
The delay in coming again to London, and the refusal, at first, to fly royal flags at half mast, angered Diana’s followers.
The Queen didn’t suppose Diana ought to have a state funeral as a result of she had left the Royal Family. But she was ultimately persuaded by the then-prime minister Tony Blair, who captured the nationwide temper when he known as Diana’s the “people’s princess”.
“It looked like they were forced to come back to London and that she [the Queen] was forced to give a speech,” Cole stated. “That would have been a bitter pill to swallow.”
He says poor recommendation and the distant location of Balmoral have been largely behind the Queen’s “mistakes”.
“Geography had something to do with it,” he stated.
“They were removed from the hot house that London had become. And the Queen was poorly advised. She sometimes had a tendency to do what her mother did, which was bury her head in the sand and hope things will go away. But that wasn’t possible.”
At Diana’s funeral, her brother Earl Spencer’s eulogy was damning of the Royal Family, which did not assist enhance the general public’s notion of them.
He spoke of her “blood family” being separate to the royals and the “bizarre-like life” she skilled as considered one of them.
“His criticism was directed straight at her [the Queen] and her children. His message couldn’t have been clearer”.
After the Queen returned to London, made her speech and was seen on the funeral, a big a part of the hostility softened.
“It went some way to addressing people’s feelings,” Cole stated.
Asked if it had a long-lasting impact on her reign, he added: “I think she would admit she made those mistakes. She has always been adaptable and prepared to change.”
2002 – A ‘phoenix 12 months’
Although the Queen’s Golden Jubilee 12 months was imagined to be considered one of celebration, it “couldn’t have got off to a worse start,” former BBC royal correspondent Michael Cole stated.
Elizabeth suffered two bereavements in fast succession, along with her sister Margaret dying on 9 February 2002 on the age of 70 and her mom on 30 March at 101.
The Queen Mother by no means remarried following the demise of her husband in 1952, so remained extraordinarily shut with each her daughters.
“All three women were brought closer together by the early death of King George VI,” Cole stated.
“They would speak on the phone every day, wherever they were in the world.”
Although a “major blow” to Elizabeth, she had the sense of obligation she had inherited from her father greater than 50 years earlier than to maintain her going.
Just 72 hours after Princess Margaret’s funeral, the Queen launched into her Jubilee Commonwealth tour with a go to to Jamaica.
She made her method all over the world, with a subsequent journey to a brand new territory in Canada the place she famously started an ice hockey match with a royal “puck drop”.
The Jubilee tour was resulting from begin the earlier 12 months however was postponed because of the 9/11 terror assaults.
As a present of their gratitude, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg lit up the Empire State Building in royal purple and gold.
Back house, the Queen continued the Jubilee festivities by visiting each nation and area of the UK.
The royals have been nonetheless struggling the controversies of the Nineteen Nineties, so it was unclear how the general public would react to the primary Golden Jubilee since Queen Victoria’s in 1887.
“It had only been a few years since the death of Diana, which brought to the Royal Family the greatest crisis since the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936,” Cole stated.
“Prince Charles wasn’t at all popular at that time and neither was Camilla Parker-Bowles. The royals didn’t know how they would be received – there were still live issues.”
While some newspapers and commentators predicted it could be a failure, it proved the other.
As the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh made their method by enormous crowds in each city and metropolis, it appeared as if they could not imagine the reception they acquired.
“You could almost see the joy coming over their faces, they were genuinely surprised at how popular they were – and they didn’t take it for granted,” Cole stated.
The Jubilee weekend itself ran from 1 to 4 June, with 1,000,000 individuals turning out every day in London.
In addition to the standard cavalcade and balcony flypast, the Party on the Palace widened the enchantment of the Jubilee celebrations to a youthful viewers.
As effectively as Brian May enjoying God Save The Queen on the roof of Buckingham Palace and the likes of Paul McCartney and Tom Jones, youthful artists similar to S Club 7 and Mis-Teeq additionally carried out.
Reflecting on the success, Cole stated: “2002 was very much about the Queen. It was a phoenix year – out of the ashes of what had happened in the years before.
“The Jubilee proved that with a monarch as dutiful because the Queen was, the general public have been ready to forgive something that occurred within the week after Diana’s demise.”
2020 – A pandemic and family problems
When the Queen began her 73rd year on the throne in January 2020, she, nor anyone else, could have predicted how difficult a year it would be.
Megxit
Prince Harry and his spouse Meghan had taken an prolonged Christmas break to recuperate after the start of their first youngster and a 12 months of unrelenting press protection.
They arrived again within the UK in January and have been seen smiling at their first public engagement of the 12 months at Canada House in London.
Although Meghan had hinted on the challenges of turning into one of many ‘Firm’, their announcement on 8 January that they deliberate to “step back as senior royals” was fully surprising – and posed an actual dilemma for the Queen.
“It was a real shock,” Victoria Murphy, royal journalist and creator, instructed Sky News.
“Nothing had been signed off behind the scenes, and as I understood it, the Royal Family were completely unprepared,” she stated.
In a uncommon transfer, the Queen issued her personal private assertion in response to the couple’s departure, saying: “While all are saddened by their decision, the duke and duchess remain much loved members of the family.”
These two separate statements – one from the Queen, one from Harry and Meghan – signified a defining second within the lifetime of the Queen and the Royal Family, in keeping with Murphy.
“That was the beginning of us seeing how separate the Sussexes were to the rest of the royals,” she stated.
Their departure additionally proved damaging for the notion of the Royal Family on the world stage.
“Harry and Meghan had a huge support base who were sympathetic to their story globally,” Murphy added.
“The Queen worked so hard for so many years to steady the ship – she had a very acute awareness of how important public opinion was – there was a destabilising of that in 2020.”
The departure of Harry and Meghan finally gave a “personal insight” into the Royal Family the general public had by no means seen earlier than.
“The Queen has been so reluctant to talk about life behind closed doors,” Murphy stated. “So to have so much information out in the public domain like that was astonishing.”
Although uncomfortable for her to be so open, the Queen “saw the importance of providing a personal narrative”.
“Her statement showed great leadership,” Murphy added.
“The tone she struck with that statement at a time that was so challenging and chaotic for the monarchy showed what kind of leader she was.”
Coronavirus
The coronavirus lockdown imposed by the prime minister on 23 March was the most important restriction of civil liberties because the Second World War.
Prince Charles examined constructive for the virus days after – across the identical time as then-prime minister Boris Johnson, who frolicked in intensive care, because the nation feared he may not make it.
In response, on 5 April the Queen made a uncommon speech to the nation, solely her fifth – other than Christmas and the opening of parliament – since 1952.
Evoking the spirit of World War II and the Vera Lynn track, she stated: “We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return.
“We might be with our associates once more. We might be with our households once more. We will meet once more.”
Murphy said: “It was such a vastly defining speech and one she most likely by no means thought she must make.”
As hundreds died in hospitals every day and people were separated from their loved ones, the Queen drew on her experiences of the war and reassured people “we are going to overcome it”.
“She was so completely positioned to make that speech – she alleviated concern and introduced the nation collectively,” Murphy added.
“It was a reminder of what having a frontrunner like her brings.”
The broadcast was filmed by a single cameraman in full personal protective equipment at Windsor Castle, where she and Prince Philip isolated as part of ‘HMS Bubble’.
“What was poignant as well, was that she was so elderly,” Murphy stated. “COVID exposed her vulnerability – she was going through it as well.
“She had at all times appeared so strong and on the helm, however this was the realisation for a lot of that she was very, very aged.”
The months she spent at Windsor with Philip during lockdown were ultimately some of her last.
“2020 was her final full 12 months with him,” Murphy explained. “The remainder of their relationship had been primarily based on them spending a variety of time aside.
“So in spite of the circumstances, that prolonged period of them being together would turn out to be very fortunate.”
The Palace was eager to emphasize that the Queen was nonetheless working by lockdown, which ultimately noticed her “working from home” on Zoom like a lot of the nation.
Although her typical timetable was disrupted, the pandemic allowed the aged Queen to be seen by the nation, with out her having to exert herself as she would have beforehand.
Andrew’s royal profession ‘ends for good’
Prince Andrew had already stepped down from royal duties in November 2019 following a disastrous interview with BBC Newsnight about his connections to the late intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In his assertion, he stated the connection had change into a “major disruption” to the Royal Family and that by withdrawing from public life, the Firm can be again to enterprise as typical.
It stated he would nonetheless seem at household occasions, however when his daughter Beatrice received married in the summertime, he wasn’t in any of the photographs.
“He didn’t appear at any of the events we would have expected him to. [The wedding] was a very significant sign,” Murphy stated.
“2020 was the year that it became increasingly apparent that Andrew’s royal career was ended for good. It was the family’s acknowledgment of how damaging and controversial his presence was.”
But there was additional controversy in July, when Epstein’s ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested.
“The Epstein investigation was an enormous story in the US, where there is also a huge audience fascinated by our monarchy,” Murphy stated.
“Throughout 2020 we saw the spotlight continue on the Epstein story and further developments such as Ghislaine’s arrest.
“All of it was vastly damaging for Andrew and made it more and more inconceivable to see how he might ever return to public life. It additionally had vital implications for the monarchy’s international repute.”
In February, Andrew also agreed a settlement with Virginia Giuffre, a woman who had launched a civil sex assault claim in the United States.
The amount of money involved was never confirmed, though news reports at the time suggested some £12m was paid.
Andrew has always denied any wrongdoing.
Although the Queen presided over the decision for Andrew to stay out of public life, they were still seen out together.
“She supported him as his mom, however not as his boss – and in 2020 we noticed a collision of these two issues as a result of there may be solely a lot you may sever these ties,” Murphy instructed Sky News.
Source: information.sky.com”