Longest reigning monarch in British history
LONDON: Queen Elizabeth, who rallied support for the monarchy despite presiding over what was once known as the world’s most famous dysfunctional family, next month becomes Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.
She never expected to take the throne and only did so because her uncle abdicated, but on September 9 she will beat the record held by her greatgreat-grandmother, Queen Victoria, who reigned for more than 63 years.
“It is a job for life,” the 89-year-old Elizabeth once said, and unlike some European monarchs recently, and even a pope, she is not expected to abdicate.
While the world and British society have changed dramatically during her reign, the queen has always appeared dependable and reassuring. Despite traumas in the 1990s, such as the death of Princess Diana, that seemed to threaten the monarchy’s very existence, the queen has been able to lead the 1 000-year-old institution into a new era of popularity.
“The key to the change has been anticipating what’s coming next,” Simon Lewis, her former communications secretary, said. “The lesson of these last 20, 30 years has been for the institution always to be slightly ahead perhaps of where the British people are.”
Britain itself has become a more egalitarian society as old class divides were broken down and deference based on background ebbed away, something reflected in the monarchy itself.
“It’s become much less elitist,” said royal biographer Robert Lacey. “The monarchy has continued the process of disassociating itself from the social pyramid headed by an aristocracy and attempting to make itself classless.”
At the start of her reign she was a glamorous figure who seemed to typify Britain’s post-war resurgence, but by the 40th anniversary of her accession the royal family appeared to have become little more than celebrity fod- der for the tabloids.
While her marriage to Philip, a Greek prince, has stayed solid, she described 1992 as her “annus horribilis” when three of her four children’s relationships broke up, with scandalous details exhaustively reported in the papers.
Diana’s death in a Paris car crash in 1997 was undoubtedly the darkest moment of her long reign, with the queen forced to return from Scotland to address the nation amid a general outpouring of grief and dismay.
“For about a week it seemed as though the institution had been rocked to its foundation,” said Lewis.
With a more professional and sophisticated media operation, the royal family’s reputation has been restored from the dark days of the 1990s and even taken to new heights.
Commentators say that also reflects how the queen has provided stability in a time of great social upheaval and growing discontent with elected leaders, while giving Britons a sense of identity.
“The fortunes of the monarchy have gone through peaks and troughs, she hasn’t really changed, but the public reaction to her has,” said Professor Philip Murphy, a historian and author of Monarchy and the End of Empire.
“It’s become a significant part of the way we see ourselves as a nation.”
Elizabeth only became queen due to a quirk of history after her uncle Edward VIII abdicated, because of his love for American divorcee Wallis Simpson and the crown passed to her father George VI when she was 10 years old.
She was just 25 when she became Queen Elizabeth II on February 6, 1952 on the death of her father. At the time she was on tour in Kenya with her husband Prince Philip, who has been by her side throughout her reign.
“In a way I didn’t have an apprenticeship. My father died too young and so it was all a very sudden kind of taking on and making the best job you can,” she said 40 years later.
Establishment has become less elitist and more classless