QUEEN HAS NO PARTY PLANS FOR 95TH BIRTHDAY

MONARCH OPTS FOR LOW-KEY CELEBRATION AMID COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Pandemic birthdays, as a general rule, have been bad. This is as true for regular people, whose historical tradition of breathing all over a cake before serving it might never return, as it is for Queen Elizabeth II, who turns 95 on April 21. Normally, there is a private celebration and a modest walkabout, in advance of the “Official” Queen’s birthday in the sunnier English mid-june weather, all the better for Trooping the Colour and a balcony appearance.

But this year, her true birthday will not be a day of royal rejoicing. Her husband, Prince Philip, was laid to rest last week. Her son, Prince Charles, is trying to broker peace between her grandson Prince William, and his estranged brother Harry, visiting briefly from California. She has let it be known that she has no plans, and for the second year in a row, no guns will salute her at Hyde Park or the Tower of London. In the enduring spirit of birthdays, however, the National Post looks back on more festive anniversaries of Queen Elizabeth’s birth in 1926 on Bruton Street in London’s Mayfair.

1953: A luncheon at Windsor Castle to mark her 27th birthday was the new monarch’s last quiet family affair before her coronation. The children Prince Charles, 4, and Princess Anne, 2, were allowed to join the grownups for the first time. Then it was off to Gloucestershire for the International Horse Trials.

1954: This was a rare birthday away from England, befitting a busy young monarch on her 28th birthday. The children were on their first sea voyage on the royal yacht Britannia at Valletta, Malta, while the Queen and Philip were steaming from Ceylon to Aden on the royal liner Gothic, to then fly via Uganda to Tobruk on the Libyan coast where they would meet the children.

1958: The actress Andie Macdowell was born on this day, joining the Queen as a Taurus

under the Zodiac, along with other celebrities who share the April 21 birthday, including Iggy Pop (1947) and Tony Danza (1951).

1959: For her 33rd birthday, her mother and sister Princess Margaret were in Rome and Philip was travelling.

1963: Of all her birthday parties, her 37th took the cake. She danced the Twist at a ball at Windsor Castle, and closed the party down at 3 a.m. It was particularly festive because a few days later her cousin Princess Alexandra of Kent was to marry Angus Ogilvy, in a flashy ceremony broadcast to a massive television audience. The ball, therefore, was attended by royals from across Europe, including King Olav V of Norway. It was enlivened by a minor crash on the way that forced Ogilvy to switch cars from his Jaguar to a chauffeured Rolls-royce.

1966: The big 4-0 was fancy, if not exactly fun, as she rode with Prince Philip in the horse-drawn Irish State Coach to open Parliament, dressed in all white finery, and entered as two nobles — the Earl Marshall, the Duke of Norfolk, and the Lord Great Chamberlain, the Marquis of Cholmondley — walked backwards up the stairs toward the royal gallery in traditional deference. This was the first time newsreel cameras were permitted in the House of Commons. A Pathé report described the members as “on this occasion, united and at peace with each other.” Peace through support of the United Nations was a theme of her speech, with focus on Vietnam and Rhodesia.

1968: There is a tradition at the royal estate at Balmoral in Scotland to send the Queen a box of white heather on her birthday for good luck in the coming year. On this year, turning 42, she was looking forward to the investiture of her eldest son Charles, then 19, as Prince of Wales at Carnarvon Castle. She posed with her family beside the lake at Frogmore, Windsor, where Harry and Meagan would later live.

1969: The portrait released for her 43rd birthday was taken in the White Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace. She wore a turquoise gown and a pearl and diamond tiara from Russia.

1973: Other traditions marked at her 47th birthday, including carrying posies as she greeted well-wishers at Westminster Abbey, then handing out Maundy money, special coins given by a monarch at Easter, in symbolic recognition of Jesus’ new and final commandment that his disciples love each other as he loved them. Maundy is from the Latin verb to order or command.

1978: Her 52nd birthday was a quiet affair at Sandringham, her estate in Norfolk. Prince Philip was in West Germany, Prince Andrew was doing parachute training, and Prince Charles was also away. The portrait released by Buckingham Palace, taken by her sister Princess Margaret’s estranged husband, the photographer Lord Snowdon, shows her holding her first grandchild, Peter Philips, son of Princess Anne and Mark Philips, who would later marry the Canadian Autumn Kelly, and separate in 2019.

1986: As she turned 60, Britain was tense because of its controversial support for a U.S. air strike against Libya. The Queen went to church in the morning, then to Buckingham Palace, where she was greeted by the singing of 6,000 schoolchildren from around the country. At night was a gala called Fanfare for Elizabeth at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden featuring Mikhail Baryshnikov, Judi Dench, Placido Domingo and Anne Murray.

1987: Charles and Diana wished her well at Windsor Castle before they left for a holiday in Spain.

1989: To mark her 63rd year, the Queen gave new honorary titles to family, including Prince Andrew, who was made colonel-in-chief of the Staffordshire Regiment, and Princess Anne, who was given the same title over the London Officer Training Corps.

1991: She drove herself to church at Sandringham.

2003: At 77, there was a modest celebration and a horseback ride with a groom around the grounds of Windsor Castle.

2006: “As the Queen becomes an octogenarian, some might see her age as a liability, but just the opposite is true,” observed the National Post editorial board as she turned 80. An official portrait by Jemma Phipps was unveiled, the 139th since the first in 1933. News coverage focused on her personal fortune, which floated on rising property values and a strong stock market to increase by 30 million pounds, then about CAD$60 million, in a single year, totalling an estimated 300 million pounds or $600 million. It is now estimated at slightly more than that.

2011: For 85 she gave out Maundy money to 85 men and 85 women, whose value added up to 85 pence.

2016: For 90 she got a new set of stamps and had her portrait taken by photographer Annie Leibovitz. On the big day, she wore limegreen for a walkabout in Windsor, where she met 20 other assembled 90-yearolds whom she congratulated on being born in the “vintage year” of 1926, between victory in the Great War and the Great Depression.

2017: She marked 91 with a day at the races at Newbury Racecourse near Windsor with Princess Anne, and saw her own thoroughbred Maths Prize finish fifth.