After 51 years, it’s ‘God save the Queen’

thursday, February 7, 1952

AFTER 51 years Britain and the Commonwealth are again ruled by a Queen.

From the moment Elizabeth Alexandra Mary steps from her airliner, the duties of her new exalted position begin to fall thick and fast upon her. But first she will drive to Buckingham Palace. There will be a meeting of the Privy Council, at which she will take the oath to uphold the Constitution.

Queen Elizabeth II is the third youngest Queen ever to succeed and the second to come to the Throne a wife and mother. She will be the first Queen of England to be proclaimed for 115 years — since June 20, 1837, when Queen Victoria ascended to the Throne.

The new Sovereign being a woman, a number of changes are necessary. When an Army recruit is sworn in from today, he will promise to defend ‘the Queen, her Crown, and her dignity’. On Sunday the clergy will request prayer for the Queen’s Majesty. In words uttered before only by the oldest among them, they will beseech God to ‘behold our most gracious Sovereign Lady’.

By tradition, a year, sometimes more, elapses between the proclamation of the new Sovereign and the crowning in Westminster Abbey. By the time the Queen is crowned, probably in the spring or summer of next year, new coins bearing her profile will have been prepared. King’s Counsel will have taken the oath as QCs. Royal servants will be wearing the monogram E II R.

The changes will reach their climax when the Queen takes from the Lord Chancellor the Great Seal used by her father, picks up a little spiked hammer, and defaces that seal so that it can never again be used. Her own Great Seal will be brought from the Royal Mint and locked in a strongroom in the House of Lords.

The last time a Sovereign acceded to the British Crown while abroad was over 200 years ago, when George I became King on the death of Queen Anne in 1714. He was in Hanover, as Elector of the Kingdom, when he was summoned to England to accept the Crown.

Queen Elizabeth, of the House of Tudor, was just 25 when she, too, came to the Throne in 1558. Her reign was one of England’s greatest, and her people reaped many benefits.

In the second half of the last century, Britain prospered mightily under another Queen — Victoria.

The reign of Elizabeth II, the sixth in 51 years, should be no less beneficial to nation and Commonwealth. Of the regal stature of Queen Elizabeth II there can be no doubt.

Long Live the Queen.