THE MAKING OF A MONARCH
When Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor was born on April 21, 1926, no one dreamed the tiny bundle would one day be Queen.
Then, when she was just 10 years old, on December 11, 1936, her uncle, King Edward VIII, abdicated, having reigned for just 327 days. Princess Elizabeth’s future was changed forever. Her father Bertie, the shy and stammering Duke of York, became King George VI.
From that day on, Elizabeth was the Heir Presumptive rather than Heir Apparent, meaning had a brother arrived later he would have taken her place as monarch.
With that unlikely, the focus turned to Elizabeth’s education.
Alongside Governess Marion “Crawfie” Crawford’s lessons, she was tutored in constitutional history by Henry Marten, then ViceProvost at Eton. She also learned French and studied international affairs.
Elizabeth’s preparations for the throne were interrupted when Britain went to war in 1939. Along with her sister, Margaret, and millions of children across the country, she was issued with a gas mask and spent her evenings in darkness during the blackout. She and Margaret prepared for air raids by sleeping in their siren suits.
In 1944, she went on her first official tour with her parents. The princess spent two days with the King and Queen on a military inspection that March.
Princess Elizabeth – or Second Subaltern the Princess Elizabeth, Army Number 230873 as she was then – trained as a mechanic with the Auxiliary Territorial Service in 1945, later celebrating VE Day in her ATS uniform with her family on the Buckingham Palace balcony.
The changes in her life continued when the war ended. She took her first extended trip overseas in 1947, joining her parents and Margaret on a tour of South Africa.
She was set on marrying for love, and in July that year a date was set for her wedding to her handsome prince, Royal Navy officer Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten.
The Princess’s determination to marry the man she loved gained her a reputation as a young woman of character with the public. The couple wed on November 20, 1947, when Elizabeth was just 21 and Philip, 26.
Prince Charles arrived on November 14 the following year. After a move to Clarence House, Princess Elizabeth followed her husband to Malta, where he was stationed for two years, from 1949 to 1951. They would have a second child, Princess Anne, in August, 1950.
With her father’s health in decline by 1951, Princess Elizabeth took on more duties, from overseas tours to greeting foreign dignitaries.
On January 31, 1952, Princess Elizabeth left London on a Commonwealth tour, arriving in Nairobi the next day. Days later, news of her father’s death and her accession to the throne reached her in the foothills of Kenya.
Long before she had expected it, Princess Elizabeth was Queen.