Queen Elizabeth II | Biography, Family, Reign, & Facts

Elizabeth II, fully Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, formally Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the uk of nice {britain|United Kingdom|UK|Great Britain|GB|Britain|United Kingdom of nice Britain and Northern Ireland|kingdom} and Northern Ireland and of her alternative realms and territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, (born April 21, 1926, London, England), queen of the uk of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from February 6, 1952. In 2015 she surpassed Victoria to become the longest-reigning monarch in British history.

childhood

Elizabeth was the elder female offspring of aristocrat Albert, duke of York, and his wife, girl Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. because the child of a younger son of King patron saint V, the young Elizabeth had very little prospect of acceding to the throne till her uncle, Edward VIII (afterward duke of Windsor), abdicated in her father’s favour on December 11, 1936, at which period her father became King King of Great Britain and she or he became heir presumptive. The blue blood’s education was supervised by her mother, who entrusted her daughters to a governess, Marion Crawford; the princess was conjointly grounded in history by C.H.K. Marten, after academic administrator of Eton College, and had instruction from visiting academics in music and languages. throughout war II she and her sister, blue blood Margaret Rose, perforce spent a lot of of their time safely off from the London blitz ANd separated from their parents, living principally at castle in European nation and at the Royal Lodge, Windsor, and Windsor Castle.

Early in 1947 blue blood Elizabeth went with the king and queen to South Africa. once her come there was an announcement of her betrothal to her distant full cousin Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten of the Royal Navy, once Prince Philip of Hellenic Republic and Denmark. the wedding transpire in Westminster Abbey on November 20, 1947. On the eve of the marriage her father, the king, bestowed upon the bridegroom the titles of duke of Edinburgh, peer of Merioneth, and Baron Greenwich. They took residence at rig House in London. Their 1st child, Charles (Charles Prince Philip Arthur George), was born November 14, 1948, at Buckingham Palace.

Accession to the throne

within the summer of 1951 the health of King King of Great Britain entered into a significant decline, and blue blood Elizabeth pictured him at the Trooping the color and on varied alternative state occasions. On October seven she and her husband started out on a extremely winning tour of Canada and Washington, D.C. once Christmas in England she and also the duke started out in Gregorian calendar month 1952 for a tour of Australia and New Zealand, however en route, at Sagana, Kenya, news reached them of the king’s death on February 6, 1952. Elizabeth, currently queen, directly flew back to England. the primary 3 months of her reign, the amount of full mourning for her father, were passed in comparative seclusion. however within the summer, after she had captive from rig House to Buckingham Palace, she undertook the routine duties of the sovereign and dispensed her Delaware gap of Parliament on November 4, 1952. Her enthronement was control at Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953.

starting in November 1953 the queen {and the|and therefore the|and conjointly the} duke of capital created a six-month round-the-world tour of the Commonwealth, including the primary visit to Australia and New island by a regnant British monarch. In 1957, once state visits to numerous European nations, she and the duke visited North American country and the United States. In 1961 she made the first royal British tour of the Indian landmass in fifty years, and she or he was also the first reigning British monarch to visit South America (in 1968) and also the gulf countries (in 1979). throughout her “Silver Jubilee” in 1977, she presided at a London banquet attended by the leaders of the thirty six members of the Commonwealth, traveled everywhere Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and toured overseas within the Pacific Ocean and Australia, in Canada, and in the Caribbean.

On the accession of Queen Elizabeth, her thusn Charles became heir apparent; he was named aristocrat of Wales on Gregorian calendar month 26, 1958, and was so endowed on July 1, 1969. The queen’s alternative youngsters were blue blood Anne (Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise), born August 15, 1950, and created princess in 1987; aristocrat Andrew (Andrew Prince Albert Christian Edward), born February 19, 1960, and created duke of dynasty in 1986; and prince (Edward Anthony Richard Louis), born March 10, 1964, and created peer of geographical region and Viscount Severn in 1999. of these youngsters have the name “of Windsor,” however in 1960 Elizabeth set to make the combined name Mountbatten-Windsor for alternative descendants not titled prince or blue blood and royal highness. Elizabeth’s 1st offspring (Princess Anne’s son) was born on November 15, 1977.

the fashionable monarchy

The queen appeared more and more responsive to the fashionable role of the autocracy, allowing, for example, the televising of the house’s domestic life in 1970 and condoning the formal dissolution of her sister’s wedding in 1978. within the 1990s, however, the royal family Janus-faced variety of challenges. In 1992, a year that Elizabeth remarked because the royal family’s annus horribilis, Charles and his wife, Diana, blue blood of Wales, separated, as did aristocrat Andrew and his wife, Sarah, peeress of York. Moreover, Anne divorced, and a fireplace gutted the royal residence of Windsor Castle. In addition, as the country struggled with a recession, rancor over the royals’ modus vivendi mounted, and in 1992 Elizabeth, though in person exempt, united to pay taxes on her personal income. The separation and later divorce (1996) of Charles and also the vastly fashionable Diana more worn support for the royal family, that was viewed by some as archaic and unfeeling. The criticism intense following Diana’s death in 1997, particularly once Elizabeth at the start refused to permit the allegory to fly at half-staff over Buckingham Palace. In line together with her earlier tries at modernizing the monarchy, the queen afterwards sought-after to gift a less-stuffy and less-traditional image of the monarchy. These tries were met with mixed success.

In 2002 Elizabeth celebrated her fiftieth year on the throne. As a part of her “Golden Jubilee,” events were control throughout the Commonwealth, as well as many days of festivities in London. The celebrations were somewhat diminished by the deaths of Elizabeth’s mother and sister early within the year. starting in the latter part of the primary decade of the twenty first century, the general public standing of the house rebounded, and even Charles’s 2005 wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles found a lot of support among nation people. In April 2011 Elizabeth light-emitting diode the family in celebrating the marriage of aristocrat William of Wales—the elder son of Charles and Diana—and Catherine Middleton. the subsequent month she surpassed King of England to become the second longest-reigning monarch in British history, behind Victoria. conjointly in May, Elizabeth created a historic trip to eire, turning into each the primary British monarch to go to Irish republic and also the first to line foot in Ireland since 1911. In 2012 Elizabeth celebrated her “Diamond Jubilee,” marking sixty years on the throne. On Gregorian calendar month 9, 2015, she surpassed Victoria’s record reign of sixty three years and 216 days.

In August 2017 Prince Philip formally retired from public life, although he sporadically appeared at official engagements once that. within the meantime, Elizabeth began to cut back her own official engagements, passing a little duties on to Charles and alternative senior members of the house, though the pool of stand-ins shrank when Charles’s younger son, aristocrat Harry, duke of Sussex, and his wife, Meghan, peeress of Sussex, polemically selected to relinquish up their royal roles in March 2020. throughout this period, public interest in the queen and also the royal family grew as a result of the widespread quality of The Crown, a Netflix tv series regarding the Windsors that debuted in 2016. Having forbidden many physical setbacks in recent years, Philip, who had been Elizabeth’s husband for over seven decades, died in April 2021. On their fiftieth wedding anniversary, in 1997, Elizabeth had same of Philip, “He has, quite simply, been my strength and keep of these years.”

Elizabeth is thought to favour simplicity in court life and is additionally known to require a significant and hip interest in government business, except for the standard and ceremonial duties. Privately, she became a keen horsewoman; she keeps racehorses, oft attends races, and sporadically visits the KY stud farms within the United States. Her monetary and property holdings have created her one in all the world’s richest women.