Elisabeth had been aware of the inevitability of her fate since her uncle Edward VIII, who was never crowned, renounced the throne in December 1936.

Her father's serious illness, who called his brother George VI.

replaced her, made it likely that her destiny would reach her sooner rather than later.

Nevertheless, February 6, 1952 was a "terrible shock" for the heir to the throne, who was not yet 26 years old.

The last king of Yugoslavia gave a statement to Prince Philips.

After his portrayal, the couple felt numb.

Gina Thomas

Features correspondent based in London.

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That morning at half past seven a servant found the king dead in his bed.

The monarch, who is seriously ill with cancer, had managed to take part in a hunt at his country estate in Sandringham the day before.

At midnight a guard from the garden saw him standing at the window of his bedroom.

George VI died sometime in the early morning hours.

from a cardiac thrombosis while sleeping.

It took more than four hours for the news to get through to his daughter like a bush drum.

She and her husband Prince Philip had set out on a six-month journey through the Commonwealth a week earlier and were at the first stop in the highlands of Kenya. There the couple had stayed at the Treetops Hotel, in a tree house that had been built to observe the wild animals. Former diplomat and MP Harold Nicolson noted in his diary, without knowing the details, that she became queen on the perch of a tree in Africa while she watched rhinos drinking. A famous hunter who had been recruited from the neighborhood for personal protection wrote in the hotel's guest book: “For the first time in world history, a young girl climbed a tree as a princess one day and as queen the next day (...) down - God bless you. "

"I spoiled the trip for everyone"

When Elisabeth found out from Prince Philip that her father had died, the couple had already returned from the trip to Treetops to the Sagana Lodge - the property that Kenya, at that time still a colony, had leased to him as a wedding gift.

How characteristic of the young woman who had just become queen that she apologized to one of the ladies of honor for her hasty return to London.

"I spoiled the trip for everyone."

Her private secretary, Martin Charteris, visited her at the lodge before she left. There she sat at the desk with a pen in her hand, "upright, without tears, slightly blushed", while Philip leaned back on the sofa with the "Times" spread out in front of his face. "I then felt that something had changed and it was," Charteris said later. Elisabeth seemed like the "absolute master of her fate". The first question to her secretary was: "What formalities do I have to complete at this hour?"

Less than two days later, in her first address to the Privy Council as Queen, she asked for God's help in fulfilling “this difficult task that has been placed on me so early in my life”. She vowed to promote the happiness and well-being of her peoples throughout the world, as her father consistently did. Labor politician Hugh Dalton reported that the Queen looked very small when she addressed the many black-clad old men with mourning expressions in a rather penetrating high-pitched voice.

Submissive, serious and conscientious in nature, the Queen has always been careful to follow the example of her grandfather, George V, and her father.

She affirmed this in her first Christmas address at the end of this fateful year 1952. When she looked back on these days 40 years later, she emphasized that her father had died far too young and had died suddenly.

It was important to her "to make the best of what was in my fortune and to accept the fact that this was now my fate".