Disappearance

Death of Elizabeth II: the long and not so quiet reign of a popular queen

Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh arrive in Jaipur, India, January 22, 1961. They are greeted at the airport by Rajasthan Governor Gurmukh Nihal Singh.

© Associated Press

Text by: Tirthankar Chanda Follow

16 mins

A little over a year after the death of her husband Prince Philippe, who died on April 9, 2021, the British sovereign Elizabeth II died in her turn this Thursday, September 8, 2022, at the canonical age of 96.

His long reign, which lasted seventy years, left a legacy of a strengthened monarchy, in tune with the less traditional and more cosmopolitan modern English society.

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The United Kingdom finds itself an orphan.

Buckingham Palace has officially announced the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

The late monarch, who had celebrated her 70th anniversary in June, had seen her health deteriorate for almost a year, without the causes ever being specified.

For several months, she rarely appeared in public.

His last appearance was on September 6, formalizing the appointment of Liz Truss as Prime Minister.

Today, all of Albion mourns

. She breathed her last at Balmoral Castle, Scotland, where she had been since July 21 for her traditional summer retreat.

At the head of her country since 1952, the deceased constituted the immovable base around which the history of postcolonial England unfolded, full of sound and fury.

A page of history turns

As soon as the news was announced, tens of thousands of Londoners and tourists of all ages flocked to the center of the capital to bow before the gates of Buckingham Palace, the official residence of the British monarch.

They place in front of the large wrought iron gate, who a rose, who a bouquet and who a little note in homage to their queen.

Somewhat distraught, the oldest visitors stand for a long time in front of the gates, raising their misty eyes towards the empty balcony of the palace from where the queen, always impeccably dressed, has so often greeted the crowd, surrounded by her family and his relatives.

The British will have to learn to live without the reassuring presence of the one who knew how to embody, in all circumstances, the best of their country with its thousand-year-old history.

"

", such was the official title of Elizabeth II, who was the doyen of the crowned heads in Europe.

Queen for seventy years, she had broken, on September 9, 2015, the longevity record in power of her great-grandmother, Queen-Empress Victoria, who had reigned for sixty-three years, seven months and two days.

Elizabeth II was at the zenith of her popularity, as evidenced by the tributes that had been paid to her throughout the kingdom and across the countries of the Commonwealth, during the celebrations of the seventieth anniversary of her reign last June.

Elizabeth II was a page of living history.

Wasn't she the interlocutor of fifteen British Prime Ministers and thirteen American Presidents?

When he married

, Gandhi had sent him a loincloth made from a fabric he had woven himself.

The queen received at Buckingham Palace the most prestigious leaders on earth, from De Gaulle to Nelson Mandela, including Walesa, Nehru, Tito, Emperor Akihito and the Biden couple, to name but a few.

A first page of this long story ended on April 9, 2021, with the disappearance of her husband, Prince Philippe, at the age of 99 and after more than seventy years of marriage.

By their longevity, the couple had become the symbol of the permanence of the British monarchy.

When the future sovereign was born in 1926, England still reigned over a vast world empire on which, according to the consecrated formula, the sun never set.

It experienced the Second World War, decolonization, the beginning and end of the Cold War, the entry of the United Kingdom into Europe, the end of the Welfare State in England, peace in Ireland and,

, the "Brexit" (abbreviation of "British exit"), voted by a majority of Britons on June 23, 2016. Britain's exit from the European Union, which finally took place on January 31, 2020 after three and a half years of political chaos, was a major historical turning point for British society, torn between those who were for Brexit and those who were against it.

She had remained unwaveringly neutral during the psychodrama and had simply been content to dwell, in her 2019 Christmas speech, on the commemorations of the Normandy landings, the 75th anniversary of which had just been commemorated, calling on the British to overcome their divisions to safeguard " 

 ".

She embodied in her own way the many changes that marked her country during her long reign, while remaining in her role as a constitutional monarch who does not interfere in government affairs.

She was " 

 ", to quote François Mitterrand who rubbed shoulders with her on numerous ceremonial occasions.

Paramedic during the war

Despite the 41 cannon shots to announce her coming into the world on April 21, 1926, it seemed unlikely in the first years of the life of the future Elizabeth II that she would one day wear the British crown.

She was the daughter of the youngest son of King George V (grandson of Queen Victoria).

According to tradition, the throne was to go to the eldest son of the king who, on the death of his father in 1936, succeeded as head of the kingdom under the name of Edward VIII.

But his affair with an American woman, twice divorced, and his plan to marry her plunged the country into a very serious constitutional crisis.

After a few months of a particularly controversial reign, the king, summoned to choose between the kingdom and his lover, abdicated in favor of his younger brother Albert, father of Elizabeth.

He ascended the throne as George VI.

These events upset the lives of Elizabeth and her younger sister, Margaret, who had grown up until then in relative family intimacy.

Having become crown princess, Elizabeth had to resolve to learn the hard work of queen.

This consisted of living constantly under the aegis of a rigorous protocol, but also of becoming aware of the duties and servitudes of the royal function.

In this field, she had good masters in her parents whose attitude full of empathy for the population during the

(bombing of London during the Second World War) had made it possible to make the monarchy popular.

The royal couple had refused to leave the capital during the war.

Elizabeth herself participated in the war effort by joining the reserve army in 1944 as an ambulance driver.

When the war was over, she began to accompany her parents during their travels within the country, but also in Commonwealth countries.

The speech she made in 1947, during a trip to South Africa, pledging to "

", was the roadmap for a life that was entirely devoted to the United Kingdom. United and Commonwealth.

Awareness of the heavy responsibilities incumbent on her as future queen did not prevent the young princess from forming an idyll with her distant cousin, Prince Philip of Greece, also a descendant of Queen Victoria.

According to legend, she fell in love with him when she was 13 years old.

The couple married in 1947 and had four children: Charles (1948), Anne (1950), Andrew (1960) and Edward (1964).

Queen at 26

Although she had been psychologically prepared for her royal duties, Elizabeth did not expect her father to pass away so soon, at the age of 56.

Made famous by the film based on his life

, this monarch, who was unable to speak in public, had managed, thanks to the support of his family, to overcome his handicap and to assume his role as the first character of the British Empire.

In 1952, George VI died suddenly in his sleep from lung cancer.

The Crown Princess was traveling in Kenya with her husband Philip when she learned of her father's death.

She was only 26 years old. Urgently repatriated, she was enthroned the day after the sovereign's death.

His coronation took place sixteen months later at Westminster Abbey, a flamboyant ceremony broadcast live on radio and television.

Under the knowing gaze of her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth II returns from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace, London, after her coronation, June 2, 1953. © Topical Press Agency/Getty

The young queen soon realized that as a constitutional monarch she actually had very little power.

His political function was limited to delivering the annual Speech from the Throne, drafted by the government.

It was above all a symbol, that of the continuity of the State.

She will take her private weekly audiences with the prime minister, who as the popularly elected majority leader, determines government policy, seriously.

When Elizabeth II acceded to the throne in 1952, the Prime Minister she had in front of her every Tuesday morning was none other than Winston Churchill.

This craftsman of the English victory against Nazi Germany was his mentor.

He introduced him to the intricacies of domestic and international political life.

Endowed with a great political intelligence, the young sovereign quickly gained confidence, taking a close interest in the progress of the country and the world, not hesitating to inform successive Prime Ministers of her positions on government policy. during their weekly meetings, while ensuring that his privately expressed political opinions hardly leaked outside the palace.

Moreover, during her long reign, no one was ever able to say whether the queen was on the left or on the right.

She has never given an interview to journalists.

We only know that she was a tireless worker, going through the newspapers and dispatches from 10 Downing Street (the Prime Minister's residence) every morning.

In her memoirs, Margaret Thatcher, who met the Queen every week for ten years,

paid homage to him, drawing attention to the application with which the sovereign read the important diplomatic telegrams and despatches every morning.

" 

 ,” the “Iron Lady” wrote.

Moreover, as "

", Elizabeth II knew the deep divisions which continue to cross her country on the advisability and the modalities of the separation from the European Union voted by the British with a narrow majority in 2016. She did not express her opinion on this subject, however, contenting herself simply with calling on her people to show respect for each other in her traditional Christmas speech.

Europe, Commonwealth and Ireland

It was as head of the pragmatic state that Elizabeth II tackled the major socio-political upheavals, instinctively espousing the shifts in history.

In particular, she had facilitated the entry of the United Kingdom into the European Union by undertaking, in 1965, a historic trip to Germany which greatly contributed to the healing of the traumas of the Second World War.

Britain also owes Elizabeth II the relatively smooth transformation of her empire into a multiracial Commonwealth, which aims to be a free association of former colonized territories that have become independent.

The Queen understood very early that the old colonial regime was over and that helping the new states from the former British colonies to develop and assert themselves was the best way to safeguard the economic and political interests of postcolonial England. .

Hence her presence in 1961 in Accra, West Africa, where she attended Ghana's independence anniversary celebrations alongside its president, Kwame N'Krumah.

In 1990, she once again demonstrated her political intelligence by having

, just released from prison, invited to the meeting of Commonwealth Heads of State and Government.

To strengthen ties with the countries of the Commonwealth, she made several times almost complete tours of the world, from the Tropics to the antipodes, in the footsteps of the Empire in full mutation.

Another example of her sense of pragmatism: the speech she made during her official trip to the Republic of Ireland in May 2011 contributed, despite the controversies that this trip had aroused, to the easing of tensions linked to seven centuries of British occupation of Ireland.

It thus sealed the reconciliation between the two peoples.

“annus horribilis”

If on the political level, Elizabeth II could legitimately be proud of the positive results of her years at the head of her kingdom, she had more difficulty in protecting her family life from decay.

His reign was punctuated by scandals related to the intimate life and marital escapades of his children.

With the tabloids and private channels getting involved, these affairs have sometimes taken on epico-comic proportions, making the royal family the laughingstock of all.

One of the last times was in 2019 when Prince Andrew, the second son of Elizabeth II, was accused of having sex with underage girls.

The prince was, in fact, very good friends with the American financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The man was suspected of procuring prostitutes for the powerful on both sides of the Atlantic, including the queen's son.

It was in 1992, described as “

” by the queen herself, that the drift of the royal family reached its peak, with the announcement of the separation of three of the four Windsor children.

It was above all the upheavals of the dramatic separation of Crown Prince Charles from his wife, the very popular Princess Diana, which profoundly damaged the image of the royal family, which had become in a way the very example of a dysfunctional family in the eyes of of the British.

The image of the queen herself was damaged

in Paris, plunging the country into an unprecedented crisis of collective hysteria.

Upset, the population criticized Elizabeth for her coldness towards her ex-daughter-in-law.

The throne wavered, but by taking the floor on television to praise the "princess of the people", the queen succeeded in reducing the tension which reigned in the country.

Thanks to her composure and her sense of contact with her subjects, Elizabeth II was able to turn public opinion in her favor.

As imagens da rainha Elizabeth II e seu marido, o príncipe Philip, descendo do carro para ver as flores espalhadas diante de Buckingham entraram para a história do país.

PA

As for his family, it had to wait for the weddings of the grandsons of Elizabeth II, William and Harry, in 2011 and 2018 respectively, to rise in the esteem of the British people, attached to royal pomp.

The two marriages and the births of the Queen's great-grandchildren have brought a breath of fresh air to the monarchy.

However, this experienced a mini storm when Harry and his American wife of mixed origin, Meghan Markle, announced at the beginning of 2020 their desire to lead an independent life, settling in North America, far from the tabloids which do not hadn't been very kind to Meghan.

The decision raised a question of status for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, but the Queen had stepped in and helped ease the tension by giving her blessing to the couple's project,

while declaring how saddened she was to see them leave the royal shackles.

She had put all her weight in the balance so that they could take off, facilitating their installation in Canada first, then in California.

However, things went wrong between the British royal family and Harry and Meghan when in March 2021 the princely couple gave a long explosive interview on American television, denouncing an institution that was too "reactionary" for their taste, even racist, and incapable, according to the Sussexes, to adapt to the multicultural turn of British society.

Despite these family crises which did not fail to poison the last years of her life, the aging sovereign saw her popularity rating go up, thanks to her tireless action in favor of her country.

In 2015, almost 90 years old, she could boast of having made 341 official trips.

The popular momentum generated by the celebrations of its platinum jubilee in 2022 (70 years of reign) was proof of the unbreakable bond of the British people with their monarchy.

In particular with Elizabeth II, who knew how to exercise her profession of constitutional queen with dignity, know-how and an instinctive understanding of the expectations of her subjects.

The sovereign's almost instinctive closeness to the British probably explains why the republican current demanding the abolition of the monarchy could never really take off in the country during the reign of Elizabeth II.

According to a recent YouGov poll, 80% of Britons had a positive opinion of Elizabeth II and 70% were in favor of the monarchy.

With Charles, successor to the late queen, who has a more divisive personality, the risk of seeing republicanism grow is real.

Unless the future king, inspired by his mother's know-how, adopts this " 

 " which was the main trademark of the long reign of the late queen.

And no doubt also the secret of its popularity.

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