Elizabeth Windsor Becomes Queen Elizabeth II, February 6, 1952
oets, populaces and historians all have remained captivated by the ancient paradox of monarchy, of privilege burdened with duty, of symbolic might above judicial power, of a “Divine” inheritance over an elected figurehead.
Official coronation portrait of Queen Elizabeth II of England (1926-2022)—per her request, her coronation gown was embroidered with the floral emblems of all the nations over which she reigned
Some amongst these have suggested that monarchy is an obsolete institution in our modern age. That too, is an ancient fascination—the idea of abolishing it for good. What replaces it is the question, one that as Americans we feel we have in many ways solved, our system being based on the Biblical concepts of checks and balances. The judges of old whom God appointed before His people begged for a king that they might be like other nations. Yet while we have a revolving figurehead of executive power, in England there has been one dominant personality who, for over half a century, steadfastly represented the old ideals of devotion, duty and decorum in such rapidly degrading times.
Elizabeth in 1933
Elizabeth Windsor was England to many of us for all of our lives. Criticized at times as outdated, as slow to respond in a crisis, as emotionless and demure to a fault, she kept and represented in her reign all the steady and restrained attributes so offensive to a reactionary world. Combined, it is essential to note, she did with unflinching grit, devout faith and a quiet capacity for diplomacy.
King George VI (1895-1952)
Her inheritance of the throne being indeed hereditary, Elizabeth’s reign began with a deep personal tragedy—the death of her beloved father, King George VI (known to close friends as Bertie). A man of rare ability who was admired by his nation, his wife and his two daughters, he was an anomaly of familial success in monarchy. He inherited the throne from his brother, Edward VIII, who infamously gave up his duty as king to marry a three-time American divorcée, thus burdening his younger brother George with a role he was neither born nor prepared for, yet embraced with grace and fortitude. It was George VI who steered England through the Second World War, not as a distant monarch but as a man who walked the streets of bombed-out London again and again to minister to his people.
King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, 1936
The Queen and Princess Elizabeth (far right) speak with paratroopers as they prepare for D-Day, May 19, 1944
Heir to such a legacy of sacrifice and humble leadership, when her time came to step into the role, Elizabeth Windsor lived her life as a paragon of the old ideal. Even before the crown passed to her she served her country during WWII in the army as a mechanic for the Auxiliary Territory Service, and gave her famed Commonwealth Speech on her 21st birthday in which she pledged herself to the course she would then maintain for a reign of 70 years.
Princess Elizabeth in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, April 1945
She was, in fact, representing her ailing father on a tour of Kenya—accompanied by her husband, the future Prince Phillip, then titled the Duke of Edinburgh—when she received the news that the king had died. Gone in his sleep, after a battle with lung cancer, the crown was now passed to his twenty-five-year-old daughter. Her tour was immediately abandoned, a black dress procured so that her first public appearance en route to the airport might be in proper mourning garb, and her ruling name settled upon—she chose to continue on as Elizabeth.
Engagement portrait of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten, September 18, 1947
A formal wedding portrait of Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten with members of the royal family, November 21, 1947
Upon arriving in England, she was received by the man who had been her father’s friend and comrade during Britain’s darkest hour, newly re-elected Prime Minister Winston Churchill. At a spry 77 years of age, he was back in power and took to guiding the young Queen in her duties with fatherly investment. Himself experiencing a second showing of faith by the people who had re-elected him, Churchill went on to polish his already dazzling legacy of exceptional oratory with a most honoring eulogy given for the late king, one that memorialized him fittingly and looked forward to the young queen’s reign with a hope she would go on to prove well-placed.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill (center)—an ever-present influence during both King Edward’s reign as well as the early days of Queen Elizabeth’s—with The King, Queen, and Princesses Elizabeth (left) and Margaret (right), on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, May 8, 1945
Winston Churchill making an “eve of poll” tour and speech, February 23, 1949
“When the death of the King was announced to us yesterday morning there struck a deep and solemn note in our lives which, as it resounded far and wide, stilled the clatter and traffic of twentieth-century life in many lands, and made countless millions of human beings pause and look around them. A new sense of values took, for the time being, possession of human minds, and mortal existence presented itself to so many at the same moment in its serenity and in its sorrow, in its splendour and in its pain, in its fortitude and in its suffering.
King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, 1939
The King was greatly loved by all his peoples. He was respected as a man and as a prince far beyond the many realms over which he reigned. The simple dignity of his life, his manly virtues, his sense of duty—alike as a ruler and a servant of the vast spheres and communities for which he bore responsibility—his gay charm and happy nature, his example as a husband and a father in his own family circle, his courage in peace or war—all these were aspects of his character which won the glint of admiration, now here, now there, from the innumerable eyes whose gaze falls upon the Throne…
The last few months of King George’s life, with all the pain and physical stresses that he endured—his life hanging by a thread from day to day, and he all the time cheerful and undaunted, stricken in body but quite undisturbed and even unaffected in spirit—these have made a profound and an enduring impression and should be a help to all.
Wedding portrait of Prince Albert, Duke of York (future King George VI) and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, April 26, 192
King George VI (center) with British troops in Holland, October 13, 1944
He was sustained not only by his natural buoyancy, but by the sincerity of his Christian faith. During these last months the King walked with death as if death were a companion, an acquaintance whom he recognized and did not fear. In the end death came as a friend, and after a happy day of sunshine and sport, and after “good night” to those who loved him best, he fell asleep as every man or woman who strives to fear God and nothing else in the world may hope to do…
Queen Elizabeth II in 1953
Now I must leave the treasures of the past and turn to the future. Famous have been the reigns of our queens. Some of the greatest periods in our history have unfolded under their sceptre. Now that we have the second Queen Elizabeth, also ascending the throne in her twenty-sixth year, our thoughts are carried back nearly four hundred years to the magnificent figure who presided over and, in many ways, embodied and inspired the grandeur and genius of the Elizabethan age. Queen Elizabeth II, like her predecessor, did not pass her childhood in any certain expectation of the Crown. But already we know her well, and we understand why her gifts, and those of her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh [later “Prince” Phillip] have stirred the only part of the Commonwealth she has yet been able to visit. She has already been acclaimed as Queen of Canada.
Philip and Elizabeth on their honeymoon
Queen Elizabeth with her husband Prince Philip, daughter Princess Anne, and son Prince Charles (now King Charles III), 1957
We make our claim too, and others will come forward also, and tomorrow the proclamation of her sovereignty will command the loyalty of her native land and of all other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire. I, whose youth was passed in the august, unchallenged and tranquil glories of the Victorian era, may well feel a thrill in invoking once more the prayer and the anthem, “God save the Queen!””
—Winston Churchill’s broadcasted tribute to King George VI
Prime Minister Winston Churchill (seated) with his son and grandson, dressed in their finest for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
Image Credits: 1 Queen Elizabeth II Coronation (wikipedia.org) 2 Elizabeth, 1933 (wikipedia.org) 3 King George VI (wikipedia.org) 4 King Edward VIII with Wallis Simpson (wikipedia.org) 5 Queen and Princess with troops (wikipedia.org) 6 Elizabeth in ATS (wikipedia.org) 7 Engagement Portrait (wikipedia.org) 8 Wedding Portrait (wikipedia.org) 9 Royal Family with Churchill (wikipedia.org) 10 Churchill, 1949 (wikipedia.org) 11 King George & Queen Elizabeth (wikipedia.org) 12 Wedding of George & Elizabeth (wikipedia.org) 13 King George in Holland (wikipedia.org) 14 Queen Elizabeth II, 1953 (wikipedia.org) 15 Honeymooners (wikipedia.org) 16 The Royal Family, 1957 (wikipedia.org) 17 Churchill for Coronation (wikipedia.org)