Elizabeth II today crosses the finish line of sixty-nine years of reign. It was the February 6, 1952 when Lilibeth, on the death of her father, king George VI, automatically became the queen of England (even though the coronation took place on June 2, 1953).
When the sovereign father, aged just 56, passed away in his sleep, 25-year-old Elizabeth and her husband, the Prince Philip, were in Kenya. They had replaced the king, too ill to travel, on a visit that should have included Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Elizabeth and Philip had left Heathrow airport on January 31st and the king had wanted to accompany them to the flight ladder. He stayed on the track to greet his daughter with her arm raised, and she smiled back through the porthole. It was the last time they met.
Cut off from communications, Lilibeth and her husband they learned of George VI’s death late. When they got to the Treetops Hotel, a resort whose rooms rest on the branches of a gigantic fig tree to allow guests to observe the animals that go to drink in the pond opposite. Philip was the first to be informed and it was he who told Lilibeth, after proposing a walk in the park. Mike Parker, the Prince’s assistant, observed the couple from afar: they paced back and forth and he talked to them, talked to them, talked to them … The Queen spent the next few hours writing letters and tickets to cancel the appointments of the following days and apologize for this. Towards evening her private secretary, Major Charteris, joined the queen in her room, finding her “sitting perfectly erect, with the air of who she was. ready to accept her fate“. It was he who asked her: “What name will Majesty take? “. And she: “Mine, of course… Elisabetta ».
The legendary English hunter Jim Corbett was also in the resort, and wrote a phrase that became famous, which still appears on a plaque hanging on a wall of the hotel: «For the first time in the history of the world, a young girl climbed a tree one day as a princess and fell the next day as a queen. God bless you “
They have since passed sixty-nine years. A milestone that makes the ninety-four year old Elizabeth one of the longest-lived sovereigns in history. More than her have reigned alone Louis XIV of France (72 years and 110 days), the Thai ruler King Bhumibol Adulyadej (70 years, 126 days) and king Johann II Liechtenstein (70 years, 91 days). Considering that Queen Elizabeth does not seem to have any intention of giving the throne to her son Charles, future overtaking is not excluded. Even if, for the queen of records, that of longevity is a primacy veiled in melancholy. If his reign lasted so long it is because his father George VI died very young. So there is nothing to celebrate. And indeed His Majesty in 2015, when surpassing the duration of the reign of Victory (63 years and 216 days) became the longest-lived ruler in UK history, asked expressly to avoid official ceremonies and celebrations.
Today Elizabeth reaches the milestone of sixty-nine years of reign at the time of coronavirus and in one of the darkest periods of the British Crown. The queen left behind an annus horribilis, troubled by too many unpleasant events among which, in addition to thefarewell of Harry and Meghan to the royal family, the fall of the son Andrew of York, increasingly entangled in the Epstein scandal. It is reasonable to assume that once again – net of health restrictions – His Majesty has no desire to celebrate.
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