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Tribute / QUEEN ELIZABETH II BY TASCHEN
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by Keith Francis
Born on April 21 1926 in Mayfair, London and crowned, by the Grace of God, Elizabeth II Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of her other realms and territories, Head of the Commonwealth and Defender of the Faith on 6 February 1952, the reign of "The" Queen that has witnessed the greatest period of change in the history of the United Kingdom, and perhaps the entire world, has finally come to an end.
Deputising for her father, Princess Elizabeth took the salute for the first time at Trooping the Colour on Horse Guards Parade. She wears the scarlet tunic of the Grenadier Guards, of which she was colonel. 1951. © Bettmann/Getty Images
After becoming the first British monarch to celebrate a platinum jubilee on the 6th of February this year, on the 8th of September 2022 after a very short illness Elizabeth II died setting a new record for the longest reign of 70 years and 214 days. Her death falls indeed in uncertain times, with the news dominated by wars and crises, and while the country expresses its grief with hundreds of thousands of faithful subjects lining the streets of London and queuing for 30 hours to pay their respects in person to this historic monarch, the future of the Monarchy itself has never felt so uncertain.
Things were very different back in the early
‘fifties. The post-war years were a sort of phoenix time and the feeling was that nothing could stop everything just getting better and better, and the coronation was, in a certain way, its defining moment. My own parents were among the millions who bought or rented a new-fangled television set so they could witness this historic event. At the time, fewer than two million homes had television, mostly concentrated in the big cities. However, in the build-up to the big day, 526,000 television sets were sold as coronation fever swept the country. The enthusiasm for the new Queen was tangible.
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Photographed for the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in her private audience room at Buckingham Palace in 2014, Her Majesty wears a thistle brooch in honour of Scotland’s national emblem. © Harry Benson
But those millions of living-room television parties nearly didn’t happen at all.
Televising the coronation had been vetoed by both the Palace and Winston Churchill – but they were forced to bow both to Elizabeth’s insistence, and obviously to public opinion. TV ownership doubled and more than 27 million Britons crowded into their neighbours’ living rooms to watch the show.
It was the day the Queen truly entered the hearts of her subjects, to become the symbol, the icon of the new family through the boom times of the ‘sixties. It seems almost quaint now that the 1969 BBC documentary, The Royal Family, was seen as excessively invasive, undermining the magic of monarchy with shots of the royal family at the breakfast table.
But nothing would tear the veil of the royal image of perfection more than the events of the 1990s, when charting the breakdown of Charles and Diana’s marriage became a national obsession.
Marking the 40th anniversary of her accession, the Queen reflected, with masterly understatement, that 1992 was not a year she would look back on "with undiluted pleasure". Her "annus horribilis" saw the Prince of Wales separate from Diana, his first wife, and her sensational portrayal in Andrew Morton's biography – a de facto autobiography, it later transpired – as a betrayed, selfmutilating bulimic. The Princess Royal divorced. The Duke of York's freshly estranged wife, Sarah, graced the tabloids topless and accompanied by an enthusiastic "financial adviser". The popularity of the royal family, unsurprisingly, ebbed.
Capping all that, Windsor Castle almost burned down, precipitating an uncommon public tear to well in the regal eye.They were dark times indeed, as the royal family discovered it couldn’t uphold the old-fashioned values of family life any better than anyone else.
But it could set an example of care, concern, forgiveness and understanding, as Her Majesty set about doing in the decades that followed.
By revealing her vulnerability, her humanity, Her Majesty regained the love of her people and truly earned the iconic status she enjoyed until her final day.
Now after this outpouring of collective love for our deceased monarch and our 10-day mandatory period of mourning, we are all waiting to see what our new
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King Charles III will bring to the monarchy. I have the feeling his mother will prove a very difficult act to follow, and not many people I know like the idea of a Queen Camilla either. Having reigned through the terms of 14 American presidents and a total of 15 UK prime ministers, in these uncertain and troubled times our Queen is gone.
God save the King ! In this definitive photographic collection of her public and private life, which includes the works of luminaries such as Cecil Beaton, Lord Snowdon, David Bailey and Patrick Lichfield, TASCHEN traces her marriage, motherhood and coronation, her encounters with with such icons of her age as the Beatles, Marilyn Munroe and JFK and her extensive travels, as well as the tenderness and humour of informal and family moments.
Her Majesty. Updated Edition
Reuel Golden, Christopher Warwick Hardcover, 25 x 34 cm, 3.13 kg, 368 pages (Deutsch, English, French)
