from lilibet to elizabeth ii
Becoming Queen
King Edward VII may 6, 1910
King George V
The monarchy of the United Kingdom is the constitutional monarchy of the United Kingdom and its overseas territories. The monarch and immediate family undertake various official, ceremonial and diplomatic duties. Monarchy is limited to non-partisan functions such as bestowing honours and appointing the Prime Minister. The monarch is traditionally the Commander-in-chief of the British Armed Forces. Though the ultimate formal executive authority over the government of the United Kingdom is still by and through the royal monarch’s, these powers may only be used according to laws enacted in Parliament, and within the constraints of convention and precedent. The monarchy traces its origins from the Kings of the Angles and the early Scottish Kings. The House of Windsor came into being in 1917, when the name was adopted as the British Royal Family’s official name by a proclamation of King George V, replacing the historic name of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. It remains the family name of the current Royal Family. The members of the House of Windsor have familial ties with most of the monarchs in Europe.
january 20, 1936
King Edward VIII december 11, 1937
King George VI february 6, 1952
Queen Elizabeth II
John Logie Baird displays a mechanical television in London.
Flooding of London suburbs.
The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre is destroyed by fire.
elizabeth is born.
April 21, 1926 General Strike begins in support of the coal strike.
When the future Queen was first learning to talk, she had difficulty pronouncing all the syllables in Elizabeth. ‘Lilibet’ was the best she could manage, so that became the name by which her family knew her throughout her childhood and, in the case of her husband, to this day; though when he is particularly affectionate he also calls her ‘Cabbage’. Little Lilibet loved to ride her tricycle. To judge from her tailored coat and sensible shoes, she might have been any well-born three-year-old pedaling the graveled gardens of Mayfair at the end of the 1920s. Except that she called her grandfather ‘Grandpa England’, and he lived across the park in Buckingham Palace.
Council for the Preservation of Rural England is formed.
Elizabeth of York was not born to be Queen. She came into the world on the 21st of April in 1926, the equivalent of the modern Princess Beatrice: first-born daughter of the Duke of York, destined to flutter on the royal fringe. York is the dukedom traditionally given to the monarch’s second son, Prince Andrew today and Elizabeth’s father, Prince Albert, in the 1920s. So while Lilibet was brought up with almost religious respect for the crown, there seemed no change of her inheriting it. Her young head was never turned by the personal prospect of grandeur – which is why she would prove so very good at her job. Elizabeth II’s lack of ego was to prove the paradoxical secret of her greatness.
Prince Edward is Duke of Windsor
elizabeth becomes heir to the throne.
May 12, 1937 Assassination attempt on King George VI in Belfast.
Return of the British Graham Land Expedition from Antarctica.
First monoplane fighter aircraft enters the Royal Air Force.
Elizabeth’s Grandfather, King George V died in 1936 and her uncle, Edward became King Edward VIII. King Edward abdicated after his proposed marriage to divorced socialite Wallis Simpson provoked a constitutional crisis. After his older brother abdicated, Elizabeth’s father became King George VI. The new King’s immediate heir, a proverbial heartbeat away from the throne, was his ten-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. “When our father became King,” Margaret recounted nearly sixty years later, “I said to Princess Elizabeth, ‘Does that mean you’re going to become Queen?’ She replied, ‘Yes. I suppose it does.’ She didn’t mention it again.” The accession of George VI renewed Palace speculation that had been voiced at the time of Princess Margaret’s birth about the need for the new King and his wife to produce a male heir. But though Elizabeth’s father had once thought in those terms himself, by 1936 he had come to believe quite the contrary. He compared his elder daughter to Queen Victoria; “From the first moment of talking,” he said, “she showed so much character, that it was impossible not to wonder whether history would not repeat itself.”
Food rationing introduced.
The first German plane is shot down over England.
First civilian casualty in the United Kingdom
Chamberlain resigns and is replaced by Winston Churchill.
Italy declares war on France and the United Kingdom.
“Thousands of you have had to leave your homes and be separated from your fathers and mothers,” declared Princess Elizabeth in a broadcast that was syndicated around the world. “My sister Margaret Rose and I feel so much for you, as we know from experience what it means to be away from those we love most of all . . . My sister is by my side, and we are both going to say good night to you. Come on, Margaret!” The ten-year-old leaned forward to do her bit. “Good night!” piped her clearly younger voice. “Good night and good luck to you all!” The King’s daughters were crucial components of the symbolism, two mascots who embodied the tender values for which people believed that the war was being fought. As the girls had swept their Little Welsh House during the depression, now they ‘did their bit’ to beat Hitler, collecting tin foil, rolling bandages and knitting socks. Both made contributions from, their pocket money to the Red Cross, and the Air Ambulance Fund, it was reported, which did not, on the face of it, leave them very much spare for sweets. Official bulletins described the two princesses as located ‘somewhere in the country’ to emphasize their similarity to so many other children dispatched from the inner cities and the perils of the bombing. In fact, they were quite close to London, living at Windsor Castle, where they were able to see their parents who came down from Buckingham Palace most weekends. The girls were ensconced for the best part of five years in the 15th century Lancaster Tower, in high and gloomy bedrooms carved out of thick stone walls, with the wind whistling up and down the stone-flagged staircase.
The Blitz begins.
elizabeth broadcasts.
October 13, 1940
In 1939 Buckingham Palace had snootily rejected an American suggestion that the British Princesses might strengthen transatlantic friendship by making a brief radio contribution to National Children’s Week in the US. “There is, of course, no question of the Princesses broadcasting,” wrote their father’s Private Secretary, Alan Lascelles, “nor is it likely to be considered for many years to come.” The idea seemed less preposterous with the Battle of Britain being fought overheard.
elizabeth joins the military.
March 4, 1945 British troops liberate the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
V-E Day is celebrated.
The UK takes control of Lebanese and Syrian administration.
V-J Day is celebrated.
Press censorship ends.
Alexander Fleming and Ernst Boris Chain win the Nobel Prize for the discovery of penicillin.
In a war effort that was marked by social mobility, Elizabeth and Margaret had been remarkably segregated from their contemporaries, and in the spring of 1945, with her nineteenth birthday approaching, she finally escaped to join the Auxiliary Territorial Service, or the ‘Women’s Army’ as the ATS was generally known – ‘No. 230873, Second Subaltern Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor. Age: 18. Eyes: blue. Height 5ft. 3ins.’ For a month she travelled to Aldershot every morning for a vehicle maintenance course, learning how to change tires and cylinder heads, the returned to Windsor for dinner every evening to lecture her sister and parents on the joys of the internal combustion engine. The Princess was wearing her khaki ATS uniform on the evening of May 8th, when she appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace with her parents and Winston Churchill to acknowledge the cheering multitudes celebrating Victory in Europe day. Then she slipped away with some of the First XI to mingle with the throngs in Whitehall and Piccadilly Circus, before gravitating back to the palace. There, for just once in her life, she became a face in the crowd like any other, looking up through the railings and shouting out in unison, “We want the King!”
British coins cease to include any silver content.
Postwar boom in births reaches peak.
Restrictions on foreign travel during World War II lifted.
Pakistan and India gain independence from the UK
University of Cambridge votes to allow women to become full students.
Elizabeth and Philip were more in love and determined than ever. Whatever her parents’ doubts, she herself had none, and she was now an adult who declined to accept further delay. She made up her mind. She was finding her public duties painful as curious crowds shouted out “Where’s Philip?” The dutiful daughter finally put her foot down and, faced with her resolve, her parents bowed to the inevitable. “It is with the greatest pleasure,” read a statement from Buckingham Palace, “that the King and Queen announce the betrothal of their dearly beloved daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, to Lieutenant Phillip Mountbatten RN . . . to which the King has gladly given his consent.”
elizabeth marries.
November 20, 1947
Life was tough in post-war Britain, Clothing could only be purchased with coupons from a government-issued ration book, and the officially-encouraged atmosphere of makedo-and-mend raised tricky questions about the proper scale of the royal wedding. Aneurin Bevan, the conscience of Labour’s left wing, declared, “As long as we have a monarchy, the monarchy’s work has got to be done well.” This proved to be the national consensus by the time the wedding day rolled around. The list of over 1,500 wedding gifts displayed extraordinary generosity by ordinary members of the public. The family themselves had also sorted out their feelings. “I was so proud of you and thrilled at having you so close to me on our long walk in Westminster Abbey,” wrote the King to his daughter a few days after the ceremony. “But when I handed your hand to the Archbishop, I felt that I had lost something very precious.” George VI now felt guilty about the delay he had imposed. “I was rather afraid that you had thought I was being hardhearted about it. Our family, us four, the ‘Royal Family,’ must remain together – with additions, of course, at suitable moments!” All was forgiven so far as Elizabeth was concerned.
elizabeth’s father dies.
February 6, 1952
The one shilling charge is introduced for prescription drugs.
King George VI was never told that he had cancer, but in May 1951 his doctors handed him over to the care of a chest surgeon who prescribed the removal of a lung for reasons of ‘bronchial blockage’. When Elizabeth set off with Philip on the last day of January 1952 on the southern hemisphere tour that the King had been due to carry out, her Secretary, Martin Charteris, carried sealed envelopes containing a draft Accession Declaration and a message to Parliament. The tour was another ‘thank you’ to Commonwealth countries - in this case to the East African colonies, Australia and New Zealand – for their help in the war.
The Manchester Guardian first prints news on its front page.
It started in Kenya where Elizabeth and Philip travelled to Treetops, the famous house overlooking a waterhole where animals came after sunset. It was in this curious situation, up in the branches of a tree watching wildlife, that Princess Elizabeth learned of her father’s death. Sometime that night at Sandringham in Norfold her father George VI died of a thrombosis in his sleep. Altered by aides, her husband had to break the news to her. “He took her up to the garden of the lodge where they were staying,” remembered Philip’s Private Secretary. “And they walked slowly up and down the lawn while he talked and talked and talked to her.”
University of Southampton, the first post-war university, is established.
The De Havilland Comet becomes the world's first jet airliner.
Tea rationing ends.
Great Smog blankets London.
Elizabeth’s response to her father’s death was remarkably restrained. “She was sitting erect, fully accepting her destiny,” remembered Martin Charteris of the moment he went to discuss the practicalities of cancelling the tour and for the journey home. When Elizabeth emerged from the plane at London Airport she was a small, composed figure in black whose appearance at the top of the steps was tremendously important and somehow comforting, the first of several occasions when her emotional calm and solidity would provide relief to an overwrought nation.
Arrangements were made quickly for the Royal party to return to London. During the flight, the Queen realized she had no mourning outfit. The aircraft landed in North Africa where a black dress was taken aboard. The Queen changed quickly before exiting the plane in England.
February 15th, a Friday, dawned cloudy and misty. The mile-long cortege began its slow journey from Westminster Hall as Big Ben tolled fifty-six times, once for each year of the King’s life, and artillery salutes of fiftysix guns were fired.
In a carriage behind the coffin came Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret shrouded in black, followed on foot by the closest male members of the family. The coffin was taken by train to Windsor for burial in St. George’s Chapel, where the King’s father and grandfather were buried.
Rationing of sweets, introduced during World War II, ends.
Queen Mary dies in her sleep at Marlborough House. Francis Crick and James D. Watson publish their description of the double helix structure of DNA.
The crowning of Elizabeth was set for the day estimated by meteorologists to be the likeliest to produce sunshine the following summer, which gave a full sixteen months to transport the contingents of troops from around the Empire who would parade the streets in the style of the century’s three previous coronations. The Ministry of Works turned central London into a ceremonial theme park, this queen must be crowned in the sight of all the people, with processional arches and long, covered stands that gave the Mall and Whitehall the appearance of a race track. Every seat in the stands was sold the day booking opened, and the capital, like every British city, town and village, was decked out with flags and bunting for months ahead. The Cold War was in full swing, and visitors to Russia came back ridiculing the cult of personality surrounding Stalin, but that was nothing compared to Britain’s profusion of posters and souvenirs, from tin pots to tea towels, emblazoned with column, dark-eyed likeness of Elizabeth.
elizabeth is crowned.
June 2, 1953 It rained, of course, on the carefully chosen day, incessantly. But a thorough drenching would not stop the nation of Shakespeare, Sheridan and Shaw dressing up and strutting upon the stage. No one can put on a show like the uptight and reticent British. The one-person who certainly was not acting was the central character, for whom every element was a matter of the profoundest meaning and emotion.
Government sends troops to the colony of British Guiana The House of Lords votes in favour of the government’s proposals for commercial television.
“Pray for me on that day,” Elizabeth has asked the previous December in her first Christmas broadcast, on radio only. TV viewers had to listen while watching a still of her at the microphone. “Pray that God may give me wisdom and strength to carry out the solemn promises I shall be making.” Standing beside the newly crowned Queen, Dermot Morrah, felt a chill run through his body. “The sense of spiritual exultation that radiated from her was almost tangible.”
You sense her approach before you see her. There’s a straightening of shoulders among palace staff, a determined clip of shoes on polished floors, and another sound, harder to place, like autumn leaves blowing across tarmac. One of the first things people notice about the Queen is how closely she fits their expectations, whether she is accompanied by her corgis or courtiers, is dressed down in dowdy daywear or gussied up in rich silks and tiaras. Today’s second longest-serving monarch may look too petite to shoulder her extraordinary mass of accrued experience and global celebrity, but in other respects she is exactly as we imagine her: regal and serious-minded, familiar yet enigmatic. The British essayist Walter Bagehot wrote of the monarchy, “Its mystery is its life. We must not let in daylight upon magic.” This precept still holds, perhaps more so than ever in an age of disposable celebrity. The Queen has never made herself available for interviews and has no intention of doing so. Her enduring popularity, and the long-term survival of the monarchy, rests on a rarely articulated notion in our egalitarian times: that she and her royal heirs are special.
This book was designed by Makenzie Kressin at Washington University in St. Louis. Content adopted from The Queen: A Life in Brief written by Robert Lacy and published by HarperCollins in 2012.