The Editors of TIME - Queen Elizabeth II

Queen Elizabeth II

The Worlds Longest-Reigning Monarch

The Trooping of the Colour ceremony, London, 1983

Princess Elizabeth made a broadcast from the gardens of Government House in Cape Town, South Africa, on the occasion of her 21st birthday, on April 21, 1947.

The queen appeared in a skit with Daniel Craig (a.k.a. James Bond) before Londons 2012 Olympics.

Credits

COVER

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Inset: Brian Aris/Camera Press/Redux

Back Cover

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Title Page

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Contents

ITV/REX/Shutterstock

The Record-Breaking Ruler

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Commonwealth Of Nations

TIME

Through the Ages

Julian Calder/Camera Press/Redux

Princess Years

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The Love of Her Life

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The Day She Donned the Crown

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Cover Girl

(clockwise from top left) Boris Chaliapin (2); Anwar Hussein Collection/LFI; TIME

Windsor Family Tree

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Destined to Be King

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Golden Grandsons

(from top) Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images; Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images

Public Treasures

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The Stamp of Her Influence

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Screen Queen

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CONTENTS

Elizabeth II was just 26 during the procession for her coronation 65 years ago, on June 2, 1953.

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Parts of this edition appeared previously in TIME.

The Record-Breaking Ruler

Elizabeth is the longest-reigning British ruler and the longest-serving living monarch. Thats all for a good reason

BY A.N. WILSON

A 16th-century playwright once wrote, Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, but his words fell short to Her Majesty, whose graceful reign has spanned seven decades.

The British national anthemGod Save the Queenis that rare thing: a prayer that has obviously been answered. Long to reign over us! the British sang when the young woman succeeded her father, George VI, during that cold February in 1952. They were still singing it more than 65 years later.

Five years after she became queen, a journalist named John Griggactually a very genial man who tried to become a Liberal member of Parliamentattacked the queen in print for a string of offenses, among them, for having a voice that was a pain in the neck and for lacking spontaneity. She appeared to be just going through the motions. He got slapped in the face for his temerity. The queen went on reigning.

Long to reign over us, the British sang, when the nation began to emerge from the austerity years and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan told Britons they had never had it so good. Long to reign over us during the 1960s, when half the population still had scarcely adequate plumbing or dentistry and homosexuality was still a criminal offense. Now there are openly gay cabinet ministers and bishops. Long to remain over us when the British governments of the 1970s recognized a changing public morality but bumblingly allowed the economy to fall into chaos, and when clashing ideologies led to a heated immigration debate throughout Britain. She has lived to see London become the financial powerhouse of Europe and for Britain to absorb a vast number of Asian and African immigrants with prodigious ease.

Long to reign over us during Britains grabbing me-me-me years of the Thatcher era, when the monarch alone seemed able to effectively tell the government that it had gotten South Africa wrong, that the Commonwealth had gotten it right, and that Nelson Mandela would one day be a free man. Long to reign over the United Kingdom while Ireland was in a state of war, and as, little by little, peace with a kind of honor came to the north. Long to reign over us as Britain came to realize it was a European nation (albeit a rather uneasy member of the EU). Long to remain over us when Britain voted to come out of the EU, whose citizens were multinational, multiracial and multi-faith. Long to reign over a U.K. that sat agog in 1953, watching Elizabeth II being crowned, the first time the ceremony had ever been televised. The longest-reigning British monarch! The longest-serving living head of state in the history of the world!

It was fully 40 years ago, at the time of the queens Silver Jubilee, that Philip Larkin, the poet laureate the British never had, spoke for so many admirers when he penned this short quatrain:

In times when nothing stood

But worsened or grew strange,

There was one constant good

She did not change.

No other period of British history saw so much change. And this, surely, is what makes the queen such a very remarkable figure. She saw it all, lived through it all. And the old woman who still goes to Parliament and bravely greets foreign heads of state, however ghastly they may be, was recognizably the same as the 21-year-old princess who spoke from South Africa to say, I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service.

There are many moments during this long reign when even quite reasonably minded people have asked whether modern Britain had outlived the monarchy and its quasi-religious trappings, whether it would be more sensible to become like France or Germany or the U.S. and declare for a republic. In fact, the monarchy and the monarch are more popular now, after all these years, than at any other time in history.

Witness the huge crowds that came out to cheer during the Golden and Diamond Jubilees. And the awesome size of the crowds that came to witness her grandchildren marry their respective brides.