Queen Elizabeth II, who celebrates her Platinum Jubilee this week, has spent 70 years on the thronemore than any other British monarch, weathering social crises, family scandals and lately mounting health problems.
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“For her, being queen is a great role, older than her,” Kate Williams, author of “Young Elizabeth: The Making of a Queen,” told AFP on the 60th anniversary of her reign in 2012.
The origins of the queen
Elizabeth Alexandra Maria II born in London on April 21, 1926.
Nicknamed “Lilibet” by her family, she was third in line to the throne after her uncle Eduardo and her father Alberto.
But she became an heiress when her uncle abdicated as king to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, and her father succeeded him as George VI.
She was raised by governesses at Buckingham Palace. Towards the end of World War II, at the age of 18, she joined the Armed Forces as a driver.
In the message he addressed to the country on his 21st birthday, he declared: “My entire life, long or short, will be devoted to serving you”.
In November 1947, she married her third cousin, Felipe, who had to renounce his titles of Prince of Greece and Denmark. They had four children: Carlos (1948), Ana (1950), Andrés (1960) and Eduardo (1964).
Elizabeth was in Kenya when her father died in February 1952 and she became queen at the age of 25although she was not crowned until June 2, 1953, in the first and so far only British enthronement broadcast on television.
Since then, Elizabeth II has witnessed the disintegration of the British empire, the Cold War, post-war social changes, the arrival of the digital age and the complicated British exit from the European Union.
The scandals of the Crown
The queen is extremely discreet about her lifeof which his hobbies for corgi dogs and for horses that he rode even until recently with a scarf tied to his head are hardly known.
However, in 1992, he declared that those last 12 months were an “annus horribilis” (horrible year), because the marriages of his children Carlos, Ana and Andrés exploded, and his beloved Windsor castle burned.
Despite these events, it faced a worse crisis in 1997 when the death of Diana, already divorced from Carlos, was about to break the affection of the British for herwhich at first appeared cold and distant, since ‘Lady Di’ stood out for her gentle gestures with the most vulnerable people, especially with the sick.
The weddings of his grandchildren Guillermo, in 2011 with Catalina, and Enrique, in 2018 with Meghan, modernized the image of the British royal family.
But the tranquility was short-lived: in 2019, Andrés, considered his favorite son, scandalized the country due to his friendship with the American financier Jeffrey Epstein, accused of sexually exploiting minors. And he ended up settling with an out-of-court financial agreement the complaint of one of them, Virgina Giuffre, who accused him of sexual assault when he was 17 years old.
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Recently, in 2020, Enrique left the monarchy and moved to California with Meghan, in what the press has known as “Megxit”. From there they accused the royal family of being unsupportive and racista, leading the queen to have to manage a new institutional crisis, which could soon be revived with the next publication of Prince Henry’s memoirs.
Popularity and health problems
Despite her 96 years and the multiple crises that the royal family has gone through, the queen continues to enjoy enormous popularity. A poll by The Sun newspaper gave him 91.7 percent favorability this week, compared to 67.5 percent for Prince Charles, her 73-year-old heir, who progressively assumes more monarchical functions in a progressive transition .
Her mother’s health has caused concern since she had to rest in October and was hospitalized to undergo medical “tests”. She has since suffered from increasing mobility problems and contracted covid-19 which in her own words left her “exhausted”.
He canceled his participation in numerous events and even she was replaced by Charles in the “throne speech” before parliament, one of the most important constitutional functions of the head of state. But in recent weeks, she has appeared smiling at numerous events, fueling hopes that she might come out on Thursday to wave from Buckingham Palace.
The jubilee celebrations
The series of acts will start this Thursday with the “Trooping the Colour”, a parade of the British regiments with which the official birthday of the queen is celebrated. Several troops were doing the last rehearsals on Wednesday on the great avenue The Mall, in front of Buckingham Palace (London), which has been adorned with United Kingdom flags.
Featuring the Royal Guard in their red suits and tall bearskin-lined hats, the parade will feature more than 1,500 soldiers and musicians, around 240 horses and the Irish Guards’ mascot, Turlough Mor the dog. irish wolf.
This colorful show will be followed by members of the royal family and special guests in the courtyard of the headquarters of the cavalry regiment -Horse Guards-, in central London.
This Friday, there will be a Thanksgiving mass at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, during which the “Great Paul” bell, the largest in the United Kingdom, built in 1882, will ring.
The celebrations will continue on Saturday when several stars from the entertainment world take part in a concert at the gates of the palace, where special stages are already set up.
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According to the Ministry of Culture, Ed Sheeran, Queen, Alicia Keys and Diana Ross will perform at the eventwhich can be followed on giant screens near Buckingham Palace, as well as in Cardiff (Wales) and Edinburgh (Scotland).
The celebrations will conclude on Sunday with the so-called Platinum Jubilee Parade, in which artists from the country and the British Commonwealth of Nations will tour the Mall to tell the story of the reign of Elizabeth II in a final procession, in which will be displayed by first time in 20 years the carriage of state, which was used to carry the queen to Westminster Abbey when she was crowned in 1953.
The decline of the monarchy?
The death of the queen will mark a great turning point
For many people, this great event represents a goodbye in style for Queen Elizabeth and possibly for the “last great monarch” of the United Kingdom.
Graham Smith, director of the Republic movement, which militates for being able to elect a president as head of state instead of a monarch, assures that those who adore the queen do not necessarily appreciate Carlos.
According to a survey by the British Future think tank, 58 percent of Britons support a monarchy, while 25 percent favor a republic after Elizabeth II. But the margin is much smaller among the young (40 per cent vs. 37 per cent in favor of a republic), ethnic minorities (37 per cent-33 per cent) and the Scots (45 per cent-36 per cent).
“The death of the queen will mark a great turning point”predicts Robert Hazell, professor of constitutional law at University College London. Carlos, 73, will be “an unseductive old man” when he becomes king, he tells AFP. And he does not rule out that he is pressured by the tabloid press to leave the place to his son Guillermo, who turns 40 in June.
According to the Daily Mail newspaper, Guillermo has already expressed his willingness to change his strategy after a tour of the Caribbean in March, in which he was heavily criticized for the country’s colonial past.
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He would like the monarchy to be more “agile”a “unifying force” capable of withstanding the passage of time, says the newspaper.
It also opened the door to a smaller role for the crown in the Commonwealth, when some of those countries that still have the queen as head of state could declare themselves republics, as Barbados did in November.
From there to imagining a domino effect in the UK is a long, unlikely step in the short term, says Hazell. In addition to a referendum, the transition to a republic would require the support of a broad section of the political class, she adds.
According to this expert, the UK is already “a republic even if it doesn’t say so”, with a sovereign without real political power, in contrast to a country like France, where “the president is like a monarch”. And he has the advantage of a head of state with whom the population identifies “more easily.”
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from Efe and AFP
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