According to media reports, on the afternoon of September 8, London time, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom died in Balmoral Castle, Scotland, at the age of 96.
One
Elizabeth II was the 6th Queen and 42nd King of England since William the Conqueror.
She was born in the early hours of April 21, 1926. In 1936, because Edward VIII was infatuated with the American beauty Lady Simpson and announced his abdication of the throne, Elizabeth II's father, Albert, Duke of York, became the new King of England, later George VI. Elizabeth was able to become the heir to the throne.
After the outbreak of the Second World War, when King George was across the country to comfort the people who had been bombed by the Germans, the 14-year-old Princess Elizabeth made a radio speech to the whole of Europe on the BBC for the first time in her life. "I can tell you all the truth that we children at home are full of joy and courage. We are doing our best to help our brave soldiers, and we are trying to shoulder our own responsibilities. Every one of us knows that in the end, everything will be fine. ”
George VI died on February 6, 1952, while Philip and Elizabeth were chatting in a "tree hotel" in a safari park in the vast forest sea of the Nyan Darua Mountains in southwestern East African kenya, while waiting for sunrise. After learning that her father had died in her sleep, she immediately returned to China - "the upper tree is the princess, the lower tree is the queen" Spread.
Two
Soon after ascending the throne, Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, for the first time began holding small informal lunch parties at Buckingham Palace to entertain prominent civil servants. In 1962, the Queen opened a new gallery at Buckingham Palace dedicated to the royal collection. For the first time in its history, Buckingham Palace was open to the general public.
The old royal image is being replaced by a new one.
In the late 1980s, the media revealed the discord between Crown Prince Charles and Princess Diana, tearing open the curtain that covered the royal family's affairs. In 1997, Princess Diana was killed in a car accident, and Elizabeth II returned to London two days later, and Buckingham Palace did not lower the flag to half-mast for a long time. This evasive attitude caused an unprecedented crisis of trust in the British royal family, and the number of Britons who supported the Queen's abdication doubled. Some British media criticised the Queen as "too obsessed with royal etiquette" and showing indifference to the death of Princess Dai, disappointing the British. Popular support for the British royal family fell below 70% for the first time.
Elizabeth II broke with convention by making a national televised address the day before the funeral to offer her condolences to Diana, who bowed as her coffin passed by Buckingham Palace. This rare expression of affection won Elizabeth II renewed popular support.
Elizabeth II was a man of candor and humor in private, and her public image today is half out of nature and half out of upbringing. The queen always solves her own emotional problems and rarely confides in people. "When she was depressed, she went to the field to pull weeds."
Her stodgy grandmother, Queen Mary, is said to have even taught her how to hold back a smile in public, and she began to show her love for Her grandchildren such as Prince William in public.
Three
Elizabeth II was only 26 years old when she was crowned, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill sighed: "She is just a little girl." Luckily, "Little Girl" met a "pit bull" and "Queen Elizabeth benefited greatly from sir Winston Churchill's vast experience".
In June 1953, at the age of 78, Churchill suffered a second stroke and was forced to return to his hometown to recuperate. When he returned to London two months later, the topic of when he would retire was already hotly discussed, and politicians hoped that the Queen would persuade Churchill to retire, but Elizabeth unexpectedly chose to support Churchill. By the winter, when Churchill regained control of the situation, the Queen could finally leave for the Commonwealth countries with confidence.
Elizabeth, who gradually mastered the art of leadership, conquered the old prime minister with her "charm and intelligence". Photographs of the Queen were hung by Churchill at the head of the bed in his bedroom until his death in January 1965.
Four
In May 1979, Queen Elizabeth II invited a woman to form a cabinet for the first time.
Margaret Thatcher accepted the Queen's invitation to become the first female Prime Minister in British history. When it comes to common gender issues, Thatcher is blunt: "The queen is the king of a country, she just happens to be a perfect lady; And I am the Prime Minister of a country, and I just happen to be a woman, but the conversation between the Queen and me is still the conversation between a monarch and a Prime Minister. ”
Margaret Thatcher prescribed a powerful medicine for the British economy, but the two strongest women in England are not so "sorry". The Times once broke the news: "When the official reported to the Queen that Margaret Thatcher had fainted at work, the Queen, instead of worrying, said with a disdainful face: 'She always did that in order to win the respect of others.'" ’”
"She and Thatcher are said to have gotten along badly, in part because Thatcher didn't understand the meaning of the Commonwealth."
Five
Elizabeth II married her husband, Prince Philip, in 1947.
In 1939, King George VI and his family arrived at the Royal Naval School in Tmouth, where Philip, 18, was attending. The Queen fell in love with the distant cousin at first sight. Philip's father was the fourth son of King George I of Greece.
The marriage was later reached at Elizabeth's insistence. The couple received a large number of gifts, and Mahatma Gandhi gave him a piece of tablecloth woven with cotton thread that he personally woven.
A royal assistant revealed that the Queen and Prince Philip had reached a "contract". In public, the Queen is the head of state on the top, while at home she is honored by her husband Philip. In Buckingham Palace, the Queen often prepares breakfast for her husband herself, and while enjoying her wife's wishes, Philip once complained that "English women can't cook".
According to British media reports, Prince Philip completely inherited his father's bad habits, became a merrier, left illegitimate children all over the world, and even publicly listed his lovers, including more than thirty actresses and noblewomen, and jokingly called them "Members of the Duke Philip Club". For the sake of royal dignity, the queen reluctantly accepted Philip's momentary affair. The more fundamental reason is that Prince Philip is the only person in the world who sees the Queen as an ordinary person. The Queen cherished it.
Six
On October 12, 1986, Elizabeth II visited China, the first visit of a British monarch in history.
On October 13, then-President Li Xiannian presided over the welcoming ceremony outside the east gate of the Great Hall of the People. The queen said that visiting China was a long-cherished wish of hers. "About 390 years ago, my ancestor, Queen Elizabeth I, wrote to the Wanli Emperor expressing the hope that trade between England and China would develop. The messenger who delivered the letter was unfortunate, so the letter never arrived. "Fortunately, the postal service has progressed since 1602, and the letter you invited us here has arrived safely, and accepting this invitation has given us great pleasure."
Long before her visit to China, the Queen had studied for a while Chinese the Chinese Embassy in London "a young female translator taught her Chinese for two afternoons." British officials also revealed that the Queen had asked the Chinese Embassy in the UK to provide the pronunciation of the names of Chinese leaders, as well as some audio tapes of Chinese place names Chinese pronunciations. At the state banquet that evening, when the queen spoke, the place names and the Chinese pronunciation of the Chinese leaders were very accurate.
The next day, the Queen and Deng Xiaoping met at Yangyuanzhai at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. Deng Xiaoping was a great smoker, but he learned that the queen did not smoke, so he did not smoke a single cigarette during the entire meeting banquet. After her visit to China, the Queen specifically mentioned the matter in her letter of thanks to Deng Xiaoping: "I hope that not smoking a cigarette has not made you too uncomfortable." Actually, we won't mind, but we still appreciate your kindness. ”
After the morning meeting, Deng Invited the Queen and his wife to dine together. The menu begins with a cold platter. Hot dishes include jasmine chicken cake soup, Buddha jumping off the wall, xiaolong two, dragon's whiskers, steamed mandarin fish, and guiyuan almond tea. Dim sum and staples are fresh pea cake, chicken spring rolls, fried mochi dumplings, steamed dumplings, butter, bread and rice. When she heard that "Buddha Jumping off the Wall" was delicious and fragrant, even the monks outside the wall could not help but cross the wall to taste it after smelling it, and the queen once excitedly said that she would "eat more."
Seven
Elizabeth II lived through World War II and underwent a major transition from empire to union in Great Britain – in 1957, ghana, the first African colony, won its independence, and since then, many colonies have opted for independence. She also has to deal with all sorts of real and fictional family scandals.
In late 2021, the U.S. media publicly reported that the increasingly frail old woman — widowed since Prince Philip's death in April — carries the fate of a monarchical dynasty that has endured countless wars, scandals, rebellions and a abdication that has led to upheavals over the past 10 centuries, but whose most powerful assets — tradition, prestige and pomp — are becoming less and less important in a world dominated by the fingertip power of social media.
Although this sentence is a bit harsh, it more or less tells the situation of Elizabeth II in her later years.
In 1947, Elizabeth, still a princess, visited South Africa on behalf of the British Royal Family. In the meantime, her father, King George VI, exclaimed to those around her: "She is gone, as lonely as usual, what an unusual girl." "In the work of the painter Annie Gurney, the queen often stands alone in the picture. Gurney commented on this: "I saw her alone, watching the waves alone. "Although this woman is authoritative and widely loved, no one can enter her heart in a more intimate way. Perhaps the post of queen is destined to be a very lonely profession.
According to the "Times Post", "The Bund Pictorial", "Look at the World", "Sanlian Life Weekly", "Southern People Weekly" and other comprehensive
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