In 2022, the UK had perhaps the hottest summer in history. On September 6, the temperature in London dropped below 20 degrees Celsius, and the Queen of England began her day's work as usual.
Wearing glasses and pearl earrings, a gray sweater coat and a Scottish skirt, and a small black leather bag, she smiled and received the newly appointed British Prime Minister, Terrass. This is the 15th British Prime Minister she has hosted. Although the large bruises on the back of her right hand were clearly visible, she remained smiling, the same expression she had seen every time she had appeared in public view for the past seven decades. Shakes hands with Terrass and leaves her last work photo in the world.
Two days later, on the afternoon of September 8, British time, the Queen of England died at Balmoral Castle, which made her feel most relaxed, ending her 96 years of life and 70 years of working life.
In a speech in memory of her, Prime Minister Tras said, "The Queen has reigned for 70 years with such dignity and grace that her career of service has exceeded the living memories of most of us." She experienced World War II, witnessed the birth of the jet age, the advent of the Internet age, the first time humans entered space, landed on the moon, accompanied Britain to join the European Community, and left. In her own words, "Inevitably, longevity can go through many milestones, and I myself am no exception".
From the day she took the throne at the age of 26, she worked hard to play the symbol of the country. As Queen of the United Kingdom, she has experienced 14 of the 45 presidents of the United States. In her tribute to the Queen, the British historian Simon Sharma wrote, "Over the past seven decades, in the midst of ups and downs, painful divisions, and unpredictable upheavals, elizabeth has been confined to her social class, dry court rituals and customs, but she has become the embodiment of the idealization of the country at the most important times."
And the price of all this is that she sacrificed her personal freedom and life. It wasn't until her body couldn't carry it that she was able to stop her work.
We look back on her life, see the gap between being Queen of England and being Elizabeth, and see her difficulty in maintaining national symbols and royal decency throughout her long life.
Wen | Zhao Cong
Edited | Chu Ming
Figure | Visual China (unless specially marked)
A symbol of empire
When Tower Bridge opened the bridge for the Royal Cruise ship to welcome the Queen's fleet through, heavy rain began over London. In 2012, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Elizabeth II's accession to the throne, the River Thames held what is said to be britain's largest water celebration since the 17th century. On wet, cold, rainy days, Elizabeth II, then 86 years old, dutifully stood on deck throughout the voyage, waving to the enthusiastic citizens on both sides of the strait.
In a sense, Elizabeth is one of the most dedicated servants of the British Royal Family. As she swore in her public address on her 21st birthday — "I swear to all of you that I will use my whole life — long or short — to serve you, to serve our great imperial family," her loyalty has stood the test of time more than "Empire."
"But today is also a very sad day for her, because her father died on this day, so she ascended the throne as queen." After meeting the Queen at the celebration, a little girl from kindergarten was confronted by the interview camera and said with some sadness.
On 6 February 1952, news of George VI's death spread from England to a tree-roofed hotel in Kenya built among the branches of a huge fig tree. Elizabeth, 26, is here to visit her father. A widespread theory is that when she climbed the tree house, she was just a royal princess, and by the time she climbed down, she had become queen of England.
In 1952, Elizabeth II, who was still a princess at the time, visited Kenya. Then came news of the death of King George VI and the accession of Elizabeth to the throne.
Elizabeth knew early on that the fate of the heir to the throne was not entirely inescapable. When she was 10 years old, her uncle Edward VIII chose to abdicate a year after ascending the throne in order to marry an American woman who had been divorced twice. As a result of his abandonment of his responsibilities and embrace of love and freedom, the royal family fell into chaos, and Little Elizabeth said goodbye to her childhood of being able to live a carefree life in england or the Scottish countryside. Her father succeeded her to the throne, making Elizabeth the first heir to the throne. Her homework went from reading the Children's newspaper to studying the Constitution and Customary Law.
After learning of her father's death in Kenya, Elizabeth looked "pale and fidgety," but she did not shed tears. "It was all too sudden." 40 years later, the Queen recalled, "The burden falls on your shoulders, so do whatever you can to get it done, and slowly you'll get used to it." At this point, I had to accept reality. This is my destiny, and the inheritance of the royal family is the most important."
At the coronation a year later, Elizabeth II wore the crown of her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, and on her satin coronation dress, she was decorated with symbols of the British Empire and Commonwealth countries, such as roses representing England, and even lotus flowers and wheat symbolizing India and Pakistan. At the age of 26, she became the first monarch to be dubbed "Head of the Commonwealth", automatically holding many titles such as Head of the Armed Forces and Supreme Leader of the Church of England.
Elizabeth smiled and waved to the people, and from that moment on, she herself, like these floral ornaments, became a symbol of the British Empire and the British Commonwealth.
On 2 June 1953, London, on the day of the coronation, Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.
Guardian of standards
After becoming queen, the 26-year-old Elizabeth lost her freedom and was asked to hide her personality.
When she had just returned to London from Kenya and met her grandmother for the first time as queen, she was reminded, "Lilybert, your dress is too short."
From the moment her father died, she became the new spokesperson for the country. She must be elegant and noble. Her profile picture was printed on the new version of the coin, and she no longer needed a passport to travel abroad. Because passports for all people in this country will be issued in her name, including those of her husband and son. And she herself does not have to hold it anymore.
As then Prime Minister Winston Churchill described her in a speech to the House of Commons on the fifth day after she took the throne, "a beautiful and energetic person", "the inheritor of our traditions and honors". These words have clearly been carefully considered, severely limiting her image and meaning as queen.
Since then, in public, what clothes she wears and what hat she wears has become part of identity politics. When she appeared in the crowd, she stopped wearing beige clothes, and the Queen once explained to morgan, the designer of her hat, "because people will not know who I am". So during the 70 years of the Queen's reign, brightly colored vintage coats became one of her hallmarks. Her hat must also follow a principle that the brim can block the sunlight, but not the public from seeing her face.
The queen also does not wear fashionable clothes. Her dress designer Hadi Armis in the 1990s once said of her attitude, "She wanted to look friendly and friendly." Fashionable clothes always have some cold, cruel feeling. She doesn't want to wear it." She defines herself as the "last guardian of standards", and even when there are not many people or cameras, the queen wears formal attire.
In Britain, she is probably one of the least allowed to make mistakes, because the consequences of mistakes are terrible. In 1963, the Queen blew up the hem of her skirt during a trip to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. This moment was captured by the photographer. When the photograph appeared in the newspaper, the caption read, "Wellington in the wind and rain.". So when traveling, her designer had to sew some small lead weights into the queen's skirt.
From the beginning of her succession, her trademark smile continued throughout her 70 years of reign. In the interpretation of outsiders, the queen's smile is the "embodiment of the idealization of the state" in the face of the gentle force of turmoil. As a result, she rarely expresses her true emotions in public. Only in the year of her succession, during a coronation trip of more than 40,000 miles around the world, the News Chronicle recorded one of her outrages. At the reception, she said to her entourage, "Governor, are you tired?" "Then take your hand out of your pocket and stand up straight."
In 1963, the Queen travelled to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. On the plane, the wind blew up the hem of her skirt. Graph source network
More often, she shows super emotional management skills. Royal biographer Robert Hardeman recorded such a fragment. In 1976, when the Queen returned from Finland after a state visit, she asked the crew to remind her as she passed a famous horse farm. Horses are one of the queen's greatest hobbies of her life. But they forgot about it, and when the queen realized she had missed her favorite horse, she was "clearly holding her anger" at the table full of officials. But soon, the queen picked up a napkin to cover her face, put it down, and "conjured up a new laughing queen" .
She also rarely shows sadness in public. In 2002, the 50th anniversary of the Queen's reign, her sister Margaret and her mother, Queen Elizabeth, died in that year, but at her Golden Jubilee celebrations, she appeared in the crowd in orange gowns and orange hats, and her smiles did not show any emotion that could be interpreted as gloomy. At the funeral of her husband, Prince Philip, Charles, the Crown Prince, kept shedding tears, but the Queen was only photographed wiping her tears while in the car.
These self-disciplines and rigor maintained the dignity of the royal family, and also made her the spiritual force of a country in the turmoil of war, modernization reform, economic crisis, and terrorist attacks in Britain. On Buckingham Palace's website, the Queen is described as a "fountain of honor". On her Diamond Jubilee anniversary, Buckingham Palace released a set of figures, awarding 404,500 titles and awards over a 60-year period and hosting more than 1.5 million people at garden parties. She once said, "People sometimes need praise and encouragement, otherwise the world is too dark."
The "constant" of the world
Back in the 1950s, shortly after the coronation, Elizabeth embarked on a five-and-a-half-month round-the-world tour, becoming the first British monarch to travel the world. From east to west, the Queen traveled more than 43,000 miles, most of them by sea. According to statistics, along the way, she gave a total of 157 speeches, listened to 276 speeches from others, shook hands 13213 times, and received 6770 knee bending ceremonies (bowing is not recorded), listening to "The Queen of Heaven" 508 times, equivalent to listening to an average of 3 times a day.
Robert Hardeman records in his book that the Queen has visited at least 126 countries and territories. No one knows exactly the length of her journey. The royal yachts alone have reached more than 1 million nautical miles at sea in more than 40 years, and royal flights have a much more range. The number of countries visited is also difficult to count accurately, as the names and statuses of many have changed during different visits by the Queen.
For Elizabeth personally, in her world of rituals and rules, the long journey, though exhausting, can also provide her with a little joy and freedom to be an ordinary person. Robert Hardeman wrote that the royal yacht Britannia was probably the closest thing to Elizabeth's "own" home. Other palaces and castles were inherited by her, and the furniture and equipment were decided by more than 40 kings before her. Only in the "Britannia", from the lamps to the carpets, Elizabeth was able to practice her own designs and ideas.
Britannia Image source network
"Anyone who knows us knows that Buckingham Palace is the office," Elizabeth told the then newly appointed Commander of the Royal Yachts in 1990, "Windsor Castle is a place for weekends, and occasionally there are some national events... When I'm on the boat, I can get up at any time, wear the clothes I like, and have complete freedom."
In 1997, the royal yacht Britannia, which had been in service for more than 40 years, was decommissioned in the presence of the Queen. The Royal Marines band, when exiting the parade, played "Friendship Lasts Forever". It was seen that the queen shed tears that day.
The diplomatic soft power injected into Britain by the Queen's visit is self-evident. Jack Straw, a former Labour foreign secretary, said: "She is able to promote the UK far more than any politician. Diplomacy is still a projection of power." Many believe that the Commonwealth would not have lasted so many years without the Queen's support.
Perhaps more importantly, nearly 70 years of day-to-day visits have made Queen Elizabeth a common political and cultural memory for the people of the world. She has met with 13 serving U.S. presidents, nearly a third of all presidents since the founding of the United States. For most people living in the world now, the Queen has been there since the time there is a memory. In the words of Matthew Bazun, she is like the "constant" of the world.
"All my life, she's been there. I can't imagine her not being there. I just can't do it." Actress, Lady Maggie Smith, said. At least in the moments when she remembers her classic looks and smiles, the people of the world have briefly and preciously become a community.
In February–March 1975, Elizabeth II paid a state visit to Mexico with a group of local children.
Be careful with the changes
In the 1990s, the advent of the era of mass media allowed more people to see the details of royal life. Gaps are constantly emerging between the rules adhered to by the royal family and the development of "modern Britain".
One of the most representative is the controversy surrounding whether the Queen has to pay personal income tax since the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Queen was not required to pay taxes, but in 1991, 70% of Britons thought she needed it.
Speculation is about her income and wealth. Fortune magazine estimated that year that the Queen could earn $3 million a day. But Buckingham Palace later clarified that the figure was "exaggerated".
It was not until 1992 that the marriage scandal and crisis of the Queen's three children was made public in a grossly unseemly manner. One of the most familiar is the story of Charles and Diana, a few days after the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne, Diana's biography Diana: Her Real Life was published, and her binge eating disorder and the relationship between Charles and Camilla were vividly presented to everyone.
The youngest son, Andrew's wife Sarah, was photographed vacationing in Morocco with a wealthy businessman, and daughter Princess Anne also divorced that year. Andrew Neal, editor of the Sunday Times, wrote an article slamming that "it is a waste for the state to spend money on some members of the royal family", renewing the call on the Queen to pay taxes on her private income.
Royal biographer Robert Hardeman once explained that since 1986, the Queen has begun a comprehensive reform of the royal family's financial affairs, but "the change of the royal family is always gradual, and there must be a very good reason". In 1992, a series of events, including the Windsor Castle fire, eventually accelerated the landing of the Queen's income tax payment plan.
Another challenge for the Queen came three years later, when Princess Diana gave a tv interview that set a record for 23 million viewers. In the interview, Diana described the unhappiness of the marriage and the attitude of the royal family towards her. Diana's freedom and rebellion won more recognition and became a contrast to the royal family's old-fashioned, conservative counterparts.
The interview made the Queen reconsider The Marriage of Charles and Diana. After consultations with Prime Minister John Major and Archbishop George Carey, the Queen wrote a letter to Charles and Diana, suggesting in her name that it could be said to "demand" that they be "considered in the best interests of the country" and "divorced as soon as possible".
On March 27, 1981 local time, the Queen took a group photo with the newly engaged Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
What is not known to outsiders is that after this incident, the Queen set up a committee within the royal family to review the life of the royal family, and in the description of the royal biographer Robert Hardeman, this committee worked mainly on "uncontrollable issues, such as whether the eldest son can continue to enjoy the right to inherit".
But the pace of royal reform has not kept pace with the changes of the times, and in 1997, Diana's death once again brought serious crises to the royal family. The Queen issued a brief statement, as was customary, "The Queen and the Prince of Wales are deeply shocked and saddened by this bad news" and never said anything again.
But these are seen in the eyes of the public as the indifference of the royal family. Correspondingly, three days after Diana's death, 750,000 people signed the condolence book. In an article, The Independent wrote, "If only the royals could cry with the common people."
Some even asked Buckingham Palace to lower the flag at half-mast for Diana's departure. But in the royal regulations, the royal flag is not lowered to half-mast even after the death of the monarch, because after the death of the monarch, the crown prince succeeds to the throne, and there is always a monarch on the throne.
The headlines of British newspapers began to change to "Let's see if you care?" "Where is the Queen?" Where is the Flag of Kings?" The Daily Mirror wrote, "Your people are in misery, say something, ma'am?"
The mood of the people and the pre-royal rules of the diaphragm once again forced the queen to make a change. A week later, when she went to Diana's funeral, Buckingham Palace lowered its flag at half-mast for the first time. This rule was also broken, and in the subsequent 9/11 incident, the July 7 bombings in London, which killed 56 people, and the death of Elizabeth's mother, Buckingham Palace's royal flag, symbolizing the monarch, expressed mourning at half-mast.
The Queen was careful to make changes while maintaining royal rules. She later delivered a speech in live television, set against the backdrop of the crowd outside the window, dressed in a black dress and glasses, praising Diana as a "remarkable and gifted person" who "never lost her smile from her face, whether in good times or bad times, and her warmth and kindness always inspired others".
At the suggestion of Prime Minister Tony Blair, she expressed her side as a grandmother in this speech. She acknowledges that "it is not easy to express a sense of loss, as the initial shock is often accompanied by a mixture of other emotions: doubt, incomprehension, anger, and concern for the living."
In November 1982, Elizabeth II and Princess Diana attended the opening ceremony of the London Parliament.
A veil that cannot be lifted completely
Diana's departure was a turning point in the royal family's attitude toward the media.
In this matter, the Queen's attitude has always been cautious. The conventional wisdom is that the British royal family should maintain a certain degree of mystery, "can not lift the veil of mystery". In preparation for the coronation in 1953, both Elizabeth and then Prime Minister Winston Churchill initially believed that television lights and cameras should not be allowed to disturb this sacred ceremony, Wadi Biddle Smith wrote in her biography.
But when the news of the ban on television was released to the public, the radio and television companies and the general public expressed strong protests against the exclusion from the ceremony. The final solution was for the Queen to make a cautious concession, promising to broadcast the coronation live for the first time in history, but with the removal of religious sacred moments during the ceremony and the prohibition of close-ups. According to media reports, this decision has led to a surge in TV sales, and many viewers have purchased TVs specifically for this purpose.
The 70 years of Queen Elizabeth's reign have also been 70 years of rapid change in media and social practices. The Queen launched her own personal website in 1997 and the British Royal Family signed up for Twitter in 2009. In 2019, the 92-year-old Queen Elizabeth personally posted her first photo of herself on Instagram.
At the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, Elizabeth may have found one of the most humorous and subversive ways to play the Queen. With the help of stunts and editing, she looks as if she and Agent 007 have skydived into the stadium. Some commentators argue that under Elizabeth, the monarchy found a new way to connect with the public, showing the public what life was like behind the palace gates.
At the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games, with the help of stuntmen and clips, the Queen of england "parachuted" to the stadium. Graph source network
Queen Elizabeth even underwent a documentary film that was very close to her private life, and the documentary called "The British Royal Family" began filming in 1968 and lasted for nearly a year, leaving 43 hours of footage on 172 occasions around the world.
Not all members of the royal family supported the Queen's decision. Their daughter, Princess Anne, later said that filming The British Royal Family was a "terrible idea" and that "there has been so much attention since childhood that I can't stand it anymore." The last thing I want to accept is that everything is known to all." Even David Attenberg of the BBC, one of the film's producers, admitted that the film would kill the royal family, because "the royal family is like a mysterious tent inhabited by tribal leaders, and if any tribal members see the real situation inside the tent, then the entire tribal operating system will be destroyed and eventually lead to the disintegration of the tribe.".
But the truth is that "The British Royal Family" has a 40 million audience in the UK, and the audience is deeply attracted by the "ordinary life" of the Queen's family. The documentary has not been shown in public since the 1970s.
It is also this change that gives everyone a glimpse of the queen's human side. There was even a small episode in between.
When the Queen and her husband, Duke Philip, were on a trip to Australia, the photographer squatted outside their holiday home at an unexpected moment. The couple in the cottage seemed to have had some arguments. When the Duke rushed out the door, he was followed by a pair of tennis shoes and a pair of tennis rackets that flew out, and then the angry queen, shouting for him to come back. When she found herself exposed to the camera, she quickly "dragged" the Duke into the house. After this incident, the queen recovered the photographer's videotape and explained to him, "I'm sorry for this little episode, but you know, all marriages are like this."
Such stories clearly bring the queen closer to the people. Harvard political scientist Joseph Ney wrote in 2013, "In the information age, power has a function not only to make the army win, but also to make the story win, and the monarchy provides a convincing story that lasts much longer than the 15 minutes of splendor enjoyed by the famous." But the royal family still seems to regret the filming of the documentary. Since the 1970s, at Buckingham Palace's request, the documentary has not been shown in public.
In her 70-year reign, Queen Elizabeth has been the provider of the story, the controller and protector of the story. Throughout her life's work, she narrated the story of the British royal family as a model of elegance and dignity, reflecting the classical brilliance of order and reason. It's just that, now, the story she offers may come to an end.
In October 1982, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visited the Solomon Islands.
End
In April 2021, Prince Philip, 99, passed away quietly at Windsor Castle, and Queen Elizabeth spent his last days with him. Their son, Prince Andrew, said Queen Elizabeth, who was often in deep thought after her husband's death, described Prince Philip's departure as "like a huge void in life".
Prior to this, Queen Elizabeth's sister, Princess Margaret, died in February 2002 due to heart problems caused by a second stroke. She was the first woman in the British royal family to divorce. Queen Elizabeth attended her funeral. Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who is said to have had a frosty relationship with the Queen, died in 2013; Former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who had a deep affection for the Queen, died in 1965.
After 2018, the elderly Queen Elizabeth stopped arranging overseas trips, but she has been insisting on fulfilling her royal duties at home. In April 2020, she delivered a special televised address on the then-growing COVID-19 pandemic in the UK, her fifth since taking the throne, the first four of which took place on the 60th anniversary of her accession to the throne in 2012, the eve of the funeral of her mother, Queen Elizabeth in 2001, the eve of The funeral of Princess Diana in 1997, and the 1991 statement on ground-based military operations in Iraq.
At the end of a special TV address on COVID-19 2020, Queen Elizabeth said: "We should feel comforted that although we still have to endure a lot of suffering, the good days will come back, we will be with friends, we will be with our families again, we will be able to reunite."
Now, Elizabeth had finally finished her long and arduous work.
On September 9, 2022, local time, the first day after the death of Elizabeth II, the queen's photos were played on many large screens on the streets of London to show mourning.
Bibliography:
Elizabeth II: The Queen's Journey, Robert Hardeman, Cultural Development Press
Biography of Queen Elizabeth, Sally Bidel Smith, Beijing United Publishing Co., Ltd
Documentary "Our Queen"
The Times Obituary of Elizabeth II
The New York Times Series on the Death of Elizabeth II