The longest serving sovereign in UK history prepares to celebrate the platinum jubilee: February 6, Elizabeth II will be queen for 70 years. Until now no one had ever celebrated such an anniversary. Before her, only Victoria had celebrated the diamond in 1897, reigning for 60 years. Becoming Queen at 25, on February 6, 1952, following the premature death of her father, George VI, Elizabeth II experienced the gradual dismantling of the British Empire, many wars and major international upheavals.
Although the official coronation took place on 2 June 1953 in Westminster Abbey, Elizabeth, at the age of 95 (96 on 21 April) will become the only British monarch to have ruled for 70 years and the celebrations of the event include a rich calendar of celebrations waiting for the official ones from 2 to June 5th. Celebrations to be held in the absence of her husband Philip of Edinburgh, who passed away on 9 April 2021 at the age of 99.
Queen of records: why?
Queen Elizabeth saw and made history, entering the Guinness World Record not only for being the longest-lived monarch in British history, in fourth place in the world rankings (the Sun King Louis XIV of Bourbon reigned 72 years and 110 days), but also for being the longest-lived ever with her 95 years. Her face is the one that appears most on the coins and banknotes of half the world (also in this case beating her ancestor Vittoria); she is Head of State, as well as of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, of the other Realms of Commonwealth for a total of about 139 million subjects. And she is also the living monarch who has most often appeared on the big and small screen.
It has survived over the years 14 British Prime Ministers (the first was Churchill), 13 presidents of the United States (from Truman to Biden even though he never met Lyndon Johnson), 10 presidents of the Republic Italian company all the Italian Prime Ministers, from Alcide De Gasperi to Mario Draghi, but also to a long series of family scandals.
The scandals of the royal family
La windsor crown has repeatedly faltered under the weight of its tradition, with events that seriously endangered the image of the Windsor house during the long reign of Elizabeth II: from the abdication of Edward VIII to the death of Princess Lady Diana, from the removal of Prince Harry to the recent scandal that engulfed his son Andrea, accused by a woman of raping her when she was still a minor. Queen Elizabeth, who cares deeply about the image of the crown, has faced the vices and mistakes of her family with aplomb and perseverance, but she has not been able to hide them. Let's see the best known ones.
Edward VIII: the King who abdicated for love
Elizabeth II was not destined to reign until her paternal uncle Edward VIII he did not decide to abdicate to marry the American heiress Wallis Simpson, who already had two divorces and the appointment of femme fatale behind her. The former English king spent the rest of his years in something of exile, disowned by his family and represented the undermining of the Windsor house in the twentieth century. A very different choice from that of Elizabeth of her who remained at the side of her husband Philip of Edinburgh despite her alleged clandestine flirting.
His abdication caused an institutional crisis in theBritish Empire and in the Commonwealth unprecedented in history, but which allowed a young Elizabeth to enter the heart of the royal family, suddenly catapulted to the position of heiress, first in the line of succession. When her father King George VI died on the night of February 6, 1952, Elizabeth inherited a country that still had to recover from the devastation of the Second World War.
Sister Margaret wants to marry a divorcee
Another romance shook the Windsors. The one between Princess Margaret, Elizabeth's sister, and the Colonel Peter Townsend, many years older than her with two children and a failed marriage behind her. But in 1952 the Anglican Church of England - of which the Queen is the head - still did not allow marriage to a divorced man. As her uncle, Margaret didn't take no. Buckingham Palace's strategy was very subtle: to keep the wedding away with false promises: first by asking Margaret to wait for her 25th birthday (as also required by royal law), then by keeping the colonel away for two years in Belgium. To then arrive at the ultimatum: the princess was asked to abandon all royal privileges in order to get engaged to Townsend, but Margaret, unlike her uncle and nephew Harry, did not accept and was thus forced to separate from her betrothed.
Princess Diana and her divorce from Charles
The constant gossip about the clandestine relationship between Elizabeth's eldest son, Prince Charles, and Camilla Parker-Bowles brought the Princess Diana to confess the betrayal on television. It was November 20, 1995 when nearly 20 million Brits watched the Princess of Wales reveal all her love triangle secrets on screen. She celebrated the phrase: "Ours was a crowded marriage." In 1996 the two divorced. But another of the most difficult moments for the Queen was in 1997, with Diana's death in a car accident in the tunnel that passes under the Alma bridge in Paris, when she was accused of having remained isolated from the world in the castle of Balmoral and appearing numb to the death of his ex-daughter-in-law.
The Megxit storm: the "rebels" Harry and Meghan
A story similar to that of Edward VII. The marriage between Prince Harry, the youngest of Charles and Diana's children, and the African-American actress Meghan Markle was already a scandal for the royal family, but who still could not imagine the extent. The book on Harry's memoirs, expected in the coming months, could further damage the already precarious relationship with the English monarch. Last year, the queen had definitively broken ties with the Duke of Sussex and his wife, following the decision to move overseas and renouncing the "senior" status of the royal family. A choice incompatible with "the responsibilities that derive from a life of public service" and which, according to some sources close to the royal family, "hurt" the Queen quite a bit, depriving Prince Harry of his military honorifics.
Even greater was the uproar caused, just a month later, by the interview given by the dukes to Oprah Winfrey: The allegations of racism among members of the royal family over the skin color of the couple's eldest son, Archie. The fear of new explosive revelations is of great concern especially in view of the celebrations for the 70th anniversary of the reign.
The Epstein case looms over the royal family
Il Prince Andrew, third son of Queen Elizabeth and Duke of York, was hit by the scandal Jeffrey Epstein, the US billionaire accused of sexual abuse and child trafficking who died in prison in New York. A scandal which has not yet manifested itself in all its significance but which has stripped the prince of all military titles and royal patronage. The Duke of York will face a civil case and he will have to defend himself as a private citizen. An affair that certainly embarrassed the Windsor house in the year of the Platinum Jubilee, but which Your Majesty has tried to remove so as not to jeopardize the fate of the Crown.
