Her Majesty the Queen Celebrates 70 years on the throne

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70 Years, Accession, Commonwealth, King George VI of the United Kingdom, Platinum Jubilee, Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Today marks the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II accession to the British throne. Thus begins her Platinum Jubilee Year.

Not only is Her Majesty the longest reigning monarch in Britain History, she is currently the longest reigning monarch in the world.

Her Majesty succeeded to the throne on this date. February 6, 1952 upon the untimely death of her father, King George VI of the United Kingdom.

Biographical Information

Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; born April 21, 1926) is Queen of the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms.

Elizabeth was born in Mayfair, London, as the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth). Her father ascended the throne in 1936 upon the abdication of his brother, King Edward VIII, making Elizabeth the heir presumptive.

She was educated privately at home and began to undertake public duties during the Second World War, serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. In November 1947, she married Philip Mountbatten, a former prince of Greece and Denmark, with whom she had four children: Charles, Prince of Wales; Anne, Princess Royal; Prince Andrew, Duke of York; and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex.

When her father died in February 1952, Elizabeth—then 25 years old—became queen regnant of seven independent Commonwealth countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon, as well as Head of the Commonwealth.

Elizabeth has reigned as a constitutional monarch through major political changes such as the Troubles in Northern Ireland, devolution in the United Kingdom, the accession of the United Kingdom to the European Communities, the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, Canadian patriation, and the decolonisation of Africa.

The number of her realms has varied over time as territories have gained independence, and as realms, including South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon (renamed Sri Lanka), have become republics. Her many visits and meetings include a state visit to the Republic of Ireland and visits to or from five popes.

Significant events have included her coronation in 1953 and the celebrations of her Silver, Golden, and Diamond Jubilees in 1977, 2002, and 2012 respectively. In 2017, she became the first British monarch to reach a Sapphire Jubilee. In April 2021, after 73 years of marriage, her husband, Prince Philip, died at the age of 99.

Elizabeth has occasionally faced republican sentiment and criticism of the royal family, particularly after the breakdown of her children’s marriages, her annus horribilis in 1992, and the 1997 death of her former daughter-in-law Diana, Princess of Wales. However, support for the monarchy in the United Kingdom c been and remains consistently high, as does her personal popularity

Here are some interesting facts (courtesy of Wikipedia)

September 11, 2015, The Queen surpassed Queen Victoria as the longest-reigning monarch in British and Commonwealth history (as well as the longest-reigning female monarch in world history).

February 6, 2022, she celebrates her Platinum Jubilee, marking 70 years on the throne. At that point she would be 95 years, 291 days old.

May 24, 2024, she will surpass 72 years held by Louis XIV of France as the longest reigning monarch in European history. At that point she would be 98 years, 36 days old.

The Life of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh: Part IV

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Commonwealth, Duke of Edinburgh, Patron, Prince Philip, Privy Council of Canada, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Royal Society, Royal Tours, State Dinners, State Opening of Parliament

Duties

As consort to the Queen, Philip supported his wife in her duties as sovereign, accompanying her to ceremonies such as the State Opening of Parliament in various countries, state dinners, and tours abroad. As chairman of the Coronation Commission, he was the first member of the royal family to fly in a helicopter, visiting the troops that were to take part in the ceremony. Philip was not crowned in the service, but knelt before Elizabeth, with her hands enclosing his, and swore to be her “liege man of life and limb”.

In the early 1950s, his sister-in-law, Princess Margaret, considered marrying a divorced older man, Peter Townsend. The press accused Philip of being hostile to the match, to which he replied “I haven’t done anything.” Philip had not interfered, preferring to stay out of other people’s love lives. Eventually, Margaret and Townsend parted. For six months, over 1953–1954, Philip and Elizabeth toured the Commonwealth; as with previous tours the children were left in Britain.

In 1956, the Duke, with Kurt Hahn, founded The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award in order to give young people “a sense of responsibility to themselves and their communities”. In the same year, he also established the Commonwealth Study Conferences. From 1956 to 1957, Philip travelled around the world aboard the newly commissioned HMY Britannia, during which he opened the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne and visited the Antarctic, becoming the first royal to cross the Antarctic Circle.

The Queen and the children remained in the UK. On the return leg of the journey, Philip’s private secretary, Mike Parker, was sued for divorce by his wife. As with Townsend, the press still portrayed divorce as a scandal, and eventually Parker resigned. He later said that the Duke was very supportive and “the Queen was wonderful throughout. She regarded divorce as a sadness, not a hanging offence.” In a public show of support, the Queen created Parker a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order.

Further press reports claimed that the Queen and the Duke were drifting apart, which enraged the Duke and dismayed the Queen, who issued a strongly worded denial. On February 22, 1957, she granted her husband the style and title of a Prince of the United Kingdom by Letters Patent, and it was gazetted that he was to be known as “His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh”.

Philip was appointed to the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada on October 14, 1957, taking his Oath of Allegiance before the Queen in person at her Canadian residence, Rideau Hall. Remarks he made two years later to the Canadian Medical Association on the subject of youth and sport were taken as a suggestion that Canadian children were out of shape. This was at first considered “tactless”, but Philip was later admired for his encouragement of physical fitness.

Philip was patron of some 800 organisations, particularly focused on the environment, industry, sport, and education. His first solo engagement as Duke of Edinburgh was in March 1948, presenting prizes at the boxing finals of the London Federation of Boys’ Clubs at the Royal Albert Hall. He was president of the National Playing Fields Association (now known as Fields in Trust) for 64 years, from 1947 until his grandson Prince William took over the role in 2013.

He was appointed a fellow of the Royal Society in 1951. In 1952, he became patron of The Industrial Society (since renamed The Work Foundation). Between 1959 and 1965 Prince Philip was the President of BAFTA. He helped found the Australian Conservation Foundation in 1963 and the World Wildlife Fund in 1961 and served as the latter’s UK president from 1961 to 1982, international president from 1981, and president emeritus from 1996.

He was also president of the Zoological Society of London for two decades and was appointed an honorary fellow in 1977. Despite his involvement in initiatives for conserving nature, he was also criticised for practices such as fox hunting and shooting of game birds. He was president of the International Equestrian Federation from 1964 to 1986, and served as chancellor of the universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Salford, and Wales.

In 1965, at the suggestion of Prime Minister Harold Wilson, Philip became chair to a scheme set up for awarding industrial innovations, which later became known as the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise. In the same year, Philip became president of the Council of Engineering Institutions and in that capacity he assisted with the inception of the Fellowship of Engineering (later the Royal Academy of Engineering), of which he later became the senior fellow.

He also commissioned the Prince Philip Designers Prize and the Prince Philip Medal to recognise designers and engineers with exceptional contributions. In 2017, the British Heart Foundation thanked Prince Philip for being its patron for 55 years, during which time, in addition to organising fundraisers, he “supported the creation of nine BHF-funded centres of excellence”. He was an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge.

May 25, 1660: King Charles II lands at Dover at the invitation of the Convention Parliament of England.

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Charles II, Commonwealth, Declaration of Breda, Dover, King Charles I of England, King Charles II of England, King Henri IV of France and Navarre, King of Ireland, King of Scots, Lord Protector, Restoration, Richard Cromwell

May 25, 1660 – King Charles II lands at Dover at the invitation of the Convention Parliament (England), which marks the end of the Cromwell-proclaimed Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland and begins the Restoration (1660) of the British monarchy.

Charles II (29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685)[c] was king of England, Scotland, and Ireland. He was king of Scotland from 1649 until his deposition in 1651, and king of England, Scotland and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685.

Charles II was the eldest surviving child of Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and Henrietta-Maria de Bourbon of France, the youngest daughter of HenrI IV of France and his second wife, Marie de’ Medici.

After Charles I’s execution at Whitehall on January 30, 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War, the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II king on February 5, 1649. However, England entered the period known as the English Interregnum or the English Commonwealth, and the country was a de facto republic led by Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell defeated Charles II at the Battle of Worcester on September 3, 1651, and Charles fled to mainland Europe. Cromwell became virtual dictator of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Restoration

After the death of Cromwell in 1658, Charles’s initial chances of regaining the Crown seemed slim; Cromwell was succeeded as Lord Protector by his son, Richard. However, the new Lord Protector had little experience of either military or civil administration.

On May 25, 1659, after the Rump Parliament agreed to pay his debts and provide a pension, Richard Cromwell delivered a formal letter resigning the position of Lord Protector. “Richard was never formally deposed or arrested, but allowed to fade away. The Protectorate was treated as having been from the first a mere usurpation.”

During the civil and military unrest that followed Cromwell’s resignation George Monck, the Governor of Scotland, was concerned that the nation would descend into anarchy. Monck and his army marched into the City of London, and forced the Rump Parliament to re-admit members of the Long Parliament, who had been sympathetic to the Crown, and who had been excluded in December 1648 during Pride’s Purge.

The Long Parliament dissolved itself and there was a general election for the first time in almost 20 years. The outgoing Parliament defined the electoral qualifications intending to bring about the return of a Presbyterian majority.

The restrictions against royalist candidates and voters were widely ignored, and the elections resulted in a House of Commons that was fairly evenly divided on political grounds between Royalists and Parliamentarians and on religious grounds between Anglicans and Presbyterians.

The new so-called Convention Parliament assembled on April 25, 1660, and soon afterwards welcomed the Declaration of Breda, in which Charles II promised lenience and tolerance. There would be liberty of conscience and Anglican church policy would not be harsh.

He would not exile past enemies nor confiscate their wealth. There would be pardons for nearly all his opponents except the regicides. Above all, Charles promised to rule in cooperation with Parliament. The English Parliament resolved to proclaim Charles king and invite him to return, a message that reached Charles at Breda on May 8, 1660. In Ireland, a convention had been called earlier in the year, and had already declared for Charles. On May 14, he was proclaimed King of Ireland in Dublin.

Charles II set out for England from Scheveningen, arrived in Dover on May 25, 1660 and reached London on May 29, his 30th birthday. Although Charles and Parliament granted amnesty to nearly all of Cromwell’s supporters in the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, 50 people were specifically excluded.

In the end nine of the regicides were executed: they were hanged, drawn and quartered; others were given life imprisonment or simply excluded from office for life. The bodies of Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton and John Bradshaw were subjected to the indignity of posthumous decapitations.

January 30, 1649: Execution of Charles I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland.

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Commonwealth, Execution of Charles Stuart of England, House of Lords, King Charles I of England, Long Parliament, Pride's Purge, Privy Council, Rump Parliament, Thomas Pride

Charles’s beheading was scheduled for Tuesday, January 30, 1649. Two of his children remained in England under the control of the Parliamentarians: Elizabeth and Henry. They were permitted to visit him on January 29, and he bade them a tearful farewell. The following morning, he called for two shirts to prevent the cold weather causing any noticeable shivers that the crowd could have mistaken for fear: “the season is so sharp as probably may make me shake, which some observers may imagine proceeds from fear. I would have no such imputation.”

He walked under guard from St James’s Palace, where he had been confined, to the Palace of Whitehall, where an execution scaffold had been erected in front of the Banqueting House. Charles was separated from spectators by large ranks of soldiers, and his last speech reached only those with him on the scaffold. He blamed his fate on his failure to prevent the execution of his loyal servant Strafford: “An unjust sentence that I suffered to take effect, is punished now by an unjust sentence on me.”

He declared that he had desired the liberty and freedom of the people as much as any, “but I must tell you that their liberty and freedom consists in having government … It is not their having a share in the government; that is nothing appertaining unto them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things.” He continued, “I shall go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be.”

At about 2:00 p.m., Charles put his head on the block after saying a prayer and signalled the executioner when he was ready by stretching out his hands; he was then beheaded with one clean stroke. According to observer Philip Henry, a moan “as I never heard before and desire I may never hear again” rose from the assembled crowd,some of whom then dipped their handkerchiefs in the king’s blood as a memento.

The executioner was masked and disguised, and there is debate over his identity. The commissioners approached Richard Brandon, the common hangman of London, but he refused, at least at first, despite being offered £200. It is possible he relented and undertook the commission after being threatened with death, but there are others who have been named as potential candidates, including George Joyce, William Hulet and Hugh Peterrs. The clean strike, confirmed by an examination of the king’s body at Windsor in 1813, suggests that the execution was carried out by an experienced headsman.

Cromwell was said to have visited Charles’s coffin, sighing “Cruel necessity!” as he did so. The story was depicted by Delaroche in the nineteenth century.

It was common practice for the severed head of a traitor to be held up and exhibited to the crowd with the words “Behold the head of a traitor!” Although Charles’s head was exhibited, the words were not used, possibly because the executioner did not want his voice recognized. On the day after the execution, the king’s head was sewn back onto his body, which was then embalmed and placed in a lead coffin.

The commission refused to allow Charles’s burial at Westminster Abbey, so his body was conveyed to Windsor on the night of February 7. He was buried in private on February 9, 1649 in the Henry VIII vault in the chapel’s quire, alongside the coffins of Henry VIII and Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymour, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. The king’s son, Charles II, later planned for an elaborate royal mausoleum to be erected in Hyde Park, London, but it was never built.

The execution of Charles I had been carried out by the Rump Parliament. The Rump was created by Pride’s Purge when Colonel Thomas Pride forcibly removed from the Long Parliament all those members who supported the King and were not supporters of the Grandees in the New Model Army and the Independents. Many historians consider called it a coup d’état.

Just before and the execution of King Charles I, the Rump Parliament passed a number of Acts of Parliament creating the legal basis for the republic. After the execution of Charles I, the House of Commons abolished the Monarchy, the Privy Council and the House of Lords, and declared the people of England “and of all the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging” to be henceforth under the governance of a “Commonwealth”, effectively a republic. The House of Commons now had unchecked executive and legislative power. The English Council of State, which replaced the Privy Council, took over many of the executive functions of the monarchy.

Gary Barlow – Sing (official Diamond Jubilee Song)

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Commonwealth, Diamond Jubilee Song, Gary Barlow, Queen Elizabeth II, Sing, Take That, The X Factor

This is the video for the official Diamond Jubilee Song Sing featuring singers and people from all over the Commonwealth. Included is the Prince of Wales and a cameo by prince Harry. Gary Barlow English singer-songwriter, pianist and record producer.