Queen Elizabeth II

she truly was one of a kind lee Cowan looks  back on the extraordinary life and times  of elizabeth alexandra mary  windsor queen elizabeth ii

a few moments ago buckingham palace announced  the death of her majesty queen elizabeth ii. Her death even at 96 still came as a seismic  shock not so much that queen elizabeth ii was gone  but that her decades of stability and continuity  were suddenly gone too dear just this very very sad there are few alive today who remember a  time without queen elizabeth she was there during  

the cold war through the age of twiggy and the  beatles through wars in afghanistan and iraq  

she adjusted to social media she weathered Brexit. 

In her 70 years on the throne she became one of  the most recognizable admired and trusted figures in the world and yet as familiar as she was the  queen was largely unknowable she had such a level of integrity and affection that many of us felt  she really belonged to us and we belonged to her.                                                                                      Queens Chaplain                                 Gavin ashen den was the queen's chaplain for  almost a decade what was she like in private well she was she was actually an immensely  intelligent and astute woman with a very dry wit she didn't suffer fools gladly and above  always generous there was no self-absorption about her while some saw as aloof others saw her royal  stiff upper lip as simply an outward expression of her role as a constitutional monarch having  grown up in the second world war she belonged to  

a generation which just got on with it she didn't  believe in emoting in public she didn't believe in complaining in public that was not ever her  style.                                                                          sir david cannedine is a respected british author and historian there is something about that  mystery of the monarchy that that served her well in a lot of ways yes part of her charisma i think  in the end derived from the fact that we didn't  

really know what she thought about most things  and that gave her a particular kind of prestige which i think is completely unique.                                  Elizabeth  Alexandra mary windsor wasn't born to be queen it was one of those accidents of history her uncle  Edward viii abdicated to marry wallis simpson an american divorcee and that made elizabeth's father  king and her an heir we know every one of us at only 14 she took to the BBC to address children  during world war ii [when peace comes remember it will be for us the children of today to make  the world of tomorrow a better and happier place] Elizabeth  

There was a poise a willing acceptance  of her royal duties even then and at 21 long before she took the throne she was already publicly pledging her loyalty to the realm  

''[I declare before you all with my whole life  whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service]''- Elizabeth 

At westminster abbey before a global tv audience  of millions walter cronkite reporting from london  

a decision she made against the advice of her  very first prime minister winston churchill there was a huge sense of euphoria perhaps there  was a new elizabethan age about to unfold and it was all terribly joyous and terribly  wonderful it wasn't always that way of course of all her years on the throne 1992 stood  out for all the wrong reasons the marriages of three of the queen's four children collapsed  and a fire tore through historic windsor castle  

A series of events that led her to  speaking about as frankly as she ever did about her innermost thoughts 

More recently there were more family difficulties  prince andrew settled a civil lawsuit over allegations that he sexually assaulted a 17 year  old girl and prince harry and his wife Meghan Markle moved to the states and gave up their  royal duties, but of all  the tumultuous years 1997 may have been the worst. 

the death of princess diana in a car crash in paris was a point at  which the queen's role as mother and grandmother clashed with her duties as head of state she chose  family staying in scotland at balmoral castle to tend to diana's two children princess william and  harry it was a decision some thought made her look out of touch callous even to the public mourning  of a nation under pressure.  

Queen Elizabeth returned to london and gave a rare live address, ''[ I for one believe there are lessons to be drawn from her life and from the extraordinary and moving  reaction to her death]''-Queen Elizabeth.   

her popularity recovered to the point that today most millennials remember  nothing of the controversy over diana's deathonly that the queen responded.  

she still became a part of pop culture the two  most famous examples of making her kind of more endearing even to a more counter culture set  would be andy warhol's paintings of her which  are very fun and of course god saved the queen  by the sex pistols which was banned by the bbc.

The older the queen got the more it seemed she was  willing to at least bend tradition in 2009 when first lady Michelle Obama put her arm around the  queen protocol was shattered you just don't touch the monarch and yet queen elizabeth responded by  embracing michelle obama right back  

There are a lot of people who are looking to older women as  style inspiration but also life inspiration and she just fits like right in that nexus in a way  that a rediscovery of her was kind of inevitable,  

 Prince Philip the man whom she called her strength and her stay died in 2021 the  queen was already slowing down but not much she still appeared on the balcony this year to  commemorate her 70 years of service the first british monarch to ever celebrate a platinum  jubilee and just two days before she died she was still carrying out those duties meeting with  liz truss at balmoral her 15th prime minister, but as much as tradition remains change is a foot  the royal anthem no longer mentions the queen  

      ''It's a king's turn to be saved now the  first time in most of his subject's memory''