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Love, dramas and secrets: Elizabeth II, a private life under the golds of Buckingham Palace

2022-09-08T18:01:22.349Z


The Queen of England died on Thursday, September 8, surrounded by her children and grandchildren, at her residence in Balmoral, Scotland. His life is a novel.


She was simply the most famous woman on the planet.

And for good reason, the majority of the citizens of this world have known only her, Elizabeth II, on the throne of England.

The sovereign died on September 8 surrounded by her children and grandchildren, at her residence in Balmoral, Scotland.

In early June, for her platinum jubilee, she celebrated 70 years of reign, the longest in British history.

She is ahead of Queen Victoria and her sixty-three years, seven months and two days.

To his credit, more than 260 official trips outside Great Britain, no less than a hundred State visits, several world tours, the sponsorship of 600 charitable organizations (including 400 since 1952), the presentation of 'half a million awards, the home of 1,

from Buckingham Palace, and the confessions of 15 prime ministers, from Winston Churchill to Boris Johnson.

Of the first, her "favorite", she will admit one day, she has kept an unforgettable memory.

He is the one who saw her rise to the throne so young, at only 25 years old, a few months after the death of her father, George VI, who left too soon from lung cancer.

He himself was king by default after the abdication of his eldest brother, King Edward VIII, who had gone away to marry Wallis Simpson.

Born on April 21, 1926, Elizabeth therefore grew up far from the idea that she would one day live at Buckingham Palace.

To discover

  • Listen to "Scandals", the editorial staff's podcast

In video, the royal family unveils a video of Elizabeth as a child

LIVE – Elizabeth II: concerns about the Queen's state of health, her family goes to her bedside

A childhood under the radar

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King George VI, Queen Elizabeth and their daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, in April 1940. Getty Images

“She used to say that when she grew up she would marry a farmer,” says her cherished nanny Marion Crawford, nicknamed “Crawfie”, in her book

The Little Princesses

.

Surrounded by her sister Margaret - the two little girls captivating the royal photographers at each of their visits -, and her governesses, Princess Elizabeth is educated like women of her rank, at home and in a not very thorough way.

The only order given at the time: that they have beautiful handwriting.

Her mother, born Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (the "queen mother" - once widowed) passed on her love of reading and very early on urged her to keep a diary - a daily habit that she kept until her death.

With her father, the future George VI, she shared a mad passion for breeding and racing thoroughbreds, a royal tradition and a hobby that she would later share with her husband.

For the love of Philip

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Prince Philip and Princess Elizabeth honeymoon in Hampshire, November 23, 1947. Getty Images

Elizabeth was 13 when she met Philip during a visit with her father to the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, where he was a cadet.

The tall, blond Philip from Greece and Denmark is 18 years old.

His advantageous Nordic prince physique charms the princesses, and Elizabeth is very impressed by his sports performance.

If they are third cousins ​​(Queen Victoria and Prince Albert are their great-great-grandparents), it remains far enough apart not to cause scandal.

He proposed to her during a stay at Balmoral, the Scottish residence of the royal family, in the summer of 1946, and it was said that "Lilibet", mad in love, accepted without even asking the king's opinion.

Three months after the ceremony which took place on November 20, 1947 at Westminster Abbey in front of 2.

000 guests (a trifle next to the 750 million viewers of Charles and Diana's wedding, and nearly 2 billion for that of William and Kate), Elizabeth is pregnant.

Charles was born in the fall of 1948 at a time when the young couple still thought they were ten years old before the accession to the throne, the crown and the too heavy royal commitments.

In the end, they only have four.

In video, Philip, the "rock" of Elizabeth II

"My first, second and last job", declared Philip shortly after the death of George VI in February 1952, "will be to never let the Queen down".

A promise that the sovereign's close guard does not fail to remind him of throughout his life, forcing him to walk two steps behind the sovereign (protocol requires), closely scrutinizing the rumors about her infidelities.

"Unfaithful?

How could I?

I've had a detective with me night and day since 1947!” Philip often defended himself, not without humour, to journalists.

In 1997, when they celebrated their 50 years of marriage, Elizabeth II summed up perfectly, a posteriori, their married life: "There have been storms, but it's my rock."

From Christmases spent in Sandringham, Norfolk, to the holy holidays at Balmoral Castle in Scotland,

royal daily

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Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip with their children Charles, Anne and Edward at Sandringham, May 1969. Getty Images

Two years after the birth of Charles, the Queen gave birth to Princess Anne in 1950, then Princes Andrew and Edward in 1960 and 1964. Four children whom she cared for little, more comfortable in the exercise of power than in matters of education.

In private, it is Prince Philip, the head of the family.

To the management of whims and proofs of affection, the Queen prefers her reassuring schedule, determined a year in advance, and her “red boxes” containing official government documents.

Opening them every morning is part of an immutable ritual that she imposed on herself throughout her reign.

Waking up at 7:30 a.m. when the curtains of her room were opened, her lady-in-waiting entered (the late "Bobo", the only housekeeper to have been able to call her "Lilibet",

served 67 years with him) with a cup of Earl Gray tea, arrived from his dogs, his beloved welsh corgis;

radio tuned to BBC Radio 4, bath at 21°C, dressing,

light breakfast

(a bowl of Special K cereal, according to its former boss), reading the press (

The Racing Post

, a daily on horse racing, first; then the

Telegraph

and the

Times

).

The sacrosanct ceremonial ends with 15 minutes of bagpipes played by the "pipers" in the courtyard of the palace, after which she settles in her office at 10 a.m. until lunch and the official obligations of the day after. -midday.

5 highlights of Queen Elizabeth II's reign

Flawless course and “annus horribilis”

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Diana Spencer and Prince Charles kiss on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, July 29, 1981. Getty Images

"Professionally", Elizabeth II has never failed.

Symbol of unity of the United Kingdom and the countries of the Commonwealth, she who has neither a passport nor a driving licence, who has never been able to vote or give any opinion publicly, has managed to keep a certain idea alive. of England, "a job that many men then probably thought they could do better than her," her grandson William** once recalled.

The task has not always been easy.

Admired in the 1950s, accused of being old-fashioned or even useless in the 1960s and 1970s, the queen and through her the monarchy have often been called upon to renew themselves.

If the advent of the tabloids and the irruption of Diana greatly helped her, proving that the royal family could

also

being sulfurous and sexy, they also dangerously dragged her into the spiral of family dramas that we know.

Elizabeth II herself dubbed the year 1992 her “annus horribilis”.

For good reason: the divorce of Princess Anne with Captain Mark Phillips, the separation of Charles and Diana then that of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson (whose photos with her lovers made the headlines of the press), and finally the fire which partially destroyed Windsor Castle... Among his four children, only his youngest, Edward, remained united to Sophie Rhys-Jones, withstood (still resists today) marital storms and media pressure .

God save William and Kate

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Elizabeth II with Prince William, Kate Middleton and their children on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, June 5, 2022. Getty Images

Between Charles and Diana, the divorce was pronounced in 1996, a year before the fatal accident of the Princess of Wales in Paris.

The days following Diana's death are a trial for the Queen, blamed for not reacting to the death of Lady Di, the people's princess.

Historian Robert Lacey, lead consultant on

The Crown series

, describes this period as “the crisis of her reign, this crucial moment when she had to win back the hearts of the people”.

Hearts largely won back thanks to his grandson William, the eldest of Charles and Diana, and his marriage to Catherine Middleton, on April 29, 2011, under the vaults of Westminster Abbey.

For the first time, the "firm" agrees to welcome within it a future queen from the working classes, and Elizabeth II is not for nothing.

If more than fifty years separate her from Kate, a warm understanding has been forged between the two women, writes Stéphane Bern in 2016. Understanding reinforced by the birth of three heirs, George in July 2013, then Charlotte in May 2015, and Louis in April 2018.

The fairy tale could have continued with the arrival of Meghan Markle in the life of Prince Harry (her favorite grandson, it is said), bringing with her 330 million Americans ready to dream in front of the British Crown soap opera .

Still, the rigidity of the Crown on the one hand, the clumsiness of the Sussexes on the other, got the better of the stability of the couple.

In 2020, Harry went into exile in the United States with his wife and children (Archie, born in 2019, and Lilibet, born in 2021), signing a real break with the Windsors.

Yet 2021 is almost worse.

New “annus horribilis”, some dare.

In question, the involvement of his son, Prince Andrew, in the scandalous Epstein affair, the shock interview of Meghan and Harry with Oprah Winfrey, revealing their discomfort within the royals,

scratching like never before the queen and her close guard, who have remained untouchable so far.

And then the death of Philip, his “rock”, at 99, in April 2021. Maybe it was time to leave, after all.

God save the queen

.

*

Elizabeth II, the life of a modern monarch

, by Sally Bedell Smith, 2019

**

Elizabeth II, in the intimacy of the reign

, by Isabelle Rivère, 2012

Source: lefigaro

All life articles on 2022-09-08

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