© Richard Randall

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heir to the throne, as Philip had been trained for royal responsibilities.

After their wedding Philip and Elizabeth took up residence at Clarence House, London. On 14 November 1948 she gave birth to her first child Prince Charles of Edinburgh. Several weeks earlier, letters patent had been issued so that her children would enjoy a royal and prince status they would not otherwise have been entitled to. Otherwise they would have been styled merely as children of a duke. They had four children (see below) in all. Though the Royal House is named Windsor, it was decreed via a 1960 Order-in-Council that the descendants of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip should have the personal surname Mountbatten-Windsor.

Succession

King George's health declined during 1951 and Elizabeth frequently stood in for him at public events. She visited Greece, Italy and Malta (where Philip was then stationed) during the year. In October she toured Canada and visited President Harry S. Truman in Washington, DC. In January 1952 Elizabeth and Philip set out for a tour of Australia and New Zealand. They had reached Kenya when word arrived of the death of her father, on 6 February 1952, from lung cancer.

At the moment she became aware she was now queen, she was in a treetop hotel; a unique circumstance for any such event. She was the first British monarch since the Act of Union in 1801 to be out of the country at the moment of succession, and also the first in modern times not to know the exact time of her accession (because George VI had died in his sleep at an unknown time). The Treetops Hotel, where she "went up a princess and came down a queen", is now a very popular tourist retreat in Kenya. The following year, the Queen's grandmother, Queen Mary, died of lung cancer on March 24, 1953. Reportedly, the Dowager Queen's dying wish was that the coronation not be postponed. Elizabeth's coronation took place in Westminster Abbey on 2 June 1953.

Life as Queen

After the Coronation, Elizabeth and Philip moved to Buckingham Palace in central London. It is believed, however, that like many of her predecessors she dislikes the Palace as a residence and considers Windsor Castle, west of London, to be her home. She also spends time at Balmoral Castle in Scotland and at Sandringham House in Norfolk.

Queen Elizabeth is the most widely travelled head of state in history. In 1953–54 she and Philip made a six-month round-the-world tour, becoming the first reigning monarch to circumnavigate the globe, and also the first to visit Australia, New Zealand and Fiji (which she visited again during the 1977 jubilee). In October 1957 she made a state visit to the United States and toured Canada, opening the first session of the 23rd parliament. In 1959 she made a tour of Canada, as well as undertaking a state visit to the United States as Queen of Canada, hosting the return dinner for then US President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the Canadian embassy in Washington. In February 1961 she visited Ankara as the guest of Turkish President Cemal Gursel and later toured India and Pakistan for the first time. She has made state visits to most European countries and to many outside Europe. She regularly attends Commonwealth Heads of Government meetings.

At the time of Elizabeth's accession there was much talk of a "new Elizabethan age". Elizabeth's role has been to preside over the United Kingdom as it has shared world economic and military power with a growing host of independent nations and principalities. As nations have developed economically and in literacy, Queen Elizabeth has witnessed over the past 50 years a gradual transformation of the British Empire into its modern successor, the Commonwealth. She has worked hard to maintain links with former British possessions, and in some cases, such as South Africa, she has played an important role in retaining or restoring good relations.

Despite a series of controversies about the rest of the royal family, particularly the marital difficulties of her children throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Queen Elizabeth remains a remarkably uncontroversial figure and is generally well respected by the people of her Realms. However, her public persona remains formal, though more relaxed than it once was.

Elizabeth remains a highly respected head of state. However, she and her family have come under increasing pressure from UK based newspapers. In 2002 she celebrated her Golden Jubilee, marking the 50th anniversary of her accession to the Throne. The year saw an extensive tour of the Commonwealth Realms, including numerous parades and official concerts.

The Jubilee year coincided with the deaths, within a few months, of Elizabeth's mother and sister. Elizabeth's relations with her children, while still somewhat distant, have become much warmer since these deaths. She is particularly close to her daughter-in-law Sophie, Countess of Wessex. She is known to have disapproved of Prince Charles's long-standing relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles, but with their recent marriage, has come to accept it. On the other hand, she is very close to her grandchildren, noticeably Prince William and Zara Phillips.

In late February 2003, Queen Elizabeth II's reign, then just over 51 years, surpassed the reigns of all four of her immediate predecessors (King Edward VII, King George V, King Edward VIII and King George VI) combined.

In 2003 Elizabeth, who is often described as robustly healthy, underwent three operations. She had two operations by the end of the year concerning each of her knees, and also had several lesions removed from her face. This had prompted some debate in the media about whether the evolving monarchy should have monarchs abdicating as in some other nations, or even enforce a retirement age for reigning monarchs. In June 2005 she was forced to cancel several engagements after contracting what the Palace described as a bad cold. Nonetheless the Queen has been described as being in excellent health and is rarely ill.

She has begun to hand over some public duties to her children, as well as other members of the royal family. It was rumoured in 2005 that she and Prince Philip would be reducing their international travel; but the subsequent, perhaps pointed, announcements that they would be visiting Canada, Malta, Australia, Singapore, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the space of the next year served to effectively deny these rumours. It is often made clear that she intends to do as much as she can until she is physically unable. In November 2005, she visited Malta as the Head of the Commonwealth, for the Commonwealth Head of Governments Meeting, and in March 2006 she visited Australia to, amongst other things, officially open the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, where she continued her trip to Singapore.

As the Queen marks her 80th birthday, we are approaching, if not in, the final years of the Queen's reign. Many saw the wedding of the Prince of Wales to Camilla in 2005 as a message from the Queen to that effect--by allowing Charles to marry, she is attempting to ensure that Charles' succession to the throne will go as smoothly as possible. In 2004, a copy of the Queen's newly revised funeral plans were stolen, much to the Queen's anger. And for the first time in September 2005, a mock version of the Queen's funeral march was held in the middle of the night (this was also done once a year after the late Queen Mother turned 80).

In early 2006, reports began to surface that the Queen plans to significantly reduce her official duties as she approaches her 80th birthday, though she has made it clear that she has no intention of abdicating. It is believed by both the press and palace insiders that Prince Charles will start to perform many of the day-to-day duties of the Monarch, while the Queen will effectively go into retirement (but will fall short of abdicating.) It was later confirmed by the Palace that Prince Charles will begin to hold regular audiences with the

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