Fellowship & Fairydust

By Michael Goth

As we approach the first anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s passing away, we present this reflection on her life and legacy from the Fellowship & Fairydust issue Happy & Glorious: A Royal Celebration.

When Queen Elizabeth II died on September 8, 2022, at age 96, she had been Queen of England for 70 years, longer than any other British monarch. Three months before her death, she had celebrated a seven-decade reign with her Platinum Jubilee.

Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor was born on April 21, 1926, the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York, in Mayfair, London. Her sister, Margaret, followed on August 9, 1930. The sisters would remain close their entire lives.

Elizabeth had a relatively normal childhood, considering she was a member of the royal family. She was fond of horses and dogs and had 30 total corgis during her life. Elizabeth and Margaret also trained ponies. The princesses received an at-home education in history, language, literature and music under the guidance of their mother and governess, Marion Crawford.

In 1950, against the wishes of the royal family, Crawford published a book, The Little Princesses, about her work with Elizabeth and Margaret. In the 2001 book Royal: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, author Robert Lacey wrote about an encounter at Balmoral Castle between Winston Churchill and the princess when Elizabeth was only two years old, in which the prime minister said, “She has an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in an infant.” A queen in the making.

Elizabeth had never expected to become an heir to the throne, as her uncle Edward was first in line as successor, then her father. Edward III became king in January 1936 upon the death of Elizabeth’s grandfather, George V. George VI became the King of England on December 11, 1936, after Edward gave up the throne and married divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson.

On September 3, 1939, Britain declared war on Nazi Germany. Europe was at war. To keep the princesses safe, Lord Hailsham recommended that Elizabeth and Margaret be taken to Canada, while England was being bombed by the Nazis. The Duchess of York turned down the suggestion, saying, “The children will not go without me. I won’t leave without the King, And the King will never leave.” Fourteen-year-old Elizabeth gave her first radio broadcast for the BBC’s Children’s Hour in October 1940 with a message for the young people who had been evacuated from their homes in the wake of the Blitz, “My sister, Margaret Rose, and I feel so much for you as we know from experience what it means to be away from those we love most of all.”

In 1944, at age 18, Elizabeth joined the wartime women’s unit the Auxiliary Territorial Serve where she worked as a truck driver and mechanic. In May of the following year, she joined the celebration in Victory in Europe Day following Germany’s surrender, which she said was among “the most memorable nights of my life.”

On July 9, 1947, 21-year-old Elizabeth announced her engagement to the 26-year-old Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark. They were married four months later at Westminster Abbey.

Philip Mountbatten was born on June 10, 1921. After finishing his education in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the young prince joined the Royal Navy in 1939, serving in the British Mediterranean and the Pacific fleets during the Second World War. Philip met Elizabeth in 1934 and again in 1937, they later exchanged frequent correspondence. Elizabeth and Philip were secretly engaged in 1946. Once married, King George made Philip the Duke of Edinburgh.

Elizabeth and Philip were married until his death on April 9, 2021, having four children: Charles in 1948, Anne in 1950, Andrew in 1960, and Edward in 1964. 

Elizabeth and Philip were on tour in Kenya when George VI died on February 6, 1952. Elizabeth was still asleep, and Philip had to wake her to tell her of her father’s death. Elizabeth assumed her role as Queen Elizabeth II.

Along with her role as queen, Elizabeth was also the Supreme Governor and Defender of the Church of England. Several recent books, including The Faith of Queen Elizabeth by Dudley Delffs, have explored Elizabeth’s religious beliefs.

Delffs—a novelist, poet, and biographer who has written about the faith of everyone from Elizabeth to Dolly Parton—writes about how growing up, King George VI and the Queen Mother made sure Elizabeth and Margaret attended weekly Mass and read from their King James Bibles, having them memorize favorite pieces of scripture from Psalms. Delffs believes that the Queen’s inner kindness was also a result of her religious beliefs.

England has long enjoyed a special bond with the United States, which extended to Queen Elizabeth’s relationship with many American presidents. She met Harry Truman in October of 1951 in Washington, D.C., before she was queen, and would meet with all the U.S. presidents with the exception of Lyndon B. Johnson. Elizabeth had tea with President Joe Biden and First lady Jill Biden in Windsor on June 13, 2021, a little more than a year before her death. In 1982, Ronald Reagan became the first U.S. President to spend the night in Windsor.

George W. Bush and Donald Trump’s visits with the Queen were not met with open arms from the English people. When Bush visited London in November 2003, 100,000 of the Queen’s subjects took to the street to protest the Iraq War, which was even more unpopular in England than it was in America—where it was very controversial. When Trump met the Queen in Windsor in July 2018, protestors took to the streets to convey their disapproval of the American president’s overall crude behavior, especially his negative attitude toward LGBTQ and human issues.

Like all families Elizabeth’s had its share of problems. However, when one is a member of the royal family, personal issues often become a public drama. Prince Charles’s 1981 wedding to Diana Spencer was seen as almost a fairy tale marriage, but the couple separated in 1994, with Diana telling the press that she and her husband had both been unfaithful. Charles and Diana were officially divorced in 1996, with the former Lady Diana dying in an auto accident a year later, leaving behind her two children with Charles—William and Harry.

Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson in 1986 and divorced a decade later having had two daughters—Beatrice and Eugenie. In 2014, Virginia Giuffree, a campaigner who created the Victim’s Refuse Silence, and was one of many young women who accused Jeffrey Epstein of trafficking her in his sex ring, claimed that Andrew had sexually assaulted her at age 17. Though the prince claimed innocence and a lawsuit was settled out of court in 2022, Andrew stepped down from all public roles.

Queen Elizabeth continued to be a sign of hope for her subjects into the twenty-first century. As A.N. Wilson wrote in Time magazine for their special issue on the life of the Queen, when 22 people were killed in Manchester in 2017, when a suicide bomber set off an explosive at an Ariana Grande concert, Elizabeth visited the injured children at Royal Manchester’s Children’s Hospital and provided comforting words in the aftermath of the attack in that year’s annual Christmas message.

Elizabeth also provided comfort to the English people during the COVID-19 Pandemic. She herself went into COVID lockdown at Windsor castle.

Following COVID restrictions, the Queen sat alone at the funeral of her husband of over 70 years when King Philip died on April 9, 2021. In her Christmas broadcast eight months later, she spoke of the love she had for her “beloved Philip.”

On September 8, 2022, Elizabeth died at age 96 with her family at her side. She was mourned by the entire world.

Long may she reign.