Pictured on a lawn dappled with sunlight, Princess Elizabeth looked solemnly at the camera, reading from a speech on the table in front of her. It was her 21st birthday, it was 1947, and she was making a vow.
"I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service - and the service of our great imperial family, to which we all belong," she said.
That life, we now know, was a long and eventful one. And, 75 years on from the day she made it, there can be little argument that the Queen, who died peacefully at Balmoral today, aged 96, met that historic pledge.
There has never been, and perhaps never will be again, a British monarch like Queen Elizabeth II. A constant figure in British public life, and on the world stage, until ill health in the last few months forced her, reluctantly, to ease back from her duties, she owed her uniqueness to her longevity on the throne, her character, and the extraordinary connection she made with the tens of thousands she met in her life.
Elizabeth became Queen of the United Kingdom and head of the British Empire on February 6, 1952, and her record-breaking reign has defined the modern monarchy during a time of immense social and technological change.
She was older than any previous King or Queen, reigned for longer, and for the vast majority of British people alive today has been the only monarch we have known.
In many ways today’s monarchy reflects Queen Elizabeth’s lifelong readiness to perform the duties expected of her. And, as such, her death poses fundamental questions about the role of the Royal Family in modern British society.
Queen of 15 nations, head of a Commonwealth of 54 countries, throughout her extraordinary life, she bridged the gap between tradition and progress. Changes in wider society were reflected in the lives of Queen Elizabeth's family - changing attitudes to marriage, growing concern about the environment, Britain's evolution from the centre of a huge empire to a modern, diverse nation at the centre of globalisation.
For some, the institution to which she belonged, the Crown which she embodied, is a reminder of injustices, a sign the nation has not changed enough. At the same time, some will feel that in her time things have changed too much.
Her gift, and her lifelong duty, was to stand above, beyond, and at the centre of all those currents. To remind people, in the things she said and did, of the values of tolerance, friendship, cooperation, resilience and national pride.
Born in the early hours at 7 Bruton Street in Mayfair, London on April 27, 1926, in a birth witnessed, as tradition then dictated, by Home Secretary Sir William Joynson-Hick, no-one could have imagined the young princess would one day become Queen.
Elizabeth was third in line to the throne with her uncle David, the Prince of Wales, the heir apparent. She was christened Elizabeth Alexandra Mary at Buckingham Palace on May 29 that year.
Lilibet, as she was known, had her first riding lesson aged three and got her first mount, a Shetland pony called Peggy, the following year. Her love of horses would remain throughout her life.
She owned hundreds of racehorses down the years, including classic winners Highclere, Carrozza and Pall Mall, was a regular at Royal Ascot and reportedly read the Racing Post every morning.
Her early years were spent at 145 Piccadilly, the London house taken by her parents shortly after her birth, and at White Lodge in Richmond Park. Elizabeth and her younger sister Margaret didn’t attend school, instead they were the last members of the Royal Family to be taught in the traditional manner, at home by their governess Marion Crawford.
Seemingly destined for a quiet, privileged family life, the Queen’s future was upended in 1936, when her grandfather, King George V, died. Uncle David became Edward VIII, but the government balked at the prospect of American Catholic divorcee Wallis Simpson as his choice of queen, sparking the abdication crisis of December 1936.
Elizabeth’s reserved, stuttering father, until then Duke of York, was crowned George VI and she became heiress presumptive. Only primogeniture – the rule by which the crown is passed to the eldest son – could prevent her from becoming Queen.
It apparently wasn’t a prospect the young princess relished. According to Countess Strathmore, her maternal grandmother, Elizabeth was seen on her knees before bedtime, ‘ardently praying for a brother’.
Elizabeth first met her future consort aged 13 during a summer visit to the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth in 1939. The then dispossessed Prince Philip of Greece, 18, a distant cousin, apparently impressed her by repeatedly jumping over the college tennis nets.
She spent much of the Second World War at Windsor, shielded from the Blitz. On her 18th birthday Elizabeth was given Susan, her first corgi.
In 1946 Prince Philip was invited to Balmoral where he became engaged to Elizabeth. "It was sort of fixed up", he later said. The engagement was supposed to be secret, but it was leaked to the press, causing a controversy because of Greece-born Philip’s background and German relations.
The Palace initially denied it, but, in July 1947, the engagement was finally announced. The couple married at Westminster Abbey the following November. With Britain still recovering from the war, the clothing ration had to be relaxed to provide a wedding dress.
The couple honeymooned in Broadlands, Hampshire, the home of Lord Mountbatten, and at Birkhall, Balmoral. Elizabeth took her corgi, Susan. Prince Charles was born the following year, with Princess Anne following two years later.
The young family then moved to Malta, where Philip was stationed with the Navy. But in 1949 George VI fell ill and in February 1952 died of lung cancer, at the age of 56.
Philip and Elizabeth were informed of the news on tour in Kenya, at the start of a lengthy overseas visit. She flew back to Britain and was proclaimed Queen on February 8, 1952. Winston Churchill was Prime Minister, the first of 15 to have served her. She was 25.
With Britain still recovering from the war, the early years of her reign were relatively uneventful. But when the Suez Crisis prompted the resignation of then Prime Minister Anthony Eden, the young Queen was placed in the uncomfortable position of having to choose between Rab Butler or Harold Macmillan as successor. To the astonishment of many commentators she chose Macmillan.
In 1960, Prince Andrew was born, followed four years later by Prince Edward. And, in 1969, the Royal Family agreed to take part in a documentary, believing it would humanise the Queen and allow her to connect more with the public. An early example of the ‘scripted-reality’ TV shows which are now commonplace, the programme followed the Royals for a year.
It was reportedly watched by two-thirds of the population and was blamed for a breakdown in deference towards the royal family. The 60s and 70s also saw the acceleration in the decolonisation of Africa and Caribbean, as more than 20 countries gained independence from Britain.
The Queen’s Silver Jubilee of 1977 saw an upturn in the Royal Family’s popularity, despite the best efforts of the Sex Pistols. During the year she made six Jubilee tours in the UK and Northern Ireland, covering 36 counties. More than a million people turned out to see her on one day alone in Lancashire.
Official overseas visits were made to Western Samoa, Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, Fiji, Tasmania, Papua New Guinea, Canada and the West Indies. During the year it was estimated that The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh travelled 56,000 miles.
On Tuesday, June 7, vast crowds saw The Queen drive in the Gold State Coach to St Paul's Cathedral for a Service of Thanksgiving attended by heads of state from around the world and former prime ministers of the UK.
Afterwards The Queen and members of the Royal Family attended a lunch at the Guildhall, in which The Queen made a speech echoing her famous broadcast in Cape Town. “When I was twenty-one I pledged my life to the service of our people and I asked for God's help to make good that vow,” she said. “Although that vow was made in my salad days, when I was green in judgement, I do not regret nor retract one word of it.”
Tragedy struck the Royal family in 1979, when Prince Philip’s uncle Lord Mountbatten was one of four people assassinated by the IRA in Sligo. Two years later 17-year-old Marcus Sarjeant, 17, fired six blanks at the Queen during the trooping the colour ceremony. Sarjeant was prosecuted under the Treason Act and sentenced to five years in prison.
In October 1981 there was another attack on the Queen when, during a parade on a visit to Dunedin in New Zealand, 17-year-old Christopher Lewis shot at her with a rifle from the fifth floor of a building overlooking the procession, but missed. It was a very eventful year, with millions watching in July, when Prince Charles and Diana Spencer married.
The 80s heralded an era of increased scrutiny and press interest in the royals and their private lives. In 1982, there was another scare, when intruder Michael Fagan broke into the Queen's bedroom.
In this decade, it was reported, most notably by the Sunday Times, that the Queen disagreed with many of Margaret Thatcher’s policies and was worried by several riots, the Miners’ Strike and the PM 's refusal to apply sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa.
The following decade would be arguably the most turbulent of the Queen’s reign. Three of her four children divorced, with Charles’ fairytale marriage collapsing. Andrew Motion’s sensational book, Diana: Her True Story, fuelled press scandal even further, as stories of affairs and betrayals emerged.
Then, on the afternoon of November 20, 1992, Windsor Castle burnt down, after a spotlight was left too close to a curtain in the monarch’s private chapel. More than 200 firefighters battled for 12 hours to fight the flames. Nine rooms were completely gutted and nearly 100 suffered significant damage.
Members of the Royal Family, including the Queen, were reported to have joined a ‘human chain’ tasked with saving great works of art from the wreckage. Afterwards there was uproar when the government suggested paying for repairs.
It ended up with the Queen paying tax on her income for the first time, slimming down the civil list and funding the repairs by opening Buckingham Palace to a paying public. She later famously declared 1992 her ‘Annus Horribilus’.
More tragedy struck in August 1997 when, a year after her divorce, Diana was killed in a car crash in a Paris tunnel. The Queen was on holiday with her family at Balmoral, and was widely criticised for staying there with Princes William and Harry.
The Royal Family’s silence and failure to fly the flag at Buckingham Palace at half-mast sparked further outcry. But the anger subsided when, after five days, she returned to London, lowered the Buckingham Palace flag and made an unprecedented TV address.
In 2002, the year of her Golden Jubilee, the Queen lost her sister Margaret, on February 9, and the Queen Mother weeks later on March 30. As during her Silver Jubilee, the Queen again embarked on an extensive tour of the Commonwealth, and, despite speculation about how the occasion might be met, three million people are estimated to have attended the three-day celebration in London.
After many years of speculation in 2005 Charles and Camilla finally married. The Queen didn’t attend the civil ceremony but was present at the church blessing.
Aged 81, the Queen overtook Victoria to become Britain’s oldest monarch, later surpassing her 23,226 days, 16 hours and 23 minutes on the throne to also become the longest reigning. She was also hailed when she became the first British monarch to visit the Republic of Ireland in 100 years.
During the London 2012 Olympic Games the Queen made a surprise appearance in Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony, by pretending to parachute into the stadium before famously uttering the words ‘Good evening Mr Bond’.
Later that decade her grandson, William, and his wife, Catherine, who had married in 2011, welcomed Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis. In 2018, Prince Harry's marriage to Meghan Markle was briefly seen as a new dawn for the Royal Family - before the pair stepped away from Royal duties amid acrimony and accusations.
When the Covid pandemic struck in 2020, the Queen moved to Windsor Castle as a precaution and cancelled all public engagements.
In a televised broadcast on April 5, watched by an estimated 24 million viewers in the United Kingdom, she asked people to ‘take comfort, that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return’.
On April 8 the following year Prince Philip, the Queen's husband of 73 years, died aged 99. A statement issued by the palace, just after midday, spoke of the Queen's ‘deep sorrow’.
A photo of the Queen sitting alone, as she adhered to social distancing rules during his funeral at St George's Chapel, would become one of the defining images of the pandemic, echoing the experiences of thousands of people across the country.
The Queen made a poignant public appearance in March 2022 at Prince Philip’s memorial service at Westminster Abbey. In May she missed the State Opening of Parliament for only the third time in her reign due to mobility issues. But, the following month, the Queen's Platinum Jubilee united millions in celebration, and she overcame her health challenges to appear on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.
For some, the year's Jubilee celebrations, which saw the Queen meet Paddington Bear in an unforgettable comic encounter, were a a joyous affirmation of her role at the centre of national life, or a bittersweet reminder of her mortality, raising questions over what may lie ahead. Some worried about their own bills in the background of the spectacle, the music and the lights, while others welcomed the distraction - or simply the time off work.
On Tuesday this week, the Queen performed one of her key functions, swearing in a new Prime Minister, welcoming Liz Truss to Balmoral for the occasion. It was a break from tradition, ordinarily Buckingham Palace would host the occasion, with mobility issues cited as the reason, the nation becoming accustomed to the idea of her growing weaker.
That image, of the Queen smiling at the country's new leader, standing by the fire, small, frail, with a bruised hand, radiating warmth and goodwill, forced many to confront the reality that she wouldn't be with us forever. The day after, we learned she was unable to attend a virtual Privy Council meeting. The day after that, we were told concerns for her health had grown.
Constitutionally obliged to be non-partisan, the Queen's legacy will be examined intensely in the years and decades to come. One of her regrets was over the time it took for her visit the Welsh village of Aberfan, following the 1966 disaster which saw 144 people, including 116 children, killed when a slag heap collapsed.
Rows over her tax position, the challenges posed by Princess Diana in life and death and the recent controversy over Prince Andrew’s £12m settlement to his accuser Virginia Giuffre have all sparked controversy.
And while her own popularity ratings have been consistently high, over the years public attitudes towards the monarchy have shifted. How the Royal Family adapts now, without her as its popular figurehead, will define its future.
With her passing we have lost a unique figure of consistency and stability, a link to the past in an age of great upheaval. Hers has been a life of duty and service, but also, as one of the richest women in the world, a life of privilege and wealth in a troubled, unequal world.
Millions of us will mourn her and miss her deeply. Her grace, her charm, her tireless dedication. The constancy and warmth of her presence. The moments when a sense of mischief and fun shone through the pomp and ceremony.
Millions of us have loved her. Not just as Queen, as the figurehead for an institution, as the most famous and iconic woman in the world. Not merely as a particular symbol of what it means to be British, to belong to a global family of nations, however tangled that family story might be.
Millions of us have loved her as a mother, a grandmother, a comforter, a counsellor, somebody we felt we knew, who said something about who we are.
In that she unites millions - the Second Elizabethans - from every walk of life.
Queen Elizabeth II is survived by her four children, Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward, eight grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
Her death was announced at 6.30pm on September 8, 2022.
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