Elizabeth II
Key Facts
- Devient reine à 25 ans à la mort de son père George VI, le 6 février 1952
- Couronnement du 2 juin 1953 à Westminster : premier diffusé à la télévision en Grande-Bretagne
- Règne 70 ans et 214 jours — le plus long de l'histoire britannique
- Travaille avec 15 Premiers ministres, de Winston Churchill à Liz Truss
- Préside la décolonisation et maintient le Commonwealth of Nations (54 États membres)
- Discours télévisé d'avril 2020 durant la pandémie COVID : «We will meet again»
- Décède le 8 septembre 2022 à Balmoral ; succédée par son fils Charles III
Biography
Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor was born on 21 April 1926 in Mayfair, London, the second child of the Duke and Duchess of York. She was not initially destined to reign, but the abdication of her uncle Edward VIII in 1936 in favour of her father, who became George VI, changed everything. The heir presumptive received a careful education, learning French, history and constitutional law. During the Second World War, she joined the women's Auxiliary Territorial Service, driving trucks and repairing engines — a gesture that forged a lasting bond with her generation.
George VI died on 6 February 1952: Elizabeth, then visiting Kenya with her husband Prince Philip, learnt that she had become Queen at the age of 25. The solemn coronation of 2 June 1953 at Westminster Abbey was the first to be televised in Britain, watched by more than 20 million viewers. A devoted wife and mother of four, the Queen immediately embodied a monarchy that was both traditional and approachable. She chose to work closely with her successive Prime Ministers — from Winston Churchill to Liz Truss, she would receive fifteen in all.
During her seven decades on the throne, Elizabeth II presided over one of the greatest transformations in British history: decolonisation and the building of the Commonwealth of Nations, of which she remained the symbolic head. She faced multiple crises: the moral abdication scandal surrounding the death of Princess Diana in 1997, when she was slow to express her grief publicly; the turbulence of Brexit from 2016; and the COVID-19 pandemic, during which her televised speech of April 2020 ("We will meet again") moved millions.
The death of Prince Philip on 9 April 2021, her husband of 73 years, deeply affected her. Nevertheless, the Queen continued to perform her duties until her final weeks, receiving Liz Truss at Balmoral on 6 September 2022, two days before her death. Elizabeth II died on 8 September 2022 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, at the age of 96, after a reign of 70 years and 214 days — the longest in British history and the second longest of any monarch in the world. Her son Charles succeeded her, becoming Charles III.
Her legacy is that of a monarchy stabilised and modernised in the face of profound upheavals. A woman of duty above all, she embodied the continuity of the British state through fifteen Prime Ministers, fifteen American Presidents, thirteen Popes and seventy years of geopolitical change. Her funeral, on 19 September 2022, brought together more than 500 heads of state and foreign representatives — one of the most significant diplomatic gatherings in history.