The Second Elizabeth, a Life Appreciated

“From that distant day when I saw her ride down Poonamallee High Road in Madras, the epitome of regality and restraint, Elizabeth II did her best in balancing the demands of tradition, the weight of history, the requirements of society and culture both at home and abroad, and also attended to her family.”

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Great Britain had prevailed over Germany in the Second World War but at a heavy cost. The Treasury was drained, people went hungry, food was being rationed (as was fuel and coal), and Winston Churchill, though lauded as war hero and savior, was ingloriously voted out of office. The new prime minister, Clement Attlee, set about converting the country into a welfare state, piously pretending that the British Empire was thriving while he hatched plans to dismantle it.

Amid the gloom, people brightened up hearing the news of a royal wedding: Princess Elizabeth was tying the knot with Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, prince of Denmark and Greece who renounced those titles and became a naturalized British citizen to win her hand. British expatriates sent hundreds of tons of nonperishable food as a wedding gift. Instead of using it for a banquet, Elizabeth instructed that it be divided into food parcels for the poor, especially widows and pensioners, each parcel sent with a personal note from her. These values would also guide her as queen.

Elizabeth II was not born to be queen. A woman could ascend to the throne only if (the rules have since changed) there were no male heirs in the line of succession. Circumstances changed when her uncle, Edward VIII, abdicated the throne because he wanted to marry the American socialite Wallis Simpson, a two-time divorcee with both husbands living, unacceptable to the Church of England and presenting a constitutional crisis. What is more, Edward and Simpson had Fascist sympathies. After the abdication, they lived abroad where the Nazis considered Edward king-in-waiting, to be reinstated after Germany crushed Great Britain.