Queen Elizabeth II died at the age of 96. The second-longest-reigning monarch in history had slowed down her duties in recent months as mobility issues plagued her health. But the queen worked until the very end, fulfilling her constitutional duty in asking incoming Prime Minister Liz Truss to form a government in her name.
To put into perspective just how great, in terms of magnitude and glory, her reign really was, Truss — the 15th and final prime minister of the queen’s reign — was born in 1975. Her first, Winston Churchill, was born more than a century prior.
The career of Elizabeth Alexandra Mary began in theory in 1936, when the abdication of Edward VIII made her the direct heir to her father, George VI. Elizabeth was the less glamorous and gregarious of George’s two daughters. Twice — first by her uncle’s misguided passion for Wallis Simpson and then by Hitler’s war on Europe — she was forced into a role she had never asked for.
Thus, she began more than 80 years of service to her country, more than 70 of them as queen. During World War II, she remained in the United Kingdom even as it was bombed, first addressing the nation’s children with a radio address when she was 14, then as a wartime driver and mechanic as soon as she turned 18.
At age 25, Elizabeth, a young, beautiful wife and mother, became queen. This elevated her to the rank of the old, staid men who ran the world. Although millennials may picture the queen as grandmotherly and diminutive — a literal head shorter than U.S. Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump — she was more Hollywood than homely when pictured next to Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy.
Even as her hair grayed amid her self-proclaimed “annus horribilis” of 1992, she harnessed the power of optics better than anyone.
The last living head of state to have served in World War II rode her horses, drove her Range Rover, and summered in Balmoral, her beloved Scottish estate and the site of her death, until the near end.
During the coronavirus pandemic, the queen proved perhaps Britain’s only leader to live by the rules made by the government. When she lost her consort of more than 70 years, Prince Philip, the queen mourned in solitude, tears streaming behind a black mask, during her husband’s scaled-back funeral in St. George’s Chapel.
The queen could have resigned at any time, but true to her declaration at 21 that she would fulfill her duty for life, she saw the role through. She did not gamble the future of the monarchy on Prince, now King, Charles, who spent his energies attempting to restore the popularity of his own consort, Camilla. She remained steady even as her grandson Harry seemed keen to burn the whole royal family down.
Two days before her death, she met with Truss, standing, cane in hand, for photos, proving she would work until the very end.
The second Elizabethan era has ended. Should the monarchy survive, it will only be because of the girl who rose to the occasion amid enemy fire, figurative and literal, to work until her dying breath.
