Queen Elizabeth II: How 'Lilibet' became one of Britain's greatest ever monarchs – obituary

The Queen has died, Buckingham Palace has announced.

In a statement, the Palace said: "The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon.

"The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow."

Though she was not born to be queen, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor died on 8 September 2022 having become the longest reigning monarch in British history.

Her childhood

Elizabeth was born on 21 April 1926 to the Duke and Duchess of York.

Nicknamed ‘Lilibet’ by her family, she made a lasting impression on people even at a young age.

Winston Churchill said in 1928: "She’s a character. She has an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in an infant."

Elizabeth and her younger sister Margaret were privately educated at home under the supervision of their mother and their governess, Marion Crawford.

Lessons concentrated on history, language, literature and music.

Edward VIII abdicates

Born third in line to the throne, by rights Elizabeth should have lived her life as a minor royal.

However, her future changed forever in 1936 when her uncle Edward VIII abdicated less than a year after taking the throne – so that he could marry Wallis Simpson, a divorced American socialite.

Elizabeth’s father became King George VI and the young princess was now heir to the throne.

Thrust into the public eye, Princess Elizabeth took her royal duties seriously. During the Second World War she helped boost morale by making a broadcast to the nation’s children in 1940, with her younger sister joining at the end.

She made public appearances on her own and joined the women auxiliary territorial service as a driver and mechanic to free up men for the front lines. The skills she learned lasted a lifetime.

Decades later, she once terrified her passenger Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia by driving fearlessly around the winding roads of the Scottish Highlands in her Land Rover while he pleaded with her to keep her eyes on the road.

On VE day in 1945, the young Elizabeth and her sister Margaret convinced their parents to let them sneak out of Buckingham Palace and mingle with the celebrating crowds outside.

She later recalled: “I remember lines of unknown people linking arms and walking down Whitehall, all of us just swept along on a tide of happiness and relief.”

Moments of anonymity like this were rare, but she was able to enjoy several more over her lifetime. One biographer recalls the time she went shopping in the duty-free section of an airport while waiting for her flight to refuel.

“It was a secure area, no-one was expecting her and she had a lovely time browsing at the Clarins counter,” reported a member of the royal party.

On another occasion, while walking around the grounds of Balmoral with her bodyguards she was asked by a group of US tourists if she’d ever met the Queen. Apparently she replied “no” before pointing at her police guard and saying: “But he has.”

Philip, her ‘strength and stay’

It was during the war that she met a young naval officer, Philip of Denmark and Greece.

The couple married at Westminster Abbey on 20 November 1947 with the princess wearing a dress she paid for with ration tokens.

There was fierce opposition to the union in royal circles at the time – he was penniless and thought of as "arrogant" – but they were a solid partnership and their 73-year marriage became the longest of any UK monarch.

The late Lord Charteris once said that Philip was the only person on earth who could tell the Queen to "shut up", and vice versa.

Another close friend said of the couple: "Those two, they’re just a real love story – taking tea together every day, talking about everything. He might take out a letter and read it to her, or crack a joke. They just adore each other."

During a speech to mark their golden wedding anniversary, the Queen said about Philip: "He is someone who doesn't take easily to compliments but he has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years, and I, and his whole family, and this and many other countries, owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim, or we shall ever know."

Early family life

Their first child, Charles, was born in 1948 and Anne followed two years later.

But Princess Elizabeth’s life was one in which family life had to be balanced against royal duties.

At one point, she lived with Philip at his naval base in Malta, leaving the young Prince Charles back in the UK.

It is said to have been one of the happiest times of her life. The young princess would drive around the island unescorted in her open-topped car or pop to the local cinema to watch a film, holding hands with her husband.

Her coronation

On 6 February 1952, George VI passed away and Elizabeth became Queen, bringing a huge change to her life with Philip.

She was on a royal tour of Kenya at the time, visiting a treetop hotel and it was left to Prince Philip to tell his wife about her father’s death.

The next day, the new monarch requested no photographs be taken. One journalist said he could “feel her sadness” as she passed and waved to them.

More than a year later, on 2 June 1953, the Queen was crowned at Westminster Abbey in a televised event that was watched by an estimated 27 million people around the UK.

She was the 39th sovereign to be crowned at Westminster Abbey, in a service followed by a procession along a 7.2km route through London.

Later family life

By the 1970s, she had given birth to sons Andrew and Edward and become the first reigning monarch to visit Australia and New Zealand.

In 1977, she celebrated her Silver Jubilee and while the country was rocked by political turmoil and unrest, the Queen was still admired and respected.

Break-in at Buckingham Palace

In the early hours of 9 July 1982, 31-year-old painter and decorator Michael Fagan broke into Buckingham Palace after scaling the site's 14 ft perimeter walls.

He then climbed up a drainpipe and entered the palace through an unlocked window.

Fagan eventually made it to the Queen's bedroom, where he happened upon the startled monarch.

An official Scotland Yard report into the incident found that the basic cause of the breakdown in security had been due to a series of failures by officers to act properly and security was improved.

Annus horribilis

In 1992, a series of unpleasant events rocked the Royal Family. The marriages of two of her children, Princess Anne and Prince Andrew, broke down.

A book detailing Princess Diana’s unhappiness was published and a fire swept through Windsor Castle. It led to the Queen making a speech in which she called it her 'Annus horribilis' – her horrible year.