April 13, 2006. Copyright 2006, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Queen Elizabeth II at 80
By Elisabeth Ribbans

LONDON, April 13, Graphic News:  When Queen Elizabeth II, who turns 80 this month, was born in London on April 21, 1926, no one knew that they were toasting the birth of BritainÕs future monarch. But in the more than half a century since she was crowned at Westminster Abbey, most agree that she has inhabited the role with a level of dignity and devotion to duty that more than suggest this was always her destiny.

Even as she enters her ninth decade the Queen maintains a busy calendar -- undertaking as head of state of Britain and 15 other Commonwealth countries around 420 engagements a year at home and overseas. As her own website reminds us, she has travelled the world on a scale unparalled by previous monarchs. And if the pace has slowed just slightly in recent years the diary is still full enough to scotch rumours that she may be bringing her reign to a close. As supreme governor of the Church of England, and possessing a strong sense of religious duty, the Queen takes seriously her coronation oath, making abdication an unlikely prospect.

Each year she continues to entertain close to 50,000 people from all sections of the community at garden parties and other royal occasions, and is patron or president of more than 700 organisations. As part of her 80th birthday celebrations she has invited for lunch others who were born on the same day.

She also holds a weekly audience with the prime minister, and sees all cabinet papers, important foreign office telegrams and a daily summary of events in parliament. Her many military responsibilities include those as head of BritainÕs Navy, Army and Air Force.

Her adherence to royal protocol and her rather unexcitable public manner -- which close acquaintances say is in total contrast to her wit, warmth and unfussy air in private -- make it hard to determine how much Elizabeth II enjoys the demands of monarchy. But it is assumed that any delight found in her hectic schedule is merely an added bonus; her raison dÕetre is simply to serve.

On her 21st birthday, several years before she was crowned, the princess touchingly spelled out this sense of commitment in a speech made in South Africa, during her first official overseas visit, to the people of the Commonwealth: ÒI declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and to the service of our great Imperial family to which we all belong. God help me to make good my vow.Ó

Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary had been born at 17 Bruton Street, London -- a private house in Mayfair, not a royal residence -- the first of two children of the Duke and Duchess of York. She had, by royal standards, a simple and normal childhood, and was kept out of the limelight as much as possible by her mother.

It was only the abdication a decade later of ElizabethÕs uncle, Edward VIII, leading to the accession -- and, as her family saw it, early death -- of her father as George VI, that put ÒLilibetÓ directly in line for the throne. It is believed that her sense of responsibility was stiffened by the abdication, which was widely regarded as a terrible dereliction of duty.

Introduced to royal duties from the age of 14, Princess Elizabeth -- schooled at home with her sister, Princess Margaret, in constitutional history, law and languages (she is fluent in French) -- began to perform some of the tasks of head of state in the kingÕs absence during the second world war. In early 1945, the princess herself joined the war effort as a driver in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, reaching the rank of junior commander.

Upon her fatherÕs death in 1952, Elizabeth became queen, bringing with her to Buckingham Palace her young husband Prince Philip, only son of Prince Andrew of Greece, and their two children, Prince Charles, born in 1948, and Princess Anne, aged just 18 months. Prince Andrew, the first child born to a reigning monarch for more than a century, followed in 1960, while Prince Edward, the royal coupleÕs fourth and youngest child, was born in 1964.

Throughout her reign -- the third-longest in the history of the British monarchy -- she has distinguished herself by courting neither controversy nor publicity. She has never given press interviews and keeps her political views private. Likewise her emotions are rarely on display. This latter trait, which attracted some opprobrium following the death of Princess Diana, has softened in recent times, with the queen often appearing more relaxed in public. She is also said to enjoy a closer relationship today with her four children and seven grandchildren. In private her chief pastimes are horses -- as an owner and breeder of thoroughbreds, she often attends her equestrian events -- photography, and her beloved corgi dogs.

The QueenÕs Òannus horribilisÓ of 1992, which saw the divorce of Princess Anne, the breakdown of the marriage of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson and the separation of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, as well as the fire at Windsor Castle (which she has always regarded more as home than Buckingham Palace) now seems a distant and unfortunate blip in the otherwise robust and steady tenor of her reign.

Intermittent popular calls for a more modern monarchy have largely been resisted. Conservative in her dress and in her moral code -- she opposed Princess MargaretÕs wish to marry a divorced man and for many years would not acknowledge Prince CharlesÕs future wife, Camilla Parker Bowles -- it is perhaps that she simply knows no other way. Or that she believes that in a lifetime that has taken in so much change -- from the invention of television to space travel, through wars and the break-up of nations -- constancy is a virtue.
/ENDS