God Save the Queen: the story of the reign of Elizabeth II - the longest and most turbulent in the history of the British monarchy

 

Elizabeth II has been the main and most recognizable symbol of the British Crown for 70 years now She has witnessed the decline of a great empire, experienced grandiose upheavals, ups and downs with the country - and to this day remains an authoritative and influential politician, although she does not directly influence politics and does not express her views. The preservation of the monarchy as an institution despite the numerous challenges is largely due to its merit. We tell how she succeeds and what kind of the "second Elizabethan era" will remain in the history of Great Britain.

 

Beginning of the Elizabethan Era

 "I declare to you all that my entire life, whether long or short, will be dedicated to serving you and that great empire to which we all belong." addressed to the entire British Commonwealth, timed to coincide with her 21st birthday. The Second World War had just died down, and the Cold War was just beginning to unwind. The British Empire was on the brink of great change, which at times seemed so frightening, and their possible consequences are so unpredictable, that the future seemed vaguer than ever.

 

Five years later, Princess Elizabeth's father died of cancer and a completely new life began for a very young girl.

Prince Philip bows to Queen Elizabeth II during her coronation in 1953

The reign of Elizabeth II turned out to be the longest in the history of the British monarchy - she has stayed a symbol of the monarchy for 68 years now and takes a very unusual position - she rules, but does not govern, has her own political position, but cannot speak, and if it has political influence, it is primarily informal.

But at the same time, Elizabeth II is a symbol of state power, her portrait is on all banknotes, and her biography becomes a subject for portrayed in literature and cinema, TV shows, and plays. What was the "second Elizabethan era" in the history of Britain and what would be remembered by future generations about the longest reign in the history of the country?

Empire: to be or not to be?

The British Empire entered World War II in 1939 - although Hitler hoped that he would miraculously ward off this threat. In May 1940, after the defeat of France, Britain was left almost alone with Germany: German soldiers marched in Paris, Poland actually stopped to exist, and the United States was in no hurry to get into another European conflict. The following five years were a time of "blood, toil, tears, and sweat," as Churchill dubbed them. Britain has become one of the victorious countries, but this victory was extremely difficult for her.

Princess Elizabeth and Winston Churchill, March 1950

The empire was shaken by conflict. Huge debts built up during the war tied the government hand and foot. The country lived under the conditions of a rationing system for the distribution of products, which was operated until almost the mid-1950s. The empire could no longer maintain a huge fleet and army, as well as military bases around the world – so the ships went under the knife or even flooded. And the United States made it clear that it was in no way interested in maintaining British influence on a global scale and, contrary to that, would try its best to reduce it. Even a nuclear bomb, created with the active involvement of British research centers and scientists, was considered by the Americans as an exclusively American achievement - and Britain had to deal with its own nuclear program after the war.

The British Empire started to transform already in the late 1940s, at a time when the country was still ruled by Elizabeth's father. In 1948, India has withdrawn from the empire, becoming an independent country (the British, however, before leaving, divided British India into two parts: Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India). But the main wave of changes has fallen precisely at the time of the reign of Elizabeth.

At the beginning of her reign, however, it seemed to many that the young queen would somehow manage to turn the course of history in a different direction—in fact, it was then that the mention of the “new Elizabethan age” first appeared. Conservative MP Bernard Braindeclaredthat "the old Elizabethan age was great precisely because the spirit of adventure made great men sail into the unknown in small ships," thus hinting that although the British Empire had lost its pearl, it still remained enormous and imposing, calling for exploits, discoveries, and accomplishments. Separate confirmation of the queen's power over geography was the conquest of Everest by the New Zealand climber Edmund Hillary - the expedition deliberately kept the news precisely until the coronation of Elizabeth.

But those dreams of a new re-release of the old empire have failed. The tide that had been carried by people around the world on ships from Britain for centuries turned back - into the 1950s and 1960s when almost all the colonies that made up the empire declared independence. Now not only the former colonists were going to the former metropolis, but also the local ones, who now received the right to British citizenship. The West Indies and Nigeria, Ceylon, and Kenya, from everywhere now went to Britain for a better life.

 

Official visits to the Commonwealth countries were one of the most important functions of Elizabeth II. In the photo, the Queen and her husband Prince Philip are captured with the head of Lagos (Nigeria) Adeniji Adel, 1956

The queen, ruling, but not governing, was to remain a symbol that held together the decaying empire, turning into the Commonwealth. The last outbursts of the old imperial mindset have occurred without the Queen's direct involvement, as in 1956 during the Suez Crisis, when the British and French governments decided to respond to the nationalization of the Suez Canal with conflict with Israel and direct military conflict. The failure of this operation marked the practical death of the "old imperial policies."

The era of Elizabeth II was the largest in the history of decolonization. But the state authorities, the government, and the political establishment did not want to admit what was happening, and therefore Elizabeth had to leave regularly for long exhausting trips and official visits to the Commonwealth countries. Some of them lasted for a few weeks, others for a few months. The symbolic presence of the crown was meant to support the belief that everything was going according to plan.

And although the further, the more real outlines of what was happening appeared under this symbolic royal mantle (in Canada in 1965 they abandoned the British flag, and in 1980 - from the anthem, in Australia - in 1984), Elizabeth II became a comfortable symbol of new times. a queen who found her place in a changing, sprawling empire. Strict sufficient to be respected, but not claiming (with rare exceptions) a real role in local political life.

Yes, she still appoints governors general to Canada and Australia, and once even appointed prime minister in Australia, but the more time passes, the more ceremonial remains in her powers of authority. Elizabeth's talent lies in doing this elegantly so that it seems that she has the situation under control.

If the practical death of the old empire came in 1956, then symbolically the empire ended in 1965, along with the death of Winston Churchill, the first Prime Minister of Elizabeth II and the last imperial leader of the old formation.

Britain and Europe: rapprochement or confrontation

Having parted with one role - imperial - Britain was not quite capable of finding a suitable new place for itself. And the Queen herself did not help the country in this choice, making it a rule for herself that she should not express her opinions on any political subject in public. She surrounded herself with a screen of silence, making political speeches only during the opening ceremonies of parliament – announcing the start of a new government.

And the governments themselves, who were replaced during her reign, painfully tried to find the right answer to the question of Britain's relationship with Europe. For centuries the British have looked towards Europe with dismay and suspicion Traditionally, British policy on the European continent has been to support one of the two largest forces in content - to advocate for the slightly weaker one to keep the stronger one from getting too strong. In this way, the balance of power has been maintained, and Britain used this situation to strengthen its colonial empire around the world.

The old time is gone. And the politicians who came to power were still old people - their political formation fell on the years of unconditional British power. For those of them who were younger, the image of the Second World War was important: a collapsed Europe, conquered by the Nazis, and the only power opposing them (until June 1941) was Britain. A complex attitude towards Europe in one way or another influenced the political culture of the main players.

they had to act in a situation where everything around was collapsing, burning, and changing; when the old orders were abolished de facto; when the country is continually teetered on the brink of an absolute financial collapse, from which only borrowing from the US and the IMF saved. Politicians have argued among themselves about where to move on, trying with all their might not to pay attention to the fact that the old way will no longer be.

Although the course towards participation in the European Community emerged quite early, the path of Britain to the EU was not easy and intermittent. First, back in 1951, Britain turned proudly down an offer to become a founding member of the European Coal and Steel Organization, the first pan-European organization to unite the six countries of Western Europe in a trade and industrial union. The Europeans did not understand the reasons for the rejection, especially since ten years later the country filed its first application to join the European Economic Community. Now it was rejected because of the position of the French President de Gaulle - he believed that for a huge number of reasons Britain was incompatible with Europe and would always be hostile to it.

Only after the departure of Gaulle in 1969 did the situation move forward. The Conservatives held lengthy negotiations and reached the country's entry into the EEC in 1973. But the issue of relations with Europe remained toxic to domestic British politics, especially exacerbated during the premiership of Margaret Thatcher, who not only won out more European subsidies for the country but also publicly criticized Brussels for its wish to build a “European superstate”.

The British queen looked at the ongoing changes with silent calmness, without being, however, indifferent within. She speaks her personal position only in confidential conversations with politicians and some diplomats. Thanks to one of them, the German Ambassador Rüdiger Freiherr von Wechmar, we know some views, which Elizabeth expressed in 1988. She told the ambassador that "many still do not understand that the future of the United Kingdom should be connected with the European Union, "and many inhabitants of the country do not understand the advantages of the European market. The Queen was announced by the position of Margaret Thatcher towards Europe - and she bluntly told the diplomat that Thatcher would soon have to abandon such a policy.

As we know today, the presence of such a position in monarch didn't help Britain to determine its attitude towards Europe. Once the country was pushed to participate in the EEC by a desperate economic and financial situation - then, in the 1970s, power outages due to miners' strikes were common, the City of London was not seeing and seeing the center of world financial life, but a decrepit exchange on which brokers carried bowlers and wrote quotes with chalk, and explosions from the Irish Liberation Army thundered on the streets of London.

Since then, everything appears to have changed: Britain, Europe, and the world around. But crises and disputes over the “European issue” continued to flare up in the UK with surprising consistency until in 2016 another round of discussions about the role and place of Britain in the EU led to Brexit. Now the country has been preparing for the fourth year to leave the European Union and looks to the future with caution – it is too vague. Hic sunt leones ("Lions Live Here"), as they would write on a medieval map. And the same Queen Elizabeth.

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