Born a second-tier member of the royal family on 21 April 1926, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor became the heir presumptive to the British throne following the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936, followed by the coronation of her father, King George VI, in 1937. She only graduated from heir presumptive to heir apparent after it became clear that George would never produce a son. Many years later, she would be instrumental in changing the rights of succession to ensure that the first-born child of any monarch stood next in line to the throne regardless of gender. The legislation, rolled out across the Commonwealth, came into effect in 2015, one of many ways in which she modernised the Crown as an institution during her reign as the longest-serving monarch in British history.
A newborn Princess Elizabeth with her parents, the Duke and Duchess of York.
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The future Queen at the age of three on a stroll in London.
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Elizabeth’s beloved father, whose pronounced stutter and diffident nature almost resulted in his being passed over as monarch, trained her for her role from his coronation onwards – engaging Henry Marten, a provost at Eton College, to tutor her about the intricacies of British history and law from the age of 13. Based at nearby Windsor Castle, the young princess would visit Marten twice a week at his study near the college, where he would test her on the likes of The Law and Custom of the Constitution by William Anson in between tending to his pet raven – which he let fly around among his innumerable piles of books. Virtually all of the 14 Prime Ministers that the Queen subsequently worked with would remark on her in-depth knowledge of constitutional matters.
At home with a beloved corgi as a girl.
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At home with her family, George would have the young Elizabeth sit with him while going through his famous red boxes of state correspondence – boxes that would one day become her responsibility. “I have a feeling that in the end probably that training is the answer to a great many things,” she said ahead of her 40th year on the throne. “You can do a lot if you are properly trained, and I hope I have been.” (Another legacy of her father’s? The Queen’s passion for corgis. He gifted her with her first Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Susan, for her 18th birthday, with Her Majesty keeping 14 generations of Susan’s descendants as pets.) Meanwhile, the Queen Mother, then Queen Elizabeth, encouraged her daughter to read literary classics by everyone from Jane Austen to Anthony Trollope, as well as to keep a nightly diary, just as her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria did – a practice Elizabeth kept up until her death.
With King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on the day of the former’s coronation.
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The Princess Elizabeth studying with her father at Windsor Castle in 1942.
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It’s also during this period that the future monarch established two of her greatest passions: riding and horse breeding. In a tradition dating back to Elizabeth I, the Queen bred her own horses, with operations at Sandringham among several other of her residences. Her lessons on horseback began at the age of three, and by the time she had turned 12 she had mastered side-saddle in preparation for the annual Trooping of the Colour ceremony, for which she would be required to lead 1,400 soldiers down the Horse Guards Parade in London. Many years later, while taking the parade down the Mall in 1981, a gunman fired a number of shots that turned out to be blanks at Her Majesty, startling her 19-year-old mare Burmese. As guards tackled the would-be assassin, the Queen quietly reached down, patted the skittish horse and finished the ceremony without comment.
Attending to her studies at Windsor Castle in 1944.
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