Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s Longest Reigning Monarch, Dies at 96

Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning British monarch in history and one of the world’s most recognizable — and most portrayed — figures in modern times, died Thursday. She was 96. 

After 70 years of rule, Elizabeth died at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, where she had spent the summer, the Royal Family announced.

She will be succeeded by her firstborn son, Charles.

With her official title — Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of her other realms and territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith — she was, at the time of the death, queen of the U.K. and 14 other commonwealth realms.

She was the longest-serving female head of state in history — having begun her reign in February 1952 at age 25 — and longest-serving incumbent head of state. In 2017, she became the first British monarch to reach a Sapphire Jubilee, marking 65 years in power. (She had surpassed Victoria in 2015 to become the longest-reigning British monarch ever).

With her financial and property portfolio, she also was one of the world’s richest women.

Elizabeth grasped the democratizing power of television long before sets were in virtually every household, insisting that her June 2, 1953, coronation be televised (against the wishes of the British government). The meticulously planned ceremony became the first major world event to be broadcast internationally, attracting an estimated global audience of 277 million, and is credited with making TV a mainstream medium; in the U.K., those watching outnumbered the radio audience for the first time.

Fifteen years later, she would break again with tradition by letting cameras into Buckingham Palace for a BBC documentary that aimed to humanize her young family, and more than 30 million in the U.K. alone tuned in to watch the premiere of Royal Family in 1969. It was said that so many toilets flushed across London at the same time during an intermission, it caused a water shortage.

However, reportedly at the request of Buckingham Palace, the film was stashed away in the BBC archives and has not aired since the 1970s.

Alongside her own groundbreaking approach to television, Elizabeth was portrayed onscreen dozens of times. Helen Mirren won an Oscar for her depiction of her in Stephen Frears’ The Queen (2006) and played her on the stage, while Claire Foy, Olivia Colman and Imelda Staunton portrayed her on Netflix’s Emmy-winning The Crown.

Jeannette Charles made a career out of comically doubling for Elizabeth for more than 40 years, showing up in such films as National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985), The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988) and Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), while others to portray her included Emma Thompson, Neve Campbell, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jane Alexander, June Squibb, Maggie Sullivun, Freya Wilson, Sarah Gadon and Fred Armisen.

In 2013, Elizabeth received an honorary BAFTA for her patronage of the U.K. film and TV industry. At a star-studded gala at Windsor Castle, where Belfast-born Kenneth Branagh presented her with the award, BAFTA chairman John Willis described her as “the most memorable Bond girl yet,” a reference to her cameo appearance alongside Daniel Craig during the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.

Elizabeth Alexandra May Windsor was born in London on April 21, 1926, to the Duke and Duchess of York. Her father would ascend the throne, becoming King George VI, in 1936 following the abdication of his brother, King Edward VIII.

As the first child, Elizabeth, or Lilibet (a nickname coined when she was a toddler that was later given by her grandson Prince Harry to his daughter), immediately became the heir presumptive, aka first in line.

During World War II, she began to undertake public duties and served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women’s branch of the British Army, training as a lorry driver and mechanic. In November 1947, she married Philip Mountbatten, a former prince of Greece and Denmark, whom she’d first met in 1934.

Philip would remain steadfastly by her side throughout their marriage, and they would become the longest-serving royal consort in history.

George VI’s health declined in 1951. While in Kenya as part of a tour that was to include Australia and New Zealand, Elizabeth was told of his death and, consequently, her immediate accession to the throne.

Her tenure oversaw decades of dramatic change across the world and at home. In terms of her own duties, with Britain’s colonial past coming under greater scrutiny and countries seeking to severe ties, many nations would remove her as head of state as they sought independence and transition to a republic. In December 2021, Barbados became the latest country to do so.

But her reign also would see a revolution within the royal family itself, with the Queen appearing to become acutely aware of the modern, more ceremonial, role of the monarchy in public and political life.

The public-facing aspect of the monarchy came with significant drawbacks, not least the intense media interests in their private lives. This perhaps reached a peak in the 1980s and ’90s when the royal family became regular front-page tabloid fodder, particularly over the separation of Prince Charles and Diana in 1992 and the various revelations about their relationships.

The year 1992 — which Elizabeth would label an “annus horribilis” — also would see Prince Andrew split from Sarah, sparking further embarrassing headlines. After Diana’s death in 1997, the queen came under intense criticism for not mourning publicly, failing to return from Balmoral to London and apparently refusing the fly the flag at half-mast at Buckingham Palace, later bowing to pressure and addressing the nation on TV. The broadcast — the day before Diana’s funeral — seemed to temper much of the public hostility.

Elizabeth would later deal with the scandal that erupted from Andrew’s association with financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and allegations he himself faced. It was the queen who reportedly made the decision to withdraw her second eldest son from public duties following a poorly received interview he gave with the BBC in 2019.

In April 2021, in another televised ceremony, she laid Philip, her husband of 73 years, to rest in a scaled-backed, COVID-19-impacted funeral in which millions around the world watched her mourn, masked and sitting alone.

Survivors include their children, Charles, born in 1948, Princess Anne (born in 1950), Prince Andrew (born in 1960) and Prince Edward (born in 1964), and grandchildren Peter, Zara, William, Harry, Beatrice, Eugenie, Louise and James.