Elizabeth II | |
---|---|
Elizabeth II photographed in 1982 | |
Reign | 6 February 1952 - 5 February 1984 |
Coronation | 2 June 1953 |
Predecessor | George VI |
Successor | Andrew |
Spouse | Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (m. 1947) |
Issue | |
Charles, Prince of Wales Anne II of Cleveland Andrew I of South Africa Prince Edward | |
Father | George VI |
Mother | Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon |
Born | 21 April 1926 Mayfair, London, England |
Died | 5 February 1984 (aged 57) HMY Britannia, Torridan, Scotland |
Religion | Church of England
Church of Scotland |
Queen Elizabeth II (21st April 1926 - 5th February 1984) was the queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Commonwealth Nations from 1952 until her death in 1984, though from September 1983 until her death most of the kingdom lay outside her government's control. At that point her son Andrew succeeded her to the throne in South Africa, where he had been stranded since the Doomsday event.
Before Doomsday[]
Born to Prince Albert, Duke of York and his wife Elizabeth, on April 21, 1926, Elizabeth II had a younger sister named Margaret, and from birth was third in line to the throne. When her grandfather, George V died in 1936, her uncle Prince Edward became King, but was shortly thereafter forced to abdicate thereafter, as he wished to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, an act not allowed or provided for in the Constitution of the United Kingdom. This resulted in her father, a man who was never meant to be king, to rise to the throne, becoming King George VI. In 1947 Elizabeth married Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, and later had four children: Charles, Andrew, Anne and Edward. Her father passed away in 1952 and she became Queen in 1952 and was officially crowned Queen in 1953.
Doomsday[]
At the time of Doomsday, Elizabeth and Prince Philip were residing in Windsor Castle, located in Berkshire, near London. As news of the incoming attack came, Elizabeth, Philip and twenty minor members of government were taken to the coast by helicopters designed specifically to resist the effects of an EMP Burst, leaving Sir John Grady in charge of the palace (as it happened, the place was a safe enough distance away to be spared the firestorms which ravaged London.)
Under the emergency plan for a nuclear war, code-named PYTHON, key government officials were to be evacuated to various secure points around the island of Great Britain. The Queen, in accordance to the plan, was flown to the Royal Yacht Britannia. The yacht escaped Portsmouth by the skin of its teeth, getting underway immediately when warning came. It managed to evade the fireball and narrowly avoided capsizing, while many of the crew suffered burns and radiation sickness.
Nevertheless, the yacht made it to Hastings in one piece, where the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh boarded, and then departed for its designated hiding place in Loch Torridan on the Scottish coast. Along the way the yacht rendezvoused with another naval ship so that able-bodied crew could come on to replace those too sick or injured to work.
Post Doomsday[]
Arrival in Torridan[]
Once the yacht was in Torridan, almost the entire crew was replaced, having been found unfit to serve. There were very few left aboard who were familiar with the vessel; nevertheless, it was not expected to travel much. Its job was to stay put and wait for the region to become safe.
The British state was reduced to small groups of officials hiding in bunkers around the country. Short-wave radio allowed the different sites to communicate with each other, but the scale of the collapse meant that no entity had the capacity to govern the entire country; many struggled to bring order to their immediate surroundings. With the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who was at the time in Canada and (incorrectly) being declared dead, the government was instead led by Deputy Prime Minister William Whitelaw, who had taken shelter in a royal naval air station on the Isle of Portland. Elizabeth soon named him Prime Minister in his own right - he would be the United Kingdom's last.
At the time of Doomsday, Elizabeth and Philip's third child, Andrew, was serving aboard a Royal Navy ship in the Red Sea. After evading an attack by Soviet submarines, the ship set sail for Britain, rounding Africa to avoid being vulnerable in Suez. Andrew was left behind in Cape Town, the nearest friendly anti-Soviet port. Bringing him to Britain in the middle of a possible Soviet invasion was considered an unnecessary risk. When the news reached Britain, Andrew was considered the new heir apparent, as Charles, Edward and Anne were missing, presumed dead.
Speech to the Nation[]
In November, Whitelaw's administration arranged for Elizabeth to make a speech from Brittania, bringing additional broadcasting equipment to the yacht. By coincidence, earlier in 1983, the British Government had been organizing a series of War Games, and had written a speech for Her Majesty to deliver to her nation. It was this speech on which it was based on:
When I spoke to you last, we were all enjoying the warmth and fellowship of a family Christmas. Our thoughts were concentrated on the strong links that bind each generation to the ones that came before and those that will follow. The horrors of war could not have seemed more remote as my family and I shared our Christmas joy with the growing family of the Commonwealth.
Now this madness of war is once more spreading through the world and our brave country must again prepare itself to survive against great odds.
My husband and I share with families up and down the land the fear we feel for sons and daughters, husbands and brothers who have left our side to serve their country. My beloved son Andrew was at that moment in action with his unit and we prayed continually for his safety, and continue to do so for the safety of all servicemen and women at home and overseas.
It is this close bond of family life that must be our greatest defence against the unknown. If families remain united and resolute, giving shelter to those living alone and unprotected, our country's will to survive cannot be broken.
My message to you, therefore, is simple. Help those who cannot help themselves, give comfort to the lonely and the homeless and let your family become the focus of hope and life to those who need it.
As we strive together to fight off the new evil let us pray for our country and men of goodwill wherever they may be.
I have never forgotten the sorrow and the pride I felt as my sister and I huddled around the nursery wireless set listening to my father's inspiring words on that fateful day in 1939. Not for a single moment did I imagine that this solemn and awful duty would one day fall to me.
We all know that the dangers facing us today are greater by far than at any time in our long history. The enemy is not the soldier with his rifle nor even the airman prowling the skies above our cities and towns but the deadly power of abused technology.
But whatever terrors lie in wait for us all the qualities that have helped to keep our freedom intact twice already during this sad century will once more be our strength.
God Bless you all
The speech was greatly received by citizens of the Isle of Wight and some parts of the South Coast which picked up the message, and lifted spirits, having a positive effect on the morale of those who heard it.
Death[]
The Queen had avoided the worst of the nuclear attack, but exposure to radiation during the journey north, combined with stress and exhaustion, had the effect of weakening her immune system. In April 1984 she succumbed to a disease outbreak aboard the yacht. Philip, also sick but recovering, delivered the news in a grief-stricken radio address.
Following Elizabeth as King of the United Kingdom and leader of the Commonwealth, Andrew was crowned in a small ceremony in St. George's Cathedral in Cape Town. The event gave this nation which had seen so much sorrow at least something to celebrate, but the fact that it took place in exile made it bittersweet.
Legacy[]
Queen Elizabeth is still seen as a symbol of British culture and is still widely revered for her work while monarch. However, while she still is seen to be popular, in Southern England her successor Andrew was received negatively, in part for what is seen as his abandonment of Britain for South Africa. Then the departure of many military and government personnel to South Africa is blamed for the dissolution of the UK government - though it is highly likely that the precarious government would have collapsed in any case. Southern England, for the time being, continues to style itself a republic.
Other states have adopted monarchical forms of government, evoking Elizabeth's memory. The Kingdom of Cleveland formed under Elizabeth's daughter Anne, who had sheltered in a regional government bunker in Yorkshire. Nearby Northumberland and Lancaster also adopted hereditary heads of state and later recognised Anne and her daughter as Elizabeth's heirs. Meanwhile Andrew and his successor William V proved to be much more popular around the former Commonwealth than in Britain; a small collection of states in Canada and Oceania now name William as their head of state.
One other legacy of Elizabeth was her speech to the nation a couple of months after the events of Doomsday - while the original radio broadcast did not have a large audience, later tape recordings circulated widely throughout the former Commonwealth and moved many people. She has become a symbol of resilience of British culture.