Monarch who through her seven decades of public service became a figure of fascination by remaining steadfastly private
Queen Elizabeth II, who has died aged 96, became through the course of her long reign not only the oldest sovereign in the country’s history but also its longest serving.
The 42nd of a line of kings and queens of first England, then Britain, then the United Kingdom, since William the Conqueror, she was also the sixth queen-sovereign of England and the fourth of the UK. In addition, she was queen and head of state of 15 other countries, stretching from Fiji, Australia and New Zealand to the Bahamas and Canada, all once part of the former British empire. She was for seven decades head of the Commonwealth, whose 54 countries comprise 2.1 billion people, a third of the globe’s population.
