Thousands of miles away in Kenya, his older daughter, Princess Elizabeth, had additionally had a great day, seeing and filming together with her handheld film digicam rhinos, warthogs, baboons and a herd of elephants, pink from rolling in the mud.
But the subsequent day, Feb. 6, when Elizabeth became sovereign? The queen would at all times commemorate it with a day of quiet reflection. This date marks when her beloved father, King George VI, 56, was discovered to have handed away in his sleep.
“It is a day that, even after 70 years, I still remember as much for the death of my father, King George VI, as for the start of my reign,” she wrote in an anniversary statement in February.
Queen Elizabeth died Thursday at 96. She reigned longer than another British monarch, 70 years.
The story of the day and hour of Elizabeth’s accession to the throne has been informed many instances, but it surely stays a fascinating story. It is historical past with echoes of Arthurian romance.
On the morning of her father’s dying, 25-year-old Elizabeth was perched in a treehouse in Kenya from which she’d watched a herd of elephants led by matriarchs come to a watering gap.
“There has been much speculation, not least because of historical parallels, about when precisely Elizabeth became Queen,” wrote Sally Bedell Smith in her biography of the monarch. “It undoubtedly happened when she was atop the African fig tree, which draws a romantic line to the moment in 1558 when Elizabeth I, seated next to an oak tree at Hatfield House, heard that the death of her sister, Queen Mary, meant she was the monarch, also at age twenty-five.”
For many months, King George — recognized to at present’s generations for overcoming a debilitating stutter in the 2010 Oscar-winning movie “The King’s Speech” — had been in declining well being.
“The King, a heavy smoker, underwent a left total pneumonectomy in September 1951 for what euphemistically was called ‘structural abnormalities’ of his left lung, but what in reality was a carcinoma,” wrote Rolf F. Barth of Ohio State University in a “pathologists’ reassessment” final 12 months.
“His physicians withheld this diagnosis from him, the public, and the medical profession,” he and co-author L. Maximilian Buja wrote.
Too in poor health to journey, 56-year-old George tasked Elizabeth and her husband, Philip, with enterprise a months-long tour of the Commonwealth, in the twilight of the British Empire.
George noticed his daughter off at London Airport on Jan. 31, 1952. Newspapers mentioned the king appeared “well and cheerful.” One of his biographers would later recommend “haggard” as a higher description. The crowd let loose a cheer as he waved goodbye to Elizabeth.
It could be the final time the 2 noticed one another.
The younger couple traveled to Kenya, the place a BBC newsreel exhibits Elizabeth in a print costume and Philip in a white naval uniform, bedecked in medals, rising from the BOAC Argonaut airplane.
“When the royal couple stepped off into the hot sunshine of Nairobi, no one knew then that the girl who had arrived here as Princess Elizabeth would leave five days later as queen,” the British broadcaster would report.
From the Kenyan capital, Elizabeth and Philip, accompanied by a small entourage, traveled three hours to Sagana Lodge, a villa alongside a trout stream, offered to them as a marriage ceremony present from the Kenyan state.
“It was a dangerous time in the British colony. The Mau Mau campaign had just broken out across the White Highlands,” wrote historian Nicholas Best in the Observer. “The officials responsible for the princess’s tour of Kenya, Australia and New Zealand felt unable to guarantee her safety while she was in Kenya. It was only fear of ridicule that stopped them canceling the African leg of the trip.”
On Feb. 5, the couple traveled additional into the forest, to the Treetops Hotel, a game-viewing lodge. Their three-bed cabin was reached by a rickety ladder and constructed into the branches of an historic fig tree, overlooking a waterhole and salt lick.
“Treetops is old hat now, but in 1952 it was the only place of its kind in the world,” wrote Best, who has been researching lodge founder Eric Sherbrooke Walker, a colourful character, former bootlegger and pal of royals.
In an interview, Best informed The Washington Post that Walker positioned native males with spears on the fringe of the forest to discourage journalists, out of concern for Elizabeth’s privateness and likewise as a result of the scent of extra people would frighten the wildlife.
Naturalist and big-game hunter Jim Corbett, who accompanied the couple, spent the darkest hours of the night time on the entrance of the lodge with a shotgun, to maintain curious leopards away, Best mentioned.
On Feb. 6, due to the space and problem of communication, it took hours for the information of the king’s dying to achieve rural Kenya. The message was relayed to Philip’s non-public secretary, and from Philip to his spouse after they’d returned to Sagana Lodge.
Without ceremony and even consciousness, however in accordance with British custom, Elizabeth had change into queen.
The newspaper entrance pages rang out, “Long Live Queen Elizabeth,” whereas noting, “Her Majesty, pale with grief, leaves by air for home.”
The new queen stayed composed, apart from one second on the flight again to London. “The Queen left her seat after a while. Her face was set when she returned, but it was obvious to the other passengers that she had been in the loo, having a good long cry,” Best wrote in the Guardian.
When the airplane arrived, a black costume was rapidly introduced onboard so she may disembark in acceptable mourning apparel.
The subsequent day, she learn a proclamation declaring her reign:
“By the sudden death of my dear father, I am called to assume the duties and responsibilities of sovereignty. My heart is too full for me to say more to you today than I shall always work as my father did throughout his reign, to advance the happiness and prosperity of my peoples, spread as they are all the world over.”
