Queen Elizabeth II: The world’s oldest serving monarch.
Queen Elizabeth II photographed in 2014.
Princess Elizabeth became queen on 6th February, 1952. Little did she know that she would become the oldest monarch in the world.
On 23rd January, 2015, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia died at the age of ninety making the queen the oldest sovereign.
She was born in 1926.
Queen Victoria reigned for 63 years, 216 days, a record the queen topped in September 2015.
Victoria lived until she was eighty one years old. Queen Elizabeth I, who reigned for forty four years, lived until she was sixty-nine so today’s Elizabeth is well ahead of those two ladies.
Will the queen abdicate?
Most royal historians and specialists believe she will not. The overriding impression is that the queen sees the job of a monarch as one that is for life – literally.
She has shown no signs of slowing down in recent years although Prince Charles sometimes takes her place on overseas royal visits.
Unlike previous sovereigns she also has a well-trained younger generation to help. I imagine that the queen will perform fewer onerous tours and duties in the future but her own mother was relatively hale and hearty until she was over a hundred years old.
Who are the other monarchs of ‘a certain age’?
- King Abdul Halim, supreme head of state of Malaysia
- King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand
- Emir Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah of Kuwait
- Sultan Ahmad Shah of Pahang state, Malaysia
- Emir Humaid bin Rashid Al Nuaimi of Ajman, an emirate in the United Arab Emirates
- Emperor Akihito of Japan
- Awujale Sikiru Kayode Adetona, king of Ijebuland, a state in Nigeria
- King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud of Saudi Arabia
- King Harald V of Norway
I suspect that few of these are household names worldwide
See her twenty-first birthday speech.
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