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LONDON, Sept 8 - The crowning achievement of Britain's Queen Elizabeth, who died on Thursday after 70 years on the throne, was to maintain the popularity of the monarchy across decades of seismic political, social and cultural change that threatened to make it an anachronism.
A dignified, dependable figure who reigned longer than any other British monarch, Elizabeth helped steer the institution into the modern world, stripping away court ritual and making it somewhat more open and accessible, all in the glare of an increasingly intrusive and often hostile media.
While the nation she reigned over sometimes struggled to find its place in a new world order and her own family often fell foul of public expectations, the queen herself remained a symbol of stability. She also tried to transcend class barriers and earned the grudging respect of even hardened republicans.
To much of the world she was the personification of Britain, yet she remained something of an enigma as an individual, never giving an interview and rarely expressing emotion or offering a personal opinion in public - a woman recognized by millions but known by hardly anyone.
"I think she's brought life, energy and passion to the job, she's managed to modernise and evolve the monarchy like no other," her grandson Prince William, who is now the heir to the throne, said in a television documentary in 2012.
Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was born on April 21, 1926 at 17 Bruton Street in central London.
The young princess never expected to ascend to the throne: it was only after her uncle King Edward VIII abdicated in 1936 because of his love for American divorcee Wallis Simpson that the crown passed to her father, George VI, when she was 10.
She was just 25 when her father died and she became Queen Elizabeth II on February 6, 1952, while on tour in Kenya with her husband Prince Philip. Winston Churchill was the first of 15 prime ministers who served during her reign.
"In a way I didn't have an apprenticeship, my father died much too young and so it was all a very sudden kind of taking on, and making the best job you can," she said in a 1992 documentary.
"It's a question of maturing into something that one's got used to doing and accepting the fact that here you are and it's your fate. It is a job for life."
During her 70 years on the throne Britain underwent dramatic change.
The austere postwar 1950s gave way to the swinging 60s, the divisive leadership of Margaret Thatcher in the 80s, Tony Blair's three-term New Labour era, a return to economic austerity and then the COVID-19 pandemic.
Labour and Conservative governments came and went, feminism changed attitudes to women, and Britain became a much more cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic society.
Elizabeth was on the throne for most of the Cold War from the death of Soviet leader Josef Stalin. During her reign there were 14 U.S. presidents, from Harry S. Truman to Joe Biden, and she met all bar Lyndon Johnson.
Britain's vote to leave the European Union in 2016 exposed deep divisions in British society, while nationalists continued their push for a new referendum on Scottish independence that had the potential to rip apart the United Kingdom.
"As we look for new answers in the modern age, I for one prefer the tried and tested recipes, like speaking well of each other and respecting different points of view; coming together to seek out the common ground; and never losing sight of the bigger picture," the queen said ahead of a 2014 referendum on Scottish secession, in what appeared to be a message to politicians. Scots voted to remain in the United Kingdom.
Over time, Britain evolved into a more egalitarian society, where the ruling class had to make way for a burgeoning middle class, where aristocrats no longer dominated the top universities and the majority of hereditary peers lost their seats in parliament's House of Lords.
At first, Elizabeth relied heavily on her father's old circle of advisers but gradually she brought in more career diplomats and business executives to the royal court as she and her husband Philip sought to modernise the monarchy.
"She's shrewd, she's compassionate, she has a good deal of insight, and she has the typical and traditional virtues that you associate with the British," former Prime Minister John Major said amid celebrations to mark her 90th birthday.
"If you were designing someone to be monarch here in Britain, I think you would design someone exactly like Elizabeth II."
In 1992, the queen responded to criticism about royal wealth by offering to pay income tax and cutting the number of her family members on the state payroll.
But her years on the throne were often far from smooth sailing.
She spent much of the early part of her reign saying farewell to the British Empire amassed under her forebears, from Kenya to Hong Kong. Barbados was the most recent country to dispense with her as head of state in November 2021.
However, she remained the monarch of 15 countries and head of the Commonwealth.
Her marriage to Philip, a Greek prince she wed aged 21, stayed solid for 73 years until his death in April 2021, but her sister, daughter and two of her sons were - very publicly - not so lucky in love.
She famously described as an "annus horribilis" the 40th anniversary of her accession in 1992 after three of her four children's marriages failed and there was a fire at her Windsor Castle residence.
The death in 1997 of Princess Diana, the divorced wife of Elizabeth's eldest son Charles, inflicted even more damage on the family's public prestige.
It was the only occasion during her reign when there was any serious suggestion that the monarchy's days might be numbered. The period was famously captured in the 2006 Oscar-winning film "The Queen", when Elizabeth was portrayed as earnest but misunderstood.
But while her children and other royals at times blundered in and out of tabloid headlines with marital woes and public indiscretions, Elizabeth's own behaviour remained above reproach.
"It's not that she's never put a foot wrong, it's more positive than that - she understands the British people," said Professor Vernon Bogdanor, an expert in British constitutional history.
The main criticism levelled against her was that she was too solemn, distant and aloof.
Critics said the only time she had shown real emotion in public was when the royals bid a tearful farewell to their magnificent yacht Britannia, months after her stoical response to Diana's death.
But according to those who worked closely with her, in private she was not the detached public figure most saw, but perceptive, funny, and keenly aware of the nation's mood.
In the last 20 years, backed by a far more professional and sophisticated media operation, there was still pomp and pageantry, but less formality around the queen and her family.
Millions turned out for celebrations to mark her 50th, 60th and 70th years on the throne, while her starring role in a spoof James Bond film became the highlight of the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games.
In the short sequence she greeted Bond actor Daniel Craig at Buckingham Palace, uttering just four words before visual effects showed her apparently joining him on a helicopter and parachuting into the stadium.
A decade later at the start of a Platinum Jubilee pop concert, she again won huge plaudits for a pre-recorded comic sketch with Paddington Bear, in which she told the famous fictional character that she always kept his favourite snack - a marmalade sandwich - in her ever-present handbag.
The queen was said to crack jokes with world leaders, enjoy an easy familiarity with long-serving Commonwealth heads of government, and relish a wager on race horses. Racing was an enduring passion.
She was also accompanied for most of her reign by her corgi dogs, which earned a reputation for snapping at the heels of royal retainers and were descended from the dog called Susan she received as an 18th birthday gift from her parents.
"What we actually know about the queen is remarkably little," said Matthew Dennison, a biographer of Elizabeth.
"We know that she enjoys racing. We know that she likes corgis. We know that she prefers blankets and sheets to duvets. But beyond that, we know almost nothing about her."
During World War Two she learned to be a driver and a mechanic while serving in the women's Auxiliary Territorial Service.
Her love of the outdoors and of animals was well documented and commentators said she came across as more at home in tweeds than tiaras.
"I do rather begrudge some of the hours that I have to do instead of being outdoors," she once said.
Prince William's wife Kate said that behind closed doors, the queen eschewed royal pomp.
"You would expect a lot of grandeur and a lot of fuss... but actually what really resonates with me is her love for simple things, the lack of fuss and I think that's a special quality to have," Kate told a TV documentary to mark Elizabeth's 90th birthday.
Elizabeth became queen in 1952 and was crowned on June 2, 1953 in a televised ceremony in Westminster Abbey, becoming the first queen in her own right since Queen Victoria and the 40th monarch in a royal line that traces its origin back to William the Conqueror in 1066.
"Horrible," she said of the carriage ride which took her from Buckingham Palace to the Abbey. "It's only sprung on leather, not very comfortable."
In September 2015, she overtook Victoria to become the country's longest ever reigning monarch, an achievement to which she said she had never aspired, and the following year there were more celebrations for her 90th birthday.
She ascended the throne at the same age as Elizabeth I, but while the first Elizabeth saw her country attain the status of an important trading nation in the 16th century, her namesake presided over a Britain slipping from its position as a world leader in industry and technology.
As Britain's place shifted, so the queen came to stand for unity, and the pomp around her family - with gilded carriages and spectacular royal weddings - a source of national pride for many.
Prince William's marriage in 2011 to commoner Kate Middleton, which saw more than a million people throng London's streets and drew an estimated two billion global viewers, was testament to that.
Opinion polls showed the country still largely believed in the hereditary monarch as head of state.
However, with her death, the monarchy's future is set to face scrutiny like never before. Some commentators say the British public will not feel as strongly towards Charles, and polls suggest he is far less popular.
The decision of Prince Harry, William's younger brother, and his American wife Meghan, a former actress, to give up their royal roles has also robbed the institution of two of its most popular global figures, while their accusations of racism against the institution linger.
The U.S. sex abuse civil lawsuit against second son Prince Andrew, which he paid to settle, has also inflicted damage on the family's reputation. Andrew did not admit any wrongdoing in the case. He was not accused of criminal wrongdoing.
At her side for nearly all her reign was her husband, who she credited with being her "strength and stay".
"I was blessed that in Prince Philip I had a partner willing to carry out the role of consort and unselfishly make the sacrifices that go with it," she said in February 2022 when she marked 70 years on the throne.
The couple had four children: Charles born in 1948, Anne in 1950, Andrew in 1960 and Edward in 1964.
She had eight grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.
During much of her reign she was often upstaged for attention by three flamboyant women - her popular mother, Elizabeth the Queen Mother, her younger sister Margaret and later Princess Diana.
But the personal sorrow of losing her mother and sister - who died within weeks of each other in her Golden Jubilee year of 2002 - helped the queen establish her own position, leaving her the undisputed matriarchal figure of the nation.
Her working life included thousands of official engagements, varying from trips to schools and hospitals, to the grand ceremonies of state visits and national occasions.
She was famous for wearing brightly coloured outfits with a matching hat on royal engagements, to ensure she stood out from the crowds on her many "walkabouts".
"I have to be seen to be believed," she is said to have quipped.
She also took her religious duties as Supreme Governor of the Church of England very seriously, saying in 2012 the established Church was "commonly under-appreciated".
She travelled further than any previous monarch, undertaking more than 250 overseas visits to well over 100 countries. She was renowned for her stamina and began cutting back on a once hectic timetable of foreign tours only as she moved into her 80s.
Even in her 90s she regularly carried out engagements. On one such event at the age of 93, she told officials she was still capable of planting a tree before shovelling the soil into the hole, and it was another two years after that before she needed to use a walking stick in public.
When she was hospitalised in March 2013 with symptoms of gastroenteritis, it was the first time she had needed hospital treatment in a decade.
It was not until October 2021 that she next spent a night in hospital, and she doggedly carried on with light duties even after testing positive for COVID in February the following year.
Her enduring importance was demonstrated at the start of the pandemic in 2020. With an anxious nation under a rigorous lockdown, the government turned to the queen to provide reassurance in a televised broadcast. Usually she gave such addresses only in her annual Christmas broadcast.
The queen had a few notable security scares. In 1981, a British youth fired blank shots near her during the military Trooping the Colour ceremony. Her horse shied but she was unhurt.
The same year, a "severely disturbed" teenager tried to assassinate the monarch while she was on a visit to New Zealand but he missed with his rifle shot.
In July 1982, an unemployed labourer called Michael Fagan made his way into her Buckingham Palace bedroom. He spoke briefly to Elizabeth, who was in her nightclothes, before being hauled off by security guards.
"It has been said that 'the art of progress is to preserve order amid change and change amid order', and in this the queen is unparalleled," then-Prime Minister David Cameron said in a speech to parliament in 2012.
"She has never shut the door on the future; instead, she has led the way through it."
The queen's family and Britain's political elite spoke in admiration of her ability to adapt without losing any of the dignity of her role.
The future success of the monarchy could depend on how much Britons admire the next person on the throne.
"Monarchy is only as good as the people doing the job," said royal biographer Robert Lacey, who was historical consultant to the Netflix drama "The Crown".
"We are essentially, when you look at the structure and the way the country runs, a republic with this glorious bauble that we all enjoy on top. And we can always unscrew the bauble any time we want."
Elizabeth herself set out her life's goal at an early age.
"I declare before you all," she said in a 21st birthday broadcast, "that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family."
With the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth on Thursday, Prince Charles has finally become king of the United Kingdom and 14 other realms, ending a wait of more than 70 years - the longest by an heir in British history.
The role will be daunting. His late mother was overwhelmingly popular and respected, but she leaves a royal family that has seen reputations tarnished and relationships strained, including over lingering allegations of racism against Buckingham Palace officials.
Charles confronts those challenges at the age of 73, the oldest monarch to take the throne in a lineage that dates back 1,000 years, with his second wife Camilla, who still divides public opinion, by his side.
To detractors, the new king is weak, vain, interfering, and ill-equipped for the role of sovereign.
He has been ridiculed for talking to plants and obsessing over architecture and the environment and will long be associated with his failed first marriage to the late Princess Diana.
Supporters say that is a distortion of the good work he does, that he is simply misunderstood and that in areas such as climate change, he has been ahead of his time.
They argue he is thoughtful and concerned about his fellow Britons from all communities and walks of life. His Prince's Trust charity has helped more than one million unemployed and disadvantaged young people since its launch almost 50 years ago.
"The trouble is you are in a no-win situation. If you do absolutely nothing at all ... they are going to complain about that," Charles once told a TV documentary. "If you try and get stuck in, do something to help, they also complain."
Throughout his life, Charles has been caught between a modernizing monarchy, trying to find its place in a fast-changing and more egalitarian society, while maintaining traditions that give the institution its allure.
That tension can be seen through the lives of his own sons.
The eldest, William, 40, now the heir himself, leads a life of traditional duty, charity work and military pageantry.
Younger son Harry, 37, resides outside Los Angeles with his American ex-actress wife Meghan and family, forging a new career more in keeping with Hollywood than Buckingham Palace.
The brothers, once very close, are now barely on speaking terms.
Groomed from birth to be king one day, Charles Philip Arthur George was born at Buckingham Palace on Nov. 14, 1948, in the 12th year of the reign of his grandfather, King George VI.
Just 3 when he became heir apparent after his mother became queen in 1952, Charles's upbringing was always different from previous future monarchs.
Unlike predecessors educated by private tutors, Charles went to Hill House school in West London before becoming a boarder at Cheam School in Berkshire, which was attended by his father Prince Philip and where he was later head boy.
He was then sent to Gordonstoun, a tough boarding school in Scotland where Philip had also studied. He described his time there as hell: he was lonely and bullied. "A prison sentence," he reportedly said. "Colditz with kilts."
Breaking with tradition again, he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, to study archaeology and physical and social anthropology but later changed to history.
During his studies he was formally crowned Prince of Wales, the title traditionally held by the heir to the throne, at a grand ceremony in 1969, having spent nine weeks at a Welsh university where he said he faced almost daily protests from nationalists.
The following year he became the first British heir to receive a degree.
Like many royals before him, he joined the armed forces, initially with the Royal Air Force in 1971 and later with the Navy, rising through the ranks to command the minesweeper HMS Bronington, before ending active service in 1976.
As a young prince, he cut a dashing, sporty figure who loved skiing, surfing, and scuba diving. He was a keen polo player and also rode as a jockey in a number of competitive races.
In 1979, his great-uncle Lord Mountbatten, who he described as "the grandfather I never had", was killed in an Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombing, a loss that deeply affected him.
"It seemed as if the foundation of all that we held dear in life had been torn apart irreparably," he later said.
On leaving the Navy in 1976 he searched for a role in public life as there was no clear constitutional job for the heir, saying he had to "make it up as you go along".
"That's what makes it so interesting, challenging and of course complicated," he said of his role in a documentary to mark his 70th birthday.
However, for many in Britain and beyond, Charles will always be associated with his doomed marriage to Lady Diana Spencer and his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, the love of his life.
When he and Diana wed in 1981 in front of a global television audience of some 750 million people, his bride seemed the perfect choice.
All initially seemed well, and sons William and Harry were born in 1982 and 1984 respectively. But behind the scenes, the marriage had problems and Diana blamed Camilla for its eventual breakdown in 1992, famously saying in a TV interview: "there were three of us in this marriage".
Charles said he had remained faithful "until it (the marriage) became irretrievably broken down". The couple divorced in 1996.
When Diana was killed in a Paris car crash in 1997 there were vitriolic outpourings in the press against him and Camilla, and his public popularity sank.
In the decades since, his standing has improved, even if he remained less popular than his mother. In 2005 he finally married Camilla, who has emerged into the public spotlight to win greater acceptance and praise for her easy going style.
However, the shadow of Diana remains, and her life continues to enthrall the public. In recent years, she has been the subject of a major film and Broadway musical, while the couple's relationship was at the center of hit Netflix drama "The Crown".
With tabloids poring over his relationships, it is unsurprising that his dealings with the media have often been testy and he has made no secret of his contempt for the paparazzi.
"I'm not very good at being a performing monkey really. I think I am quite a private person. I'm not prepared to just sort of perform whenever they want me to perform," he said in 1994.
At a photo call on a skiing holiday in 2005 he was overheard calling the media "bloody people", and saying of BBC's royal correspondent: "I can't bear that man. He's so awful."
While the media wanted to focus on his private life, Charles wanted to speak out about social and spiritual issues, and has never shied from airing his views on matters close to his heart.
But by actions such as founding the Duchy Originals brand to promote organic food, and saying he talked to his plants and shook hands with trees when he planted them, some media labelled him a crank who would rather be a farmer than a prince.
He has also been criticised for forthright views on architecture, once calling a planned modernist extension to London's National Gallery a "carbuncle", and accused of "quackery" for his advocacy of alternative medicines.
Biographer Tom Bower said the prince was committed to issues such as the environment, but was stubborn and unable to take criticism himself.
"He's a person who is driven, who undoubtedly wants to do good but doesn't understand that the consequences of a lot of his actions cause a lot of trouble," Bower said.
The criticism has eased in recent years with newspapers instead turning their ire on his son Harry, but it has not gone away.
Media reported in June that he had been involved in a spat with the government over its policy on sending asylum seekers to Rwanda - something the prince was said to have called "appalling", leading to criticism from ministers and newspapers.
"If he's not very careful, those disagreeing with his provocative political interventions may also conclude Britain's constitutional monarchy is no longer worth keeping," the Daily Mail said in its editorial.
Supporters say this shows the new king is a serious-minded man with a genuine concern for his people.
To some he has an impossible role - either accused of political interference if he takes an interest in social issues or risking being labeled a pampered, cosseted prince.
"Why do you think I've done all this for all these years?" he said in a 2021 TV interview about climate change. "Because I minded about, and always have done, the next generation."
In his diaries, Chris Mullin, a former left-wing Labour Party lawmaker, recalled a visit to Charles's Clarence House home where the then-prince spoke to assembled politicians about his charities.
"Their range is vast, but always he comes back to the same point: the young, especially the disaffected, the unlucky and even the malign," Mullin wrote. "I confess I am impressed. He could fritter away his life on idleness and self-indulgence."
In the 1970s, with Britain's economy in dire straits, he used his 7,400 pounds Navy severance pay to fund community initiatives. Later, with cities torn by riots and rising unemployment, his Prince's Trust began helping disadvantaged young people start their own businesses.
"I would have been a blinding idiot if I hadn't paid some attention to this sort of thing. I remember thinking I'm sure there's something I can do to help," he said.
Of his greatest campaigning cause - the environment - he can now take solace that global leaders have come round to his demands that they address a climate change crisis.
At the COP26 United Nations conference held in Britain in 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden praised Charles' leadership, telling him that he got "the whole thing going".
Charles' son William said: "He's had a really rough ride on that, and I think he's been proven to being well ahead of the curve."
Away from royal duty or campaigning, Charles is happiest in the garden at his Highgrove home in west England, or, like his late mother, walking and fishing in the wild estates of the royal family's Scottish homes, where he also paints watercolors.
He enjoys hedge laying and has written a children's book, "The Old Man of Lochnagar". He is also passionate about arts, especially the works of Shakespeare, opera and Leonard Cohen.
In private, he is fun with a "wicked sense of humor" but also short-tempered and demanding, aides said. They reject accusations that he insists on luxury, although they say he believes he must put on a regal show when the situation demands.
Some of those close to him say he is kind and hard-working, and friends and foes speak of his devotion to duty, attending to his papers until midnight most days.
"The man never stops. I mean when we were kids there were bags and bags and bags of work that the office just sent to him. We could barely even get to his desk to say goodnight to him." William said in a documentary to mark his father's 70th birthday.
Despite his long wait for the throne, the job is not something he often thought about, his wife Camilla said.
Asked if being king was something he talked about, she replied: "Not very much, no. It's just something that's going to happen."
Those are sentiments Charles himself has expressed.
"Regrettably it comes as a result of the death of your mother, of your parent, which is not so nice to say the least, so it's better not to think too much about it," he said in 2010.
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