Queen Elizabeth II passed away at the age of 96. The Buckingham Palace statement said that the Queen died peacefully.
Charles, who has been heir to the throne for 70 years, became the new king. The King and Queen will return to London tomorrow.
The news of the Queen's poor health began to emerge in the morning. Charles and her grandson Prince William were by her side throughout the day.
Close observers of the British mood could sense something was awry when there was no firm updates from the palace. After Keir Starmer was handed a note in the middle of a parliamentary session, he ducked out and came back in a black tie. The guard ceremony was canceled.
Even as they continued to say that the Queen was sick, the anchor and reporters switched to black. They stopped regular programming for the rest of the day to cover the news from Balmoral. There were small crowds outside the gates of both palaces. The skies were gray and raining when they carried their umbrellas.
The condition of the Queen's health made it necessary for her to stay at the castle through the summer. She had no known fatal disease, but the Palace said that she was frail and had mobility issues. She missed the meeting on the advice of her doctors. She gave the British public a new prime minister on September 6th. Since all previous appointments of prime ministers have taken place in Buckingham Palace, it was unusual for Liz to travel to meet the Queen.
When the queen came to the throne in 1952, she became the 15th prime minister. The remnants of Britain's empire fell away during her seven-decade reign, leaving a complex legacy of sins, guilt, and questionable nostalgia. The UK decided to leave the EU because it wanted to be dependent on no other countries. One crisis after another, all seemingly vital to the UK's sense of self: how to handle the economy, how to frame immigration policy, what wars to join, how to endure a Pandemic.
The Queen remained a political figure as her office demanded. She won a high degree of popularity due to her constant public presence. She was mostly unaffected by the scandal surrounding her family. Princess Diana died in a car crash in 1997 and Prince Andrew was accused of sexual assault in 2019.
The Queen was more than just a number. It was the main part of her appeal. In the days to come, it will be said that the Queen was a kind of stability and continuity to the country. The Queen showed that her country was reluctant to come to terms with the change. She was easy to find as a reminder of a once dominant Britain. She was printed on a postage stamp or pound note and all you had to do was look at it.
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