By A.N WILSON
Next month, she will become Britain's oldest monarch. But in this provocative essay a historian argues that while her reign has seen more social advances than even Victoria's, it is also the age in which Britain stopped being British
As an historic milestone, it will merit little fanfare.
Yet it is an astonishing truth that in a few weeks' time, Her Majesty the Queen will have outlived even her most illustrious regal forebear, Queen Victoria, making her the oldest monarch in our nation's history.
In fact, it will be on December 22 that Queen Elizabeth II passes the age at which Queen Victoria died on January 22, 1901, aged 81 years, seven months, four weeks and one day.
True, Victoria is still - thus far - our longest-reigning monarch. (She came to the throne younger and reigned for more than 63 years, whereas our Queen has not yet managed 56 years.)
But already, the reign of Elizabeth II has encompassed so much change and has witnessed so many remarkable achievements that it makes her seem almost a time-traveller, spanning not just six decades, but whole centuries.
The Britain of the early Fifties is so utterly different from Britain in 2007 that it is bizarre to think that we have the same head of state as we did when rationing was still in force and Churchill was Prime Minister.
But has this Queen's reign, like that of Victoria, been a time of British success, or of failure?
Will this, the second Elizabethan era, compare favourably with that of her great-great-grandmother?
Read the rest here.Hat tip to Bill (aka The Godfather)
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