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She was queen during the first moon landing.
She was already a grandmother when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated.
She was born a decade before the invention of the chocolate-chip cookie.
She was the first celebrity ruler in the age of modern media.
She may well have hated it.
Fictionalized representations of her have speculated on Elizabeths private feelings about the media.
Both of these Elizabeths are conjectural.
We remember the silhouette on the stamps, the never fully happy smile, the pristine wardrobe.
She was the ribbon-cutter.
(Is there any more eerily innocuous, oddly empty defining trait than to be a dog lover?)
But certainly not human.
From the broadcast of Elizabeths coronation at Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953.
Princess Elizabeth greets Winston Churchill at Guildhall on March 23, 1950.
With Charles and Anne at Balmoral in 1952.
On a state visit to Ghana, dancing with Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah in 1961.
With Prince Phillip during an interview for the SundayTimesof London in 1966.
Elizabeth had little in the way of actual power.
The terrible moments, most notably her infamousannus horribilis, are times of personal, familial calamity.
What else could you do if your entire personal life became the sole constituent element of a monarchal rule?
What, were you going to deposethe queen?
Who would she be, if not the queen?
What would Britain be?
Meeting President Nyrere of Tanzania in Buckingham Palace during the filming of the 1969 BBC documentaryRoyal Family.
At Aberdeen Airport with the corgis, beginning her holiday at Balmoral in 1974.
With princes William and Harry in the royal box at Guards Polo Club, June 14, 1987.
Addressing the nation the night before Princess Dianas funeral in 1997.
Touring the Royal Albert Hall after its rebuilding, March 30, 2004.
At the Drapers Livery Hall in London in 2014.
What will it be now?
For better and for worse, this is the challenge Charles inherits.
And he will be free of many of the trials his mother had to endure.
Charless reign will be far shorter than his mothers.
He seems to be, if anything, even less comfortable as a public figure than his mother was.
Hes not even known as a dog lover.
But thats really all she gave us.
In either case, she was irrevocably, unmistakably, and perpetually, the queen.
