In Memory of Queen Elizabeth II
Queen Elizabeth II , 2019 (The White House, Wikimedia Commons)
On 8 September 2022, Queen Elizabeth II passed away at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. It is hard to imagine the United Kingdom without the Queen. Born in 1926, she was proclaimed queen in 1952 and continued to rule for an astonishing seventy years. We admired the Queen for her inspiring ability to carry on, and for her lifelong service to the public. These are qualities also shared by great artists. Queen Elizabeth performed the role destiny had given her with unwavering dedication, determined to take her final bow only with the final curtain.
On Christmas Day 1957, a young Queen Elizabeth II spoke the following words during her first televised Christmas Broadcast: “In the old days the monarch led his soldiers on the battlefield and his leadership at all times was close and personal. Today things are very different. I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something else. I can give you my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.”
The Queen’s love for the outdoors and Scotland were closely connected. But the Queen and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, also loved Scottish country dancing and Scottish music.
Following a tradition established by Queen Victoria, the Queen even had her own piper, the Queen’s Piper, who would play the bagpipes under her window every morning at 9 a.m. The Queen’s Piper will also accompany the Queen’s coffin on its final journey from Balmoral Castle to Windsor Castle.