Fifty Years the Queen. Arthur Bousfield
Queen. Tuesday was devoted to civic events in both Ottawa and Hull, such as launching the construction of the new Queensway expressway through Ottawa. These events were attended by hundreds of thousands of people on both sides of the provincial border between Ontario and Quebec, which Ottawa and Hull straddle. There was also a surprise gift for the Queen at dinner that evening.
A 350-pound sturgeon had been caught off Nova Scotia—the first in ten years. By ancient law, all sturgeons caught in the waters of the Queen's realms belong to the Sovereign, so the fish was packed in ice and flown to Rideau Hall by the Royal Canadian Air Force, where, that evening, it was presented to Her Majesty.
Wednesday morning there was time for an assembly of 15,000 school children at Lansdowne Park before a departure for the United States. Of the trip to Canada's southern neighbour and other travels around the world, the Queen assured Canadians that her role as Queen of Canada did not arbitrarily end at Canada's border. “When you hear or read about the events in Washington, and other places, I want you to reflect that it is the Queen of Canada and her husband who are concerned in them”, she said.
And the 1957 tour was but the first of many for Elizabeth II as Queen of Canada, in a reign that would see, and continues to see, many changes in Her Majesty's life, her role as Queen, and in the countries over which she reigns. Nor did the Queen's involvement in Canadian life and Canadians involvement in her life begin in 1957, There had been the Coronation, the 1951 tour as Princess and her years of preparation for the Throne. It was a throne which, at her birth, only a few expected would be hers to inherit.
The largest crowd ever seen on Parliament Hill watches as the royal couple depart in the state landau of Canada, escorted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The famous “maple leaf dress” worn by the Queen at the reception in Rideau Hall is now one of the treasures of the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa.
Accompanied by Vincent Massey, and led by one of the Governor-General's dogs, the Queen walks through the leaf-covered grounds of Rideau Hall The Duke of Edinburgh is to the right of the picture.
The Queen, the American President Dwight Eisenhower, Mamie Eisenhower and the Duke of Edinburgh pose at a reception in Washington, The visit to the United States emphasised the ties of friendship between the two North American countries of the Queen and the President, “When you hear or read about the events in Washington and other places, I want you to reflect that it is the Queen of Canada and her husband who are concerned in them”, Her Majesty said before flying to Washington.
Continuing a tradition in the grounds of her Canadian home, Rideau Hall, the Queen plants a tree. She had also planted a tree in 1951 and her father, King George VI had planted one in 1939.
2
“Lilibet”
1926–1936
Queen Elizabeth II was just 31 that mellow autumn day in 1957 when she first occupied her Canadian ThroneTn her High Court of Parliament. Life had begun for her on a drizzly spring day only three decades before. The eventual holder of many titles made her debut in history as simply Her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth of York. The place of her birth was 17 Bruton Street, the London town house of her maternal grandparents, the Earl and Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne; the date Wednesday, 21 April 1926; the time 2:40 a.m.
The Landor portrait of the baby Princess Elizabeth in her mother's arms, painted before Christmas 1926.
Canadians read about the royal birth that day in their evening papers or heard the news by radio if they had one. “Daughter Is Born To Duchess Of York” the front page of the Toronto Globe announced. The Toronto Daily Star, knowing its readers' great interest in royalty, carried a fuller report. The baby's mother it revealed had “always loved children”. The infant's paternal grandmother had spent weeks “selecting baby clothes, buying miniature toilet articles and powder boxes and even with her own hand fashioning delicate coverlets for the baby's crib”. An especially nice touch, the paper felt, were the “numerous sheafs of daffodils from the humbler folk” among the mass of floral gifts to the Duchess from the high born and famous.
Princess Elizabeth's greatest gift at birth was the parents she received. The Duke and Duchess of York were a devoted couple determined to create a happy family life for themselves and their children.
Who was this new Princess and what would be her destiny? Her identity was simple. Princess Elizabeth was the first child of Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of York. Her father the Duke was Prince Albert—‘Bertie’ to his family. He was second son of the world's greatest reigning monarch, King George V, Sovereign of the global British Empire and its self-governing Dominions—namely Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Newfoundland and the Irish Free State—and Emperor of India, who had been on the Throne since 1910. The new Princess was third in line to this splendid and ancient Crown after her uncle the Prince of Wales and her father.
“Nobody thought she would one day become Queen” writes a biographer of Elizabeth II. In fact, accounts of her birth indicate just such a possibility did occur to some at the time. Taking its lead from the United Kingdom papers, the Toronto Daily Star noted “there is a possibility that today's baby may become…sovereign”. In its second report the next day it informed readers that the new Princess would likely be called Elizabeth. “Elizabeth” it said “makes a strong appeal to the popular imagination because of the possibility of the little newcomer some day ascending the throne” and bringing “another Elizabethan era”.
Such predictions were not wild ones. In the past two hundred years the Crown had sometimes failed to go from father to son. When a monarch was childless it had passed to a brother. From George Ill's family it had been transmitted to his fourth son's only child, Queen Victoria. Victoria's eldest son in turn was succeeded, not by his first born son but by his second. The chance that Princess Elizabeth's dashing, popular bachelor uncle the Prince of Wales, Heir to the Throne,—the family knew him as David—might never marry was already in people's minds. “It has become common to assume the continued bachelordom of the Prince of Wales” the Toronto Daily Star hinted portentously.
The idea that the baby Princess Elizabeth might wear the Crown was no solemn prophecy. Even those who thought about it clearly did not anticipate it could be before she reached middle age. Still, the notion remained in the public mind. The next few years would decide. Most assumed the Princess's young parents, the Duke and Duchess of York, would have more children. If they did, one would likely be a son. Sons took their place ahead of daughters in the order of succession, so Princess Elizabeth in that case would go down to fourth spot or lower.
And the subject of all this conjecture? Princess Elizabeth was a healthy baby with a well-shaped head and tiny ears. She had fair hair, a lovely complexion and “large dark lashed blue eyes”. Her grandmother Queen Mary found her “enchanting”. Her birth had been a difficult one by Caesarean section. In the 1920s that was not openly discussed but the media conveyed the fact nonetheless, telling readers that “special gynaecological treatment had to be adopted”. It was a good sign for her future that the Princess made her first impact on the world just by arriving in it. Her birth was twelve days before the British General Strike which threatened to engulf the centre of the Empire in bitter class warfare. Joy over the birth of the Princess relieved the tension and caused a temporary drop in the number of reported subversive incidents.
Elizabeth's father's family was the most famous family in the world—the Royal Family of the Commonwealth of Nations. This picture