Photo: Royal Collection Trust/Twitter
AfterQueen Elizabethascended to the throne, there was plenty of royal business to attend to – including her first portraits as the monarch.
She posed for photographer Dorothy Wilding twenty days after her father, King George VI, died on Feb. 6, 1952, making her the new Queen. The images, in whichQueen Elizabethposes in regal jewels, were used as the basis for the monarch’s image on stamps from 1953 to 1971 as well as the official portrait of the Queen sent to every British embassy throughout the world.
Known as Accession Day, the Queen normally spends Feb. 6 in quiet, somber reflection at Sandringham House, as it marks the death of her beloved father as much as the day that her public life changed forever. Around the time, she often takes part in a low-key engagement close toher estate in Norfolk.
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Soon after the date passes, she traditionally heads south to London and Windsor Castle for a fuller set of public and behind-closed-doors work, such as audiences with diplomats and meetings with the U.K. Prime Minister.
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“By the sudden death of my dear father I am called to assume the duties and responsibilities of sovereignty,” she said in her speech to the accession council.
“My heart is too full for me to say more to you today than I shall always work as my father did throughout his reign, to advance the happiness and prosperity of my peoples, spread as they are all the world over.”
In June 1953, several months after her father’s death, Elizabeth was crowned at Westminster Abbey.
source: people.com
