One hundred years of Queen Elizabeth II: these were the worst controversies of her long reign

BarcelonaQueen Elizabeth II, who would have turned 100 this week, was in office for so long that everyone has a particular anecdote or image stored in their mind. Both inside and outside the United Kingdom. Some remember her starring in a state visit to their country, others by how she was dressed at the wedding of one of her four children, others inaugurating a new political year in the British Parliament, others enjoying the Ascot horse races, and others simply accompanied by her corgis... And it is that the continuous exposure in the media throughout her life, the particular image of a normal, everyday woman that she projected, and her adherence to all the most Victorian traditions – to which she never gave up –, made her a person who was equally approachable and unattainable. That is to say, someone memorable, one of the greatest assets a monarch can aspire to.

This precise 100% Elizabethan blend, moreover, was maintained throughout the 70 years she headed the British Crown. Seven decades in which she had to captain an institution heavily shaken by the scandals that most of its members were involved in and which, in the first instance, had her as a buffer. This public dissociation between the protagonist of the scandal in question and the one who faced the music was a maxim that was always maintained, except on one occasion, when she herself committed the sin against which society cried out.

Reign by a scandal

During her reign, scandals were so characteristic that there is even one in the genesis of her rise to the throne. It is about the social and political upheaval caused by the infatuation of her uncle, King Edward VIII, who abdicated to be able to marry the American Wallis Simpson, a divorced woman. This was the gateway for Elizabeth II's father – King George VI – to the head of state and, subsequently, for her as heir. That sensational scandal, in fact, also pursued her as queen, since, as her father died soon – he was only fifteen years in office – it was she who had to face the political provocations and economic claims made by her uncle, then Duke of Windsor, from Paris, where he lived in exile.

Her sister was also a great co-star – not to say antagonist...– of her reign. Princess Margaret, who never had moderation as a prominent trait of her personality, fell in love with army officer Peter Townsend. According to the standards of the time, she could not marry him, for reasons including that he was divorced. Despite this, the affair became public, as did Margaret's resistance to complying with the traditions represented in the last – and first...– instance by her beloved sister Elizabeth, who did not allow her to fulfill her romantic dream. After subjugating her life to duty and not marrying Townsend, Margaret ended up marrying photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones, from whom she would eventually divorce after their mutual infidelities became known. That divorce was the first in centuries for a direct member of the royal family, and it was not Margaret's last controversy, famous for her free life on the Caribbean island of Mustique, where she did not hide her relationships with younger men or her legendary parties – which had been going on for a long time and always included few aristocrats and many artists –, something the morals of the time were not prepared to overlook.

The turn of the sons

After the shows of the found relatives came those of their own. And it is that the children of Queen Elizabeth II – who already had two when she came to the throne, at 25 years old – have given her superlative disappointments, both to her and to the institution that keeps them all like a king. The most talked about is the marriage of the firstborn with Diana Spencer, Diana of Wales after marrying. That was a disaster from the beginning. Although people fell in love with that beautiful young woman from the start, all that love that the royal house could have capitalized on ended up turning against her when Lady Di began to defend herself against a monarchy that only wanted her submissive.

In 1992 the situation was so unsustainable that Charles and Diana separated, mainly due to his relationship with Camilla Parker, with whom he had always been in love and with whom they had never stopped seeing each other. That was the culmination of a terrible year, 1992, which the monarch christened in a much-remembered speech with the Latinism annus horribilis. Four years later, to be able to rectify that situation, Elizabeth II publicly recommended her eldest son to divorce. That marked a turning point, as until then the queen had always considered all previous scandals as family matters, and not public affairs of the institution.

Another society

From Diana's hand, the queen experienced, five years after her horrible year one of the lowest moments of her entire reign. After the fatal accident of her grandchildren's mother on the Pont de l'Alma in Paris, the shock over Lady Di's death was global. Despite this, the queen always treated the death as if it were that of someone who was not a member of the royal family, and this outraged the United Kingdom and abroad. The popular fervor for Diana and the mountains of flowers and cards accumulated at the gates of Buckingham left a memorable image of the queen, dressed in black and surrounded by all those demonstrations of popular affection for her ex-daughter-in-law with a bewildered look, typical of someone who was realizing at that very moment that times had changed faster than she had been able to conceive. When shortly after Diana's coffin passed through the palace gates, Elizabeth bowed her head to her: one of the few such bows remembered. The public acknowledgment of a mistake – with the palace flag finally at half-mast and a televised speech of condolences – which turned into a symbolic pathway towards a new era of her reign.

1992 was a horrible year for the monarch, because Windsor Castle burned down, but also because her children were doing what she could never do – despite having had reasons to –: getting divorced. In a single year, her daughter Anne divorced Captain and father of her two children Mark Phillips and married another member of the army, Vice-Admiral Timothy James Laurence. Her favorite son, Andrew, also separated from Sarah Ferguson that year. There had been all sorts of rumors about the marriage. In fact, that same year, shortly after announcing their separation, the British press published images of her with a US businessman in which he appeared licking her toes. A truly horribilis image that must have intrusively haunted the queen's mind until her death. Much like Charles and Camilla's Tampaxgate, leaked in 1993.

A tragic epilogue

The final phase of his reign was also marked by Andrew, of whom it transpired that he was a paedophile and had engaged in shady business dealings with fellow paedophile Jeffrey Epstein when he was in the employ of the British to secure investments for the country. The Queen always backed him and used all her power to protect him. Even paying the majority of the fortune it cost him to avoid the pending paedophilia trial in the USA. That backing has been a delayed scandal for her heir son, Charles, who has had a great deal of trouble removing Andrew from the institution. The case has called into question the democratic ethics of a system that has granted all dignities to someone who, in any other institution, would have been preemptively removed from the outset of the scandal. The trajectory of Andrew of York as a member of the royal family may end up being analyzed by historians as a major error of judgment by the Queen, who was driven more by passion than by duty.

And, to conclude, a scandal of planetary scale that would be typical of the fourth generation, but since Elizabeth II reigned for so many years it occurred within her reign. It is about the abandonment of the active royal family by Prince Henry and his wife, Meghan Markle, who were not content with leaving but, in addition, left claiming all sorts of rights from the monarch and, subsequently, granting paid interviews in the USA to make money at the expense of harming their grandmother's institution. Publicly going against the image of family members is a degree of degradation of the sense of duty that Elizabeth II could never have imagined, and which she had to deal with, at over 90 years old.