Elizabeth II’s 70 Years as Head of the Church of England

While Defender of the Faith has been, over the years, an inherited title and little more, Elizabeth II embraced it and made it her own.

By Catherin Pepinster

If you want to understand a nation, listen to its national anthem. “The Star-Spangled Banner” urges Americans to look out for the flag that waves over “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” “La Marseillaise,” the anthem of republican France, calls its citizens to arms. But the UK’s national anthem is a prayer, urging God to “save” — grant long life to — the queen.

It’s a clear sign that in Britain, the head of state, the country and faith are inextricably linked. This week “God Save the Queen” has been ringing out across Britain as the country has marked the 70th anniversary of the accession of Elizabeth II, the longest-serving English monarch.

When Elizabeth came to the throne in 1952, Britain was still being rebuilt after the end of World War II and its heavy bombing campaigns; Winston Churchill was prime minister and the country still had an empire. The young queen’s coronation suggested a new era — as the millions of television sets purchased to watch the live broadcast of the ceremony from London’s Westminster Abbey signaled. Read More

The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place on June 2, 1953, nine days before my fifth birthday. My family did not own a TV so we were unable to watch the coronation on the tellie like many other Britains. My grandparents lived during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth's grandfather and father and the abdication of her uncle, as well as during her reign. They survived two world wars. While my grandparents, my mother, and my older brother and I immigrated to the United States five years after Queen Elizabeth was crowned, my grandfather never gave up his British citizenship and remained a loyal subject of the queen until his death. He was buried with a small Union Jack as he had requested.