On September 9, Elizabeth II will become our longest-serving monarch. How should we celebrate, asks royal biographer Matthew Dennison
Don't expect a commemorative stamp. Forget gilded carriages, a Red Arrows fly-past, or a salute of guns in Hyde Park or at the Tower of London; there'll be no concert or picnic or fireworks display to disturb the peace of Buckingham Palace gardens. Instead, according to royal aides, Wednesday, September9, 2015 will be "business as usual". As far as the Palace is concerned, this is not a day for celebration.
Yet September 9 represents an extraordinary milestone in British history. It is the day on which Elizabeth II becomes the longest-reigning monarch, a record held for more than a century by her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria. It will cast in a new light the British national anthem's prayer about a Queen "long to reign over us".
Victoria's reign of 23,226 days, 16 hours and 23 minutes - 63 years and seven months - defined an era and a people. No one was more "Victorian" than the public Victoria, with her sincere do-goodery, lugubrious piety, conspicuous wifely devotion and imperial bombast. (Admittedly, the private woman could be altogether more kittenishly charming or scabrously Hanoverian, depending on her mood.) In the eyes of her contemporaries, Victoria was the symbol of the age, sturdy as a steam engine and as solidly built as any of Eugenius Birch's cast-iron seaside piers. Her longevity was interpreted as proof that theirs was, as she herself described it, "an epoch of progress".
Victoria set her record on September 23, 1896. "Today is the day I have reigned longer, by a day, than any English sovereign," she recorded in her journal. The sovereign she had in mind was her grandfather, George III. By then, Victoria was regarded by the majority of her subjects with something close to idolatry. A newspaper announced that there was only "One Being more majestic than she": God himself. Everything from printed handkerchiefs to china plates bore the legend "the longest reign in history".
The attitude of her subjects was not one Victoria encouraged. In 1896 she insisted she wanted no sort of demonstration ahead of her Diamond Jubilee.
Like her great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth II has requested there be no celebrations on September 9. Her attitude is shaped by respect for her formidable predecessor. The Queen is said to hope that, if the event is marked at all, it is done so reverently, with no spirit of triumphalism and no suggestion that what is being celebrated is Victoria's death. Instead, palace officials are at work on the programme for the Queen's 90th birthday, next April. And so there is a dilemma. To become the longest reigning of the 41 kings and queens of England since the Norman Conquest is unquestionably an historic achievement, even if the achievement itself ultimately comes down to survival. It is also the case that a reluctance to crow is part of Elizabeth II's make-up.
She will spend the day at Balmoral, the castle of glittering Aberdeenshire granite built for Queen Victoria by Prince Albert, just as Victoria did on the day she passed George III's record. The Queen's hope is for a "quiet" day, although this may well include an engagement in the vicinity.
Last year a suggestion by Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, that the Queen relay a video message from Balmoral to crowds outside Parliament was vetoed on the grounds that it lacked dignity. Buckingham Palace has indicated the possibility of a photocall. Only in the event of "a spontaneous national clamour" for something more significant, Palace aides offer, will there be a change to the deliberately low-key plans.
After a lifetime of devoted public service and approaching her 89th birthday, the Queen deserves to have her wishes taken into account. A proper national celebration need not require her presence.
Image 1 of 3: Queen Elizabeth visits the throne room at the set of the Game of Thrones. Photo / AP
When George III celebrated his Golden Jubilee on October 25, 1809, the ageing monarch was already incapacitated by illness. While the Lord Mayor and Corporation of London processed in thanksgiving to St Paul's Cathedral, past crowds singing Rule, Britannia and God Save The King, George remained in seclusion at Windsor Castle and attended a private service in St George's Chapel. Afterwards, accompanied by his wife Charlotte, he visited a fete at nearby Frogmore. George was witnessed by few of his subjects, who preferred to arrange their own celebrations. Their junketings included throwing cakes from the roof of the Market House in Abingdon and freeing Danish prisoners of war in Reading. One contemporary described them as proof of a "spontaneous effusion of love".
By the end of the 19th century, the more sensitive among Victoria's subjects recognised the limitations imposed by her age. One wellwisher suggested Victoria absent herself from her Diamond Jubilee procession and be replaced in the carriage by a puppet. On September 9, there will be no carriage processions, nor puppets. But few people would deny that Queen Elizabeth has merited a "spontaneous effusion of love". How best to express that effusion is a decision to be taken by communities across Britain.
The majority of Victorians did not question Victoria's greatness. One particularly florid commemorative mug labelled an unsmiling and heavily pixilated image of Victoria, complete with Bible and laurel wreath, "The Centre of a World's Desire". Also on the mug were "Notable Achievements in Peace and War", including "Railways 1837", "Afghan War 1839" and "Imperial Institute 1897".
For modern Elizabethans, the achievements of the past 63 years are more equivocal. The national record does not inspire tub-thumping. Crown and country have undergone retrenchment. And yet the Queen is the most respected figure in public life, acclaimed by world leaders, admired across the globe. She remains the global poster girl for public service, unstinting in her devotion to duty - as one historian described her, "Elizabeth the Good, Elizabeth the Dutiful".
In 2002, Hello! magazine captioned a photograph in its Golden Jubilee coverage: "More than a million people throng the Mall to show the Queen how much she is loved."
As a teenager anticipating her destiny, the future Queen Victoria studied the reign of Elizabeth I. "Elizabeth was a great Queen but a bad woman," she pontificated. The achievement of the second Elizabeth has been to unite royal greatness with every indication of personal goodness. It is an achievement worth marking.
• Matthew Dennison is author of Queen Victoria: A Life of Contradictions.
