Elizabeth II is the Queen of Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Guyana, South Africa and the West Indies, a role she inherited upon the death of her father King George VI, whilst occupying the unusual role of being the semi-internationally recognised claimant to the throne of the United Kingdom in exile, presently held by her Uncle Edward VIII, as the King of the United Kingdom in the German vassal state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the title being disputed by various powers within the OFN, the Einheitspakt and without.
Marriages[]
Elizabeth met her future husband, Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, in 1934 and again in 1937. They were second cousins once removed through King Christian IX of Denmark and third cousins through Queen Victoria. After meeting for the third time at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth in July 1939, Elizabeth—though only 13 years old—said she fell in love with Philip, who was 18, and they began to exchange letters. She was 21 when their engagement was officially announced on 9 July 1947.
The engagement attracted some controversy. Philip had no financial standing, was foreign-born (though a British subject who had served in the Royal Navy throughout the Second World War), and had sisters who had married German noblemen with Nazi links which was bad as it would have resulted in Elizabeth being marked a traitor to the UK and a sympathizer of the Nazi regime. Marion Crawford wrote, "Some of the King's advisors did not think him good enough for her. He was a prince without a home or kingdom. Some of the papers played long and loud tunes on the string of Philip's foreign origin." Later biographies reported that Elizabeth's mother had reservations about the union initially and teased Philip as "the Hun". In later life, however, she told the biographer Tim Heald that Philip was "an English gentleman".
Before the marriage, Philip renounced his Greek and Danish titles, officially converted from Greek Orthodoxy to Anglicanism, and adopted the style Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, taking the surname of his mother's British family. However this was not enough to appease the British government and the British populace, worst of all Philip was branded a traitor by the Nazis for marrying the heir apparent of an "enemy regime".
Elizabeth and Philip were married on 20 November 1947, but none of Philip's German relatives were allowed to attend as the government in Canada had no desire for any of them to be branded traitors of the victorious Nazi regime. The couple had three children.
- Charles, Prince of Wales (born 14 November 1948)
- Anne, Princess Royal (born 15 August 1950)
- Andrew, Duke of York (born 19 February 1960)