Our Queen Elizabeth: Her Extraordinary Life from the Crown to the Corgis

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In March 2019, she gave up driving on public roads, largely as a consequence of a car crash involving her husband two months earlier. As of 2021 she remained the third most admired woman in the world according to the annual Gallup poll, her 52 appearances on the list meaning she had been in the top ten more than any other woman in the poll's history.

Elizabeth asked them to wait for a year; in the words of her private secretary, "the Queen was naturally sympathetic towards the Princess, but I think she thought—she hoped—given time, the affair would peter out. On 7March, Elizabeth met Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau at Windsor Castle, in her first in-person engagement since her COVID diagnosis. She stated: "We are trying to do all we can to help our gallant sailors, soldiers, and airmen, and we are trying, too, to bear our own share of the danger and sadness of war. Newspaper editor Donald Trelford wrote in The Observer of 21September 1986: "The royal soap opera has now reached such a pitch of public interest that the boundary between fact and fiction has been lost sight of. Only floral tributes are being accepted - no other items such as candles, soft toys or photographs should be brought, the council said.Because of her age and the need for her to limit travelling, in 2013 she chose not to attend the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting for the first time in 40 years.

Under pressure from public opinion, she began to pay income tax for the first time, and Buckingham Palace was opened to the public. Many people held their phones aloft to try to catch a glimpse of them as they greeted members of the crowd and look at the tributes left for the Queen as the sun shone. The number of her realms varied over time as territories gained independence and some realms became republics.On 13June, she became the second-longest reigning monarch in history among those whose exact dates of reign are known, with 70 years, 127 days reigned—surpassing King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand.