Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, has died.
For 70 years, the queen was a fixture in the national life of Britain and indeed the wider world. The world changed immeasurably in the decades since she came to the throne in 1952. The country when she first ruled was quite unlike the one she died in. She inherited not merely a country but an empire and presided over its dissolution.
Although her death was expected, as the ritual of its declaration demonstrated, it still leaves the country in a deeply uncertain state — an uncertainty that extends to the 14 other countries in which she was the head of state as well as the wider Commonwealth.
As the crown passes to her son, Charles III, New Lines’ Faisal Al Yafai speaks to Lydia Wilson outside Buckingham Palace and talks to Amie Ferris-Rotman and Kwangu Liwewe about what the passing of such a consequential figure may mean for the world.
Produced by Joshua Martin and Christin El-Kholy