Historians have criticised Queen Elizabeth’s 70-year reign, calling her “reluctant to innovate.”
Queen Elizabeth is commemorating her 70th year on the throne of the United Kingdom this year, with Platinum Jubilee celebrations beginning this weekend, but a royal historian has said that her reign was “cautious” and “reluctant” to change.
While the 96-year-old monarch has served the British well for the last seven decades, historian Ed Owens told Express UK that Elizabeth has also proven to be ‘backward seeing.’
“Let us look at it from the Queen’s perspective: we know she is very cautious when it comes to innovation, when it comes to change for the sake of change,” he remarked.
“The Queen has been more backward-looking in that she has tried to connect any change with a sense of continuity and history,” Owens continued. And I believe she didn’t have a fully formed vision of what monarchy should be when she ascended to the throne at such a young age.”
“If anything, the image of monarchy that she had in her mind when she arrived to the throne was very much the idea of monarchy that her father had struggled to build,” Owens said, pointing out that she was just 25 when she ascended the throne after her father’s death.
“That, in turn, was the sort of monarchy that George V had built,” he continued, “because we have to remember that George VI had come to the kingdom somewhat grudgingly and unexpectedly… It’s the same of going into a house and refusing to change any of the furniture because you don’t want to relocate it.”