How much longer?

It is now 60 years and one day since the Queen ascended the throne. She is already the most elderly monarch in British history but despite having exceeded George III sometime last summer (because although the last English king to claim to be King of France reigned between 1760 and 1820, he took the crown in October and died in January – deranged for the last eight years of his life, it would have been personally and politically uncomfortable for the Prince Regent to have organised a diamond jubilee), she has still four years to go to beat Queen Victoria. Given that Elizabeth II has overseen a contraction of the British Empire even more drastic than expansion in Victoria’s time, she may choose to ‘retire’ before she exceeds her great-great-grandmother, in much the same way as Manchu dynast Qianlong (11th October 1735 – 8th February 1796) did to avoid bettering his illustrious ancestor Emperor Kangxi (7th February 1661 – 20th December 1722) in terms of length of reign, even though China reached its greatest ever extent under Qianlong.


Amongst her contemporaries, Elizabeth is not unique. Bhumibol Adulyadej (AKA Rama IX), King of Thailand, has overseen what once was known as Siam since 1946. Indeed, if she is to beat records for monarchs, she is still in the junior league. Rameses II, the New Kingdom Pharaoh and the Ozymandias of Shelly’s poem, racked up many achievements between 1279 BC and 1213 BC, to earn the sobriquet ‘The Great’. Austrian (then Austro-Hungarian) Emperor Franz Josef straddles the nineteenth and twentieth centuries more than Victoria, taking up the cudgels of control in 1848 and, having guided his Habsburg realm to ever greater decrepitude, popped off in 1916, having played a key part in dragging his dominion into a war that would destroy the multi-ethnic entity. Louis XIV, the Sun King, allegedly born with a full set of teeth, certainly chewed up much of Europe over the 72 years the Bourbon was the sovereign of France, between 1643 and 1715, maintaining French integrity but running up ruinous debts that hobbled his successors. Yet our Liz will have to beat records for human longevity, let alone the span of her years as head of state if she is to be the all-time ruling champ. According to the most credible sources, Pharaoh Pepi II of Old Kingdom Egypt was the ultimate authority for the Nile region (in various states of collapse, maybe appropriate for Elizabeth II) for 96 years. Then again, after he shuffled off the mortal coil, there was no Egypt anymore as he had been the last thread of continuity and the civilisation entered the First Intermediate Period. Taking into account the last three, maybe long reigns aren’t always to be celebrated.