During its disappearance, on September 8, the monarch still reigned on 15 states, including Canada and Australia, Jamaica and the Bahamas. And was at the head of the Commonwealth, which brings together 56 countries – including India and South Africa.
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As Elizabeth II was crowned on June 2, 1953, “the Empire on which the sun never sets” is already shaken by the loss, six years earlier, of its jewel, India. However, a winner of the Second World War and charmed by the new queen, Great Britain is still a world power. “The country and the Commonwealth were not far from the kingdom of heaven” on the day of the coronation, assures a few days later with satisfaction the Archbishop of Canterbury.
With its pragmatism, the country then starts the institutional changes and softening which, over the decades and the decolonization process, will allow Elizabeth II to maintain an international dimension.
To keep India, which became a republic in 1950, in the fold of the Crown, the title of the new sovereign is modified. While his father, George VI, was “King of British Dominions from overseas”, Elizabeth II will reign over “his other kingdoms and territories”. The “kingdom”, which designated the entire British Empire, now refers to a series of states, not necessarily “British” and which can be republics.
This arrangement, which breaks with the old principle according to which the queen is the head of the State of all the countries of the Commonwealth, will allow Pakistan to be preserved (which has become a Republic in 1956), South Africa or Mauritius (1992). While his father had been “Emperor of the Indies”, Elizabeth II will be “Cheffe du Commonwealth”, a term long synonymous with empire, but skillfully preserved to designate a set of independent states linked historically and economically in London.
Govern “according to laws and customs”
In 1953, the new monarch reigned on no less than forty-six territories-seven autonomous dominions and thirty-nine colonies and protectorates administered from London by the colonial office. Its solemnly pronounced oath in Westminster cathedral contains a commitment to govern “according to the laws and customs” of each of these “possessions” and each of these “territories” which include Canada, Australia, Pakistan, Ceylon and L ‘South African Union.
Sixty-nine years later, when the queen disappears, the forty-six territories maintained in the crown during her advent are independent, often for a long time, and the planisphere of the Empire constelled with immense pink areas On all continents is ancient history.
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