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it's a tad complicated Squiggle 

 

 

When will Queen Elizabeth II have reigned longer as British monarch than QueenVictoria?
The celebration marking the 60
th
 anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II inWestminster Abbey last week (June 4, 2013) made me wonder when exactly she will becomethe longest serving British monarch, overtaking the record presently held by Queen Victoria(can you tell I am a Victorianist). There are a few factors to be decided upon in making this judgement.Official Start TimeThe official beginning of the reign of a British monarch is the moment of the death of the previous monarch (as long as clear succession is obvious and accepted). For every Britishmonarchical changeover of the last two centuries, therefore, there have been two monarchson a single day
 â€“ 
 such as on June 20, 1837 when first William IV was king, died, andimmediately passed the monarchy to Victoria who became Queen. The date is not taken fromthe ceremonial coronation of the monarch, which generally occurs quite some time later.Victoria, for example, was crowned at her coronation on June 28, 1838, just over a year after
she became queen. Likewise, Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation took place almost 16 months
after she had become queen.
Queen Victoria’s reign
 Victoria became queen, then, on June 20, 1837 and died as monarch on January 22, 1901.Taking first the full years, Victoria reigned for 63 full calendar years. She then also reigned
for a further 217 days, from June 20, 1900 until January 22, 1901 inclusive. Victoria’s length
of reign is therefore 63 years and 217 days.
Queen Elizabeth II’s reign
 Elizabeth II became queen on the death of her father George VI on February 6, 1952. Hercoronation took place on June 2, 1953. Elizabeth will have reigned for 63 calendar years (thesame as Victoria) on February 5, 2015. A further 217 days will see Elizabeth II match the
length of Queen Victoria’s reign. This will occur on
10 September, 2015. Therefore, it wouldseem to be on 11 September, 2015 that Queen Elizabeth II will become the longest servingBritish monarch (if she lives without abdicating until that date).However, there is one problem: leap years. Leap years were introduced with the Gregoriancalendar in the sixteenth century (but had been used before this). The last leap year was 2012;during the reign of Elizabeth II there have been 16 leap years (2012, 2008, 2004, 2000, 1996,1992, 1988, 1984, 1980, 1976, 1972, 1968, 1964, 1960, 1956, and 1952).
Victoria’s reign included 15 leap years – 
 not including 1900 which was not a leap year as the beginning of centuries are only leap years if their numerical value is divisible by 400 (2000was a leap year, but there will not be another until 2400
). The leap years during Victoria’s
reign were therefore 1896, 1892, 1888, 1884, 1880, 1876, 1872, 1868, 1864, 1860, 1856,1852, 1848, 1844, and 1840. To be particular, therefore, Elizabeth II has recorded one moreday (we might say specifically that this was February 29, 2000) than Victoria.We should therefore date her reign as longer on
September 10, 2015
.Until recently (that is until November 2014) there was little consensus or official rule on thequestion of the date at which the reign of Elizabeth II will become the longest in B
Dame_Ann_Average
Originally Posted by Dame_Ann_Average:
Originally Posted by Enthusiastic Contrafibularities:
Originally Posted by squiggle:

Do you know what date the record wil be broken EC?

 

I've not read all of Dame's post, but it looks like it has a lot of info in it. 

 

 

Copied and pasted EC  I think the official date is indeed September 10th 2015..

 

I'm sure there will be a lot of publicity as it approaches. I've been keeping an occasional eye on the date for a while. 

 

Thanks for the date 

 

Enthusiastic Contrafibularities
Last edited by Enthusiastic Contrafibularities
Originally Posted by pirate1111:

shes a good old chick our Queen is

Although I;m not against the idea of monarchy (it gives us a sense of identity and is a rich heritage) I'm not a fan of the current crop.

Our Queen has presided over a reckless family and failed to keep them under any sort of control.

They keep some very questionable friendships and are very, very lucky not to have single-handedly brought the British Monarchy to its knees re. The Diana debacle.

Saint
Originally Posted by Saint:
 

Although I;m not against the idea of monarchy (it gives us a sense of identity and is a rich heritage) I'm not a fan of the current crop.

Our Queen has presided over a reckless family and failed to keep them under any sort of control.

They keep some very questionable friendships and are very, very lucky not to have single-handedly brought the British Monarchy to its knees re. The Diana debacle.

 

 

I sort of agree with you there Renton me old chum..it's gone from being a duty to I'm alright jack 

Dame_Ann_Average

My main concern with Elizabeth II is her failure to modernise.

She seems to hold onto the 'old way' the monarchy handle things ... by declining to comment and letting things just happen... in the hope that blind respect will pull things into line. But times have changed.

As such she's failed to take control of her country and lessened her families real influence bringing it perilously close to collapse.

Her own family haven't helped to say the least.

 

Saint
Originally Posted by Enthusiastic Contrafibularities:

 

I'm expecting the full BBC Royal coverage machine to crank up in the coming weeks. This is an opportunity they are unlikely to miss.

 

Most of the media will be whipping themselves into a frenzy.  My newspaper usually limits this type of story to one column inch on an inside page

Madame Arcati
Last edited by Madame Arcati

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