At the present time, the queen is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
The Queen is the head of state of the United Kingdom, and also 15 other parts of the Commonwealth.
Queen Elizabeth is the eldest daughter of King George the VI and Queen Elizabeth; she was born in 1926 (which makes her around 81 years old right now).
Elizabeth was crowned queen at the age of 25 and is the country's 40th monarch since William I (William the Conqueror) and is also the great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria (one of the greatest and longest serving rulers of all time)
During her five decade long rule, Elizabeth has seen ten prime ministers and a lot of change and reform in her country.
Elizabeth was educated at home with her younger sister Margaret (who died of a stroke at the age of 71 in 2002). She began to study more intensively and seriously when her father was made King and she knew that she would become the next monarch. She studied politics and history, religion with the Archbishop of Canterbury and French with different native speakers from both France and Belgium.
Queen Elizabeth is married to Prince Philip (the ceremony took place on the 20th November 1947 - they have been together for 60 years!) who is the Duke of Edinburgh, and has four children (Charles
Prince of Wales], Anne
Princess Royal], Prince Andrew and Prince Edward) and seven grandchildren (Peter and Zara Philips, Princes William and Henry (we call him Harry) of Wales, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie of York, and Lady Louise of Winsdor). The Queen has given a lot of praise and credit to the members of her family for the support they have given her over the years.
The most well known interest and hobby of the Queen is horses. Her racehorses have won big races on a number of occasions and she enjoyed riding herself. Every year the Queen attends the derby at Epsom (in Surrey) and the Royal Ascot race, a highly prestigious event. The Queen's stables are very well known.
The Queen's other interests include her dogs - the corgi breed is closely associated with the royal family. Elizabeth also keeps and works with Labradors. A lesser known interest of the queen is Scottish dancing.
The Queen holds an interesting role. Although she is, indeed, the queen, the country is mainly run by the parliament and its prime minister (that's why this system is called a 'constitutional monarchy'). Two of the main duties of the Queen is to be actively present at the State opening of Parliament ('to open' the Parliament) and to have a weekly audience with the PM (Prime Minister. This is Gordon Brown at the present time.). The Queen has always had a lot of care and concern for her people, right from the beginning of her rule (she set out on a tour of all of the UK and other member states of the Commonwealth). Even though the Queen is quite an old lady now, she still does her duties.
The Queen's first visit to the Czech Republic was in 1996.
Kat is a bilingual speaker of English and Russian studying Czech and Russian
at the University of Bristol in England, currently on her year abroad in the
Czech Republic. If you live in that area and would like private lessons in
either or both of the aforementioned languages, please do not hesistate to
contact Kat. She is nice. She might even give you cookies.
Help for English
