Queen Elizabeth I

On the morning after the Queen died, the pavement of Constitution Hill, the road that leads from Hyde Park Corner to Buckingham Palace, was smeared with sodden ...

In a short while, it was reported that members of the Royal Family were making their way to be at her bedside, with television cameras trained upon the misty runway of Aberdeen airport. After a long, arid summer in Britain, during which the green expanses of London’s Royal Parks became bleached and desiccated, the first week of September brought a sudden change in the season, with the onset of heavy downpours by day, and nights rent by thunderstorms. All the previous afternoon it had been clear what was coming, as soon as a BBC news presenter appeared onscreen shortly after lunchtime with the news that doctors tending to the Queen at Balmoral Castle, her summer home in Scotland, were concerned for her condition.