AN ANECDOTE about a 10-year-old Princess Elizabeth finding out she would be monarch one day has often done the rounds.
Her uncle, King Edward VIII, had just abdicated the throne after less than a year to marry American divorcée Wallis Simpson and her younger sister, Princess Margaret, had a question.
“Does this mean you will have to be the next queen?” she asked her sister.
“Yes, someday,” Elizabeth replied.
“Poor you,” Margaret said.
For young Margaret, the thought of having a future role mapped out with all the duty and restrictions it would entail may have seemed like a fate worse than death. But Elizabeth would embrace her destiny with stoicism and resolve and go onto become one of the greatest monarchs the world has ever seen.
Learning she would rule at such a young age made her more compassionate too – not so much towards her direct heir, her son Charles, during whose
