Queen Elizabeth II is marking her 96th birthday privately on Thursday, retreating to the Sandringham estate in eastern England that has offered the monarch and her late husband, Prince Philip, a refuge from the affairs of state.
Elizabeth is expected to spend the day at the estate’s Wood Farm cottage, a personal sanctuary where she also spent her first Christmas since Philip’s death in April 2021, Philip loved the cottage, in part because it is close to the sea, she said in February when hosting a rare public event at Sandringham.
“I think the queen’s approach to birthdays very much embodies her keep calm and carry on attitude,” said Emily Nash, the royal editor at HELLO! magazine. ”She doesn’t like a fuss.”
This birthday comes during the queen’s platinum jubilee year, marking her 70 years on the throne. While Thursday will be low-key, public celebrations will take place June 2-5, when four days of jubilee festivities have been scheduled to coincide with the monarch’s official birthday.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge wished the Queen happy birthday on Twitter, calling the monarch an “inspiration to so many across the UK, the Commonwealth and the world”, and sharing a photo of the Queen and Prince Philip with seven of their great-grandchildren.
The queen got an early birthday treat last week, when grandson Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, paid her a joint visit for the first time since they stepped away from frontline royal duties and moved to California in 2020.
Harry, in an interview said his grandmother was “on great form,” though he added that he wanted to make sure she was “protected” and had “the right people around her.”
Prince Harry suggested in a US TV interview that the Queen might be downplaying this latest milestone, saying that “after a certain age you get bored of birthdays”.
But she will be spending time at Wood Farm, a cottage described as “small and intimate” by former housekeeper Teresa Thompson, and a place with strong associations with Prince Philip, who died a little over a year ago.
The Queen was in Sandringham earlier this year when she marked her accession to the throne in 1952.
She was born in 1926, not in a royal residence, but in a London townhouse on Bruton Street, where she first lived with her father and mother, who became King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.
BBC