Virginia was her most visited state.
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View of Buckingham Palace and the Mall during the Queens 90th Birthday Celebrations. Her Majesty’s official 90th Birthday celebrations ended with an impressive display of 15 different types of aircraft, five of which are being provided by squadrons celebrating their own 100th birthday. Starting at 1pm, eight ‘elements’ consisting of between two and nine aircraft each, passed over 30 seconds apart from one another and included helicopters, fast jets, World War II aircraft, the Voyager, a C-17 transporter and the Red Arrows.
Though her passing this September brings a sad end to a great and grand era, it’s fascinating to remember the connections Virginia made with this monarch. And our longstanding fascination with the British Monarchy has been especially feverish this year as Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Platinum Jubilee, marking her 70 years on the throne.
Ellen LeCompte, a Richmond native, Anglophile, and British Isles expert, isn’t surprised. “Even though we’re a democracy,” she notes, “we’re glued to our TVs with news of royal births, visits, and coronations.” LeCompte channeled her passion for all things British into a revised edition of The Queen and the U.S.A., collaborating with Jacques Moore, H. Edward Mann, Wayne Dementi, as well as Lord Allan Watson—who wrote the first edition honoring the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012.
The book deftly documents the royals’ relationship with Virginia—from Colonial times to today. “The Queen has visited Virginia three times, more than any other state,” says LeCompte. And in June, the book was presented to guests at two Jubilee garden parties at the British Embassy in D.C.
“Because the family is royal, they’ve been thoroughly cataloged. And the interplay with the historical and the personal is what draws people in,” LeCompte adds.
HRH Elizabeth II, whose given name is Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, is the United Kingdom’s longest-reigning monarch. The book highlights her visits to Jamestown in 1957 and 2007 and Charlottesville in 1976 and explores the relationship between the Crown and Virginia’s American Indians.
This article originally appeared in the August 2022 issue.
