History of Monarchy in Canada - Elizabethan Era

Elizabethan Era

Princess Elizabeth in 1947 married The Duke of Edinburgh in a ceremony that attracted the attention of Canadians hungry for good news after the dark years of the war; the King-in-Council presented the newlyweds with a canoe. The Princess, now also Duchess of Edinburgh, came with her husband to Canada in late 1951, where, amongst other activities throughout the country, she attended her first hockey game at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, and partook in a square dance at Rideau Hall. Elizabeth also crossed into the United States to pay an official visit to President Harry S. Truman, who greeted her as a "Canadian Princess" at the reception she hosted at the Canadian embassy in Washington, D.C. The King's health was by that time failing, and so his daughter and heir to the throne carried with her to Canada a draft accession declaration in case her father died while she was in his Canadian realm.

The King, who had suffered for some time with lung cancer, eventually failed to recover fully from a pneumonectomy and died in his sleep on 6 February 1952, at Sandringham House, while Princess Elizabeth was in Kenya. The monarch's passing was communicated via cable between the late King's Private Secretary, Alan Lascelles, and Thibaudeau Rinfret, who was acting as Administrator between the departure of Governor General the Earl of Tunis and the swearing-in of Tunis' replacement, Vincent Massey, who was in London at the time; the telegram read: "Profoundly regret to state that His Majesty King George the Sixth passed away peacefully in his sleep early this morning." Rinfret immediately issued on the same day a proclamation of the King's death and the accession of Elizabeth II as Canada's queen, making Canada the first place in which this was done; her proclamation of accession for the United Kingdom was not read out until the following day, after which the new monarch met with her British Privy Council for the first time, with Massey in attendance.

Wearing a gown by Norman Hartnell that was, along with the floral emblems of the other countries of the Commonwealth, embroidered with Canada's maple leaf in green silk and gold bullion thread veined with crystal, the Queen was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 2 June 1953, in a ceremony that included, like the Queen's dress, Canadian symbols and participants. The prime ministers and leading citizens of Canada were present in the abbey amongst representatives of other Commonwealth and foreign states, and the ceremony was also, at the Queen's request, broadcast around the world on television; three times as the event carried on, Royal Air Force Canberra jet bombers flew film footage of the coronation to Canada for play on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, making the first ever non-stop flights between the United Kingdom and the Canadian mainland. Guests at the ceremony, television viewers, and radio listeners heard Elizabeth swear a revised Coronation Oath, wherein she reaffirmed her dedication expressed earlier in South Africa and swore to "govern the Peoples of... Canada... according to their respective laws and customs." The separate mention of Canada mirrored the granting of Royal Assent, the day previous, to the Royal Style and Titles Act, which gave Elizabeth a distinctly Canadian title.

During a tour of Canada in 1957, the Queen made her first live appearance on Canadian television, appointed her husband to her Canadian Privy Council at a meeting of which she chaired, and on 14 October opened the first session of the 23rd parliament; some 50,000 people descended on Parliament Hill to witness the arrival of the monarch, though, due to the financial austerity of the times, the pageantry was muted in comparison to what would be seen at a similar event in the United Kingdom. Elizabeth and her husband, accompanied by Canadian prime minister John Diefenbaker, as the Queen's senior minister in attendance, also, on behalf of Canada, paid a state visit to the United States, attending the 350th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, Virginia and meeting with President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the White House.

Elizabeth met the President again two years later, at the official opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. As she made her way through a full tour of Canada, at the end of which she chaired a meeting in Halifax of her Canadian Privy Council and personally appointed Georges Vanier as her representative in Canada, the Queen crossed the border twice to pay a visit to the United States, stopping in Chicago and Washington. Again, Diefenbaker was her chief minister in attendance; the Prime Minister was insistent that it be made clear to Americans that Elizabeth was visiting them as the Canadian monarch and that it was "the Canadian embassy and not the British Embassy officials who are in charge" of the Queen's itinerary. In this vein, the Queen's speeches in Chicago, written by her Canadian ministers, stressed steadily the fact that she had come to call as Queen of Canada, and she hosted the return dinner for Eisenhower at the Canadian Embassy in Washington. Her Majesty also did her part to assist in entrenching the newly emerging Canadian character, ensuring that the Red Ensign (then Canada's national flag) be flown on the Royal Yacht, and she stood to attention for the duration of each playing of "O Canada", the country's then still unofficial national anthem, sometimes even joining in the singing.

What was unknown to all besides Elizabeth herself, including Diefenbaker until he was confided in at Kingston, Ontario, was that the Queen was at the time pregnant with her third child. Though her Prime Minister urged her to cut the tour short, Elizabeth swore him to secrecy and continued the journey, leaving the public announcement of the upcoming birth until she returned to London.