The Queen’s life was anchored by Christianity

King Charles III began his first speech as monarch by recalling the pledge made by his mother on her 21st birthday in 1947. Speaking from Cape Town on the occasion of her 21st birthday, Princess Elizabeth declared ‘before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family’. She ended by saying: ‘God help me to make good my vow and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it.’

We know now that the Queen was given a long life during which the world, as it was when she was 21, was transformed. Cape Town is now part of an independent post-apartheid South Africa. The Empire dissolved, to be replaced by a Commonwealth. As the world shifted, the Queen embraced new themes but her commitment to ‘sacrifice and service’ remained constant.

She was also explicit on numerous occasions that her ‘inspiration and anchor’ was Jesus Christ. As she said in her Christmas message for 2014, Christ has been ‘a role model of reconciliation and forgiveness, he stretched out his hands in love, acceptance and healing. Christ’s example has taught me to seek to respect and value all people of whatever faith or none’.

These words reflect a firm personal faith nourished by the experience of prayers and Bible-reading with her mother whose own faith had sustained her during the darkest days of the war and the early death of King George VI. The Queen Mother used to describe her visits to Dean Matthews of St Paul’s and his suggestions for spiritual reading. Some of the books he recommended were adventurous for the time and, looking back, the Queen Mother asked: ‘Does anyone read Mr Middleton Murry now?’

Influenced by her mother, Elizabeth II also shared with her great-great grandmother Queen Victoria a down-to-earth, liberal Christian faith expressed in a disciplined but unfussy style of piety.