Britain to mark Queen Elizabeth II's record 65-year reign | iNFOnews.ca
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Duke of Edinburgh, centre, arrive at St Peter and St Paul at West Newton, England, Sunday Feb. 5, 2017. The Queen is to make history on Monday Feb. 6, when she becomes the first British monarch to reach the Sapphire Jubilee, marking the 65th. anniversary of her accession to the throne. (Gareth Fuller/PA via AP)

Britain to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s record 65-year reign

LONDON – Queen Elizabeth II is poised for another historic milestone, an unprecedented 65 years on the throne.

But Buckingham Palace says Britain’s longest-serving monarch plans to spend Monday’s ceremonies far from the spotlight in sombre contemplation of her late father.

Official commemorations of Elizabeth’s Sapphire Jubilee are expected to feature ceremonial cannon fusillades at a central London park and at the riverside Tower of London as well as a procession of military horses pulling World War I-era artillery pieces.

But the 90-year-old monarch is staying 110 miles (175 kilometres) to the north at her Sandringham House estate in Norfolk, where her father, George VI, died of lung cancer at age 56 on Feb. 6, 1952, after a 15-year reign.

Elizabeth surpassed Queen Victoria as Britain’s longest-serving monarch in 2015.

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