She was already immensely wealthy. If he uncle had married someone acceptable and had kids, she would have had an insanely privileged life traveling the world and enjoying her horses and dogs without any stress or work.
It could be quite sharp, even the bits that emerged from various documentaries. From the very first “behind the scenes” film (where she entertained the family by describing having a formal audience with an unnamed ambassador with the longest arms ever) to the one where in some reception,
former PM Edward Heath was pompously bigging up the time he went to plead with Saddam Hussein for the release of British hostages before the first Gulf War:
EH “No-one else would go!”
HM (laughing merrily) “Oh, but you were dispensible!”
She would have been a Naval officers wife. Philip was considered by many to be a likely future Admiral. Who knows maybe it’s him rather than Sir Henry Leach who was the First Sea Lord come the Falklands (they were in the same class at the Naval College). She would have lived out her days as Princess Elizabeth.
On the other hand, since Philip was fairly high up in the Greek line of succession she might have had a good life as a Greek Princess. Until 1967.
Possibly, but she could quite likely have run a successful racing stables and stud farm
Something I was wondering the other day, based on the current House of Dragons show on HBO; hypothetically, on her father’s death, if they had decided that the new monarch had to be a guy, who would have been the ruler instead of her?
The senior male in line was Prince Henry Duke of Gloucester, her uncle.
But there was no possibility, by that time succession was determined by statute and had been for 251 years.
Googling, he died in 1974 and his surviving heir appears to be Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester.
All that wealth is due to the existence of the monarchy for the past 1,000-plus years, and the fact that she is descended from it.
Of course but whether she was Queen or “just” a princess, she would have for all intents and purposes been extraordinarily wealthy.
And it would have all come with strings of some kind. I don’t think the queen was living a life that was considerably worse than her sister’s or daughter’s lives, certainly not in a way that I would consider “thankless.”
I’ve always loved this story.
That’s a great story. And it shows her intrinsic kindness that she made sure the hiker got the photo he actually wanted, even though he didn’t ask for it.
Not necessarily. Most of the wealth in the family has always been held by the monarch, and junior branches aren’t exactly poor but don’t have fabulous wealth either. Her cousins the Kents, for example, are famous/notorious for selling off the family jewels and other inheritance to maintain some semblance of wealth; Prince Michael of Kent has accepted “gifts” from Russian oligarchs and rent money from the Queen to maintain some semblance of the lifestyle.
i too would like to know what happened when someone told him the woman in the picture was the queen.
I wouldn’t mind but I posted the actual video of the guy telling this story upthread.
I almost never follow video links. 
True, but I think the experience would have been somewhat different for the Queen. Diana, Harry, Meghan, and all the others get massive amounts of attention and criticism, but don’t seem to have any authority to go with it. They’re told what to do by tradition and the monarch, and told they’re doing it wrong by the press. It’s probably different if you’re the one in charge and get to make choices and set your own agenda, and no one really wants to piss you off.
It’s such a fast-moving thread, I didn’t see it. I just searched for ‘hiker’ and there were no results.
Same here.
I’m not angry, just hurt
Requiescat in pace, Queen Elizabeth
…
Her passing has prompted a few thoughts:
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Is there known to be a public figure – specifically not someone from the Royal Family or the royal household – that could be said to have been ‘close’ to Queen Elizabeth?
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Would former national leaders (esp of close British allies) receive formal invitations to Queen Elizabeth’s funeral? Would we expect (names for the sake of framing the question), say, Angela Merkel, Brian Mulroney, Lech Walesa, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Nicolas Sarkozy, recent Irish Taoiseaches, etc. to be in attendance?