Today Would have been Queen Elizabeth II's 97th Birthday

A new photograph released by the Princess of Wales conjures memories both past and recent, with something extra for my subscribers

Queen Elizabeth II at Balmoral in the summer of 2022/-credit The Princess of Wales

Along with her record-breaking seventy-year reign and her steadfast dedication to her duty as monarch, Queen Elizabeth was, particularly in her later life, devoted to her extended family. This photograph, taken by the Princess of Wales last summer at Balmoral, the Queen’s beloved estate in the Scottish Highlands, shows the Queen surrounded by some of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

She came to Balmoral as a baby and visited nearly every summer of her life. The estate has been the sentimental heart of the royal family since the time of Queen Victoria, who wrote, “All seemed to breathe freedom and peace and to make one forget the world and its sad turmoils.” Balmoral Castle’s many large windows have stunning views of gardens, lawns, the silvery ribbon of the River Dee snaking through the wide valley, the surrounding hills crowded with Caledonian pine, and the distant Cairgorm Mountains.

A rare image of Lilibet—the future Queen—at age one being carried up the steps at Balmoral in her pram

As Princess Elizabeth—known to her family as Lilibet—the future Queen loved to walk and ride horseback on the heather-covered hills and explore the pine-scented forests. She adored the Highland Games at nearby Braemar, which she attended without fail until mobility issues made it difficult in her last years.

Seven-year-old Lilibet at the Braemar Games with her grandmother Queen Mary and her father, King George VI, at the far right

She learned to stalk stag with her cousin Margaret Elphinstone when they were teenagers. “It was always fun to see a new stalker out for the first time with the Queen,” Margaret told me. “She would be crawling on her stomach with her nose up to the soles of the stalker’s boots, which would be a surprise to the stalker!” Queen Elizabeth II shot her last stag in 1983 at age fifty-seven in a little glen near the Spittal of Glenmuick, which was subsequently named “The Queen’s Corry.”

During the Second World War, Lilibet and her younger sister Margaret found refuge with their parents several times at Balmoral. On their first visit in 1941 after an absence of two years, King George VI wrote in his diary that it was “a real change, as I need it in every way. both mentally and physically.” As Queen Elizabeth wrote to her mother-in-law Queen Mary,