Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
On the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022, her son inherited the Crown of the United Kingdom and that of 14 other Commonwealth Realms, as well as the title of ‘Head of the Commonwealth’. The complex network of relationships this entails is poorly understood by the public, the media and increasingly by policy-makers. Our ability to analyse how it has operated over the course of the Queen's 70 years on the throne has been impeded by the Palace’s obsession with secrecy. This has led to the closure and redaction of a vast amount of archival material, some of it dating back to the 1950s. The article argues it is imperative that historians now make the case for the opening of the archives relating to her reign.
Philip M. Murphy (Sat,) studied this question.