The letter
Elizabeth II was now the queen of the United Kingdom at just 25 years old. A month after her father had passed, she wrote a long letter to her father’s personal secretary, Sir Eric Mieville, going into detail about how her life as queen was completely different from before.
In the letter, the queen described how she deeply mourned her father’s loss, but it didn’t really hit her until a few months after. She left her signature at the bottom of the page by signing Elizabeth R. This was the regnal name she had chosen for herself after first hearing about the death of the king.