God save her

THE Australian Monarchist League has sent its best wishes to the Queen on the occasion of the 2015 Official Queen’s Birthday Holiday.
This holiday celebrates the 89th birthday of the Queen. Her Majesty has been on the throne for over 63 years.
The Queen’s Birthday Holiday in Australia was declared by Governor Arthur Phillip on 4 June 1788, and is Australia’s first and thereby our oldest public holiday. It represents not the settlement in Australia of 1373 Britons arriving in 11 ships, but rather the planting of a seed which has grown into a mighty tree the branches of which now shelter all Australians with law, order and constitutional stability.
It was in 1785 that the King’s Guards in London began Trooping the Colour to honour the King’s Birthday but while the celebration of the Sovereign’s Birthday in the United Kingdom remained primarily the military one of Trooping the Colour, the occasion has been a public holiday in other realms.
While the holiday was changed to May to celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria it was changed back to June during the reign of George V in 1911, and has been held in June ever since.
In the United Kingdom June has been selected because the more barmy weather is kinder to those who come out to watch the Trooping the Colour. In countries like Australia, the date of the public holiday is chosen to fit into the annual calendar. Western Australia holds its Queen’s Birthday holiday in September as it celebrates Western Australia Day in June.
On September the 10th (some say the 9th) Queen Elizabeth will become the longest reigning monarch in British – and Australian – history. (The reason for the differences in dates is because the Queen’s reign covers one more leap year than Queen Victoria.)
The Australian Monarchist League will be celebrating this official birthday with a luncheon in Parliament House, Sydney on Monday 15 June to celebrate both the Queen’s official birthday as well as the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. The guest speaker will be Mr John O’Sullivan CBE, former adviser to Baroness Thatcher, when Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Philip Benwell,
National Chair,
Australian Monarchist League.