did queen elizabeth visit kenya

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The day Princess Elizabeth became Queen

T reetops hotel in the heart of the Kenya forest is renowned as the place where Princess Elizabeth first heard the news that her father had died and that she was to be Queen. This, however, is not quite the full story.

While the princess was certainly at Treetops on the night her father, George VI, died 60 years ago on 6 February, 1952, she was not told until the following afternoon, by which time she had returned to a fishing lodge called Sagana, 20 miles away, that she had been given as a wedding present. It was there, beside a trout stream in the foothills of Mount Kenya, that Prince Philip broke the news.

The princess and her husband had flown from Heathrow to Kenya on 31 January. They were seen off by the king, too ill with lung cancer to make the tour himself. The crowd gave him a sympathetic cheer as he stood in the bitter cold to wave goodbye to his daughter.

It was a dangerous time in the British colony. The Mau Mau campaign had just broken out across the White Highlands. The officials responsible for the princess's tour of Kenya, Australia and New Zealand felt unable to guarantee her safety while she was in Kenya. It was only fear of ridicule that stopped them cancelling the African leg of the trip.

Three days after they arrived, the royal couple travelled up-country to Sagana and from there they drove after lunch on 5 February to Treetops, the game-viewing lodge built in a tree overlooking an elephant waterhole. They planned to spend the night watching wildlife, enjoying a respite from their duties before continuing the rest of their tour.

Treetops is old hat now, but in 1952 it was the only place of its kind in the world. It was the brainchild of Eric Walker, owner of the Outspan hotel in Nyeri, and his wife, Lady Bettie, daughter of the Earl of Denbigh. The two of them were hosts for the visit, along with the naturalist Jim Corbett, after whom the Corbett National Park in India is named. Retired from India, Corbett lived in a cottage at the Outspan previously occupied by Lord Baden-Powell.

Walker was a colourful character of the kind that gravitated naturally towards Kenya in colonial days. Private secretary to Baden-Powell before the Great War, he had been shot down while in the Royal Flying Corps, but had escaped from prison camp with a pair of wirecutters that Baden-Powell had hidden inside a gift of ham. He then walked across Germany to the Dutch border.

Needing money later to marry Lady Bettie, he had sailed four boatloads of liquor to America during Prohibition and sold his cargo over the side, just outside territorial waters. A shootout ashore had led to a warrant for his arrest after a corrupt state trooper had been wounded. Fleeing to Canada, he married Lady Bettie and emigrated to Kenya, where he built the Outspan hotel.

Walker laid down strict ground rules for the Treetops visit. No journalists were allowed, as it was believed the scent of the additional bodies would frighten wildlife. No cameras either, because the princess needed a break. Spearmen at the edge of the forest kept intruders at bay as the royals arrived at the waterhole and climbed the rickety ladder to the three-bedroomed branch hotel at the top.

The nearest elephant was only eight yards away as Lady Pamela Mountbatten and Commander Mike Parker followed. There were baboons, warthog and bushbuck, too. The princess spent much of the afternoon filming with her cine-camera, so engrossed that she asked for tea to be served on the viewing platform rather than miss anything by going inside.

Leopards prowled Treetops after dark. Corbett sat up all night with a rifle at the top of the ladder. The princess was up again at dawn, testing the light with her meter as two rhinos squabbled over the waterhole. After breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon, the royals climbed down at 10am for the return to Sagana. "I will come again," the princess promised happily, as they were driven away.

In England, meanwhile, "Hyde Park Corner" was under way, the coded plan for arrangements surrounding the death of the king. At No 10, Winston Churchill was informed at once that the king had died in his sleep at Sandringham, but it was four hours before word reached the princess. A telegram to Government House in Nairobi could not be decoded because the keys to the safe holding the codebook were unavailable.

At lunchtime the editor of the East African Standard telephoned the princess's secretary, Martin Charteris, at the Outspan to ask if the teleprinter reports were true. Shocked, Charteris contacted Sagana, where Prince Philip reacted as if he had been hit by a thunderbolt.

Rallying swiftly, he took his 25-year-old wife for a walk in the garden where, at 2.45pm on 6 February, he told her that her father was dead and she was now Queen and head of the Commonwealth.

She reacted with the same sense of duty that she has shown ever since, immediately discussing the practicalities of getting back to England and writing letters of apology for the cancellation of the tour. Charteris thought her "very composed, master of her fate", as she left Sagana towards dusk that evening.

She was driven to a nearby airstrip, where a Dakota waited to fly her home. The Queen was unmistakably under strain as she emerged from the car, but she managed a subdued smile for the crowd. She boarded the plane with none of the usual pomp and took off at once.

The mask slipped once they were airborne. The Queen left her seat after a while. Her face was set when she returned, but it was obvious to the other passengers that she had been in the loo, having a good long cry.

Nicholas Best is working on the biography of Eric Sherbrooke Walker, the founder of Treetops

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The day Elizabeth became queen in a treehouse in Kenya

It had been “a perfectly happy day,” one newspaper later wrote of Feb. 5, 1952.

King George VI, who had been ill, was feeling well enough to go hare hunting at his Sandringham estate.

“The King, a great shot, was on top of his form,” his neighbor Lord Fermoy said.

George dined with his wife and younger daughter, Princess Margaret, before retiring to his bedroom at 10:30 p.m.

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Thousands of miles away in Kenya, his older daughter, Princess Elizabeth, had also had a wonderful day, seeing and filming with her handheld movie camera rhinos, warthogs, baboons and a herd of elephants, pink from rolling in the dust.

But the next day, Feb. 6, when Elizabeth became sovereign? The queen would always commemorate it with a day of quiet reflection. This date marks when her beloved father, King George VI , 56, was found to have passed away in his sleep.

“It is a day that, even after 70 years, I still remember as much for the death of my father, King George VI, as for the start of my reign,” she wrote in an anniversary statement in February.

Queen Elizabeth died Thursday at 96. She reigned longer than any other British monarch, 70 years.

The story of the day and hour of Elizabeth’s accession to the throne has been told many times, but it remains a captivating tale. It is history with echoes of Arthurian romance.

On the morning of her father’s death, 25-year-old Elizabeth was perched in a treehouse in Kenya from which she’d watched a herd of elephants led by matriarchs come to a watering hole.

The epic, unlikely love story between Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip

“There has been much speculation, not least because of historical parallels, about when precisely Elizabeth became Queen,” wrote Sally Bedell Smith in her biography of the monarch. “It undoubtedly happened when she was atop the African fig tree, which draws a romantic line to the moment in 1558 when Elizabeth I, seated next to an oak tree at Hatfield House, heard that the death of her sister, Queen Mary, meant she was the monarch, also at age twenty-five.”

For many months, King George — known to today’s generations for overcoming a debilitating stutter in the 2010 Oscar-winning film “ The King’s Speech ” — had been in declining health.

“The King, a heavy smoker, underwent a left total pneumonectomy in September 1951 for what euphemistically was called ‘structural abnormalities’ of his left lung, but what in reality was a carcinoma,” wrote Rolf F. Barth of Ohio State University in a “pathologists’ reassessment” last year.

“His physicians withheld this diagnosis from him, the public, and the medical profession,” he and co-author L. Maximilian Buja wrote.

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Too ill to travel, 56-year-old George tasked Elizabeth and her husband, Philip, with undertaking a months-long tour of the Commonwealth, in the twilight of the British Empire.

George saw his daughter off at London Airport on Jan. 31, 1952. Newspapers said the king looked “well and cheerful.” One of his biographers would later suggest “haggard” as a better description. The crowd let out a cheer as he waved goodbye to Elizabeth.

It would be the last time the two saw each other.

The young couple traveled to Kenya, where a BBC newsreel shows Elizabeth in a print dress and Philip in a white naval uniform, bedecked in medals, emerging from the BOAC Argonaut plane.

“When the royal couple stepped off into the hot sunshine of Nairobi, no one knew then that the girl who had arrived here as Princess Elizabeth would leave five days later as queen,” the British broadcaster would report.

From the Kenyan capital, Elizabeth and Philip, accompanied by a small entourage, traveled three hours to Sagana Lodge , a villa alongside a trout stream, presented to them as a wedding gift from the Kenyan state.

“It was a dangerous time in the British colony. The Mau Mau campaign had just broken out across the White Highlands,” wrote historian Nicholas Best in the Observer. “The officials responsible for the princess’s tour of Kenya, Australia and New Zealand felt unable to guarantee her safety while she was in Kenya. It was only fear of ridicule that stopped them canceling the African leg of the trip.”

On Feb. 5, the couple traveled further into the forest, to the Treetops Hotel, a game-viewing lodge. Their three-bed cabin was reached by a rickety ladder and built into the branches of an ancient fig tree, overlooking a waterhole and salt lick.

“Treetops is old hat now, but in 1952 it was the only place of its kind in the world,” wrote Best , who has been researching lodge founder Eric Sherbrooke Walker, a colorful character, former bootlegger and friend of royals.

In an interview, Best told The Washington Post that Walker positioned local men with spears at the edge of the forest to deter journalists, out of concern for Elizabeth’s privacy and also because the smell of more humans would frighten the wildlife.

Naturalist and big-game hunter Jim Corbett, who accompanied the couple, spent the darkest hours of the night at the entrance of the lodge with a shotgun, to keep curious leopards away, Best said.

On Feb. 6, because of the distance and difficulty of communication, it took hours for the news of the king’s death to reach rural Kenya. The message was relayed to Philip’s private secretary, and from Philip to his wife when they’d returned to Sagana Lodge.

Without ceremony or even awareness, but in accordance with British tradition, Elizabeth had become queen.

The newspaper front pages rang out, “Long Live Queen Elizabeth,” while noting, “Her Majesty, pale with grief, leaves by air for home.”

The new queen stayed composed, except for one moment on the flight back to London. “The Queen left her seat after a while. Her face was set when she returned, but it was obvious to the other passengers that she had been in the loo, having a good long cry,” Best wrote in the Guardian .

When the plane arrived, a black dress was quickly brought onboard so she could disembark in appropriate mourning attire.

The next day, she read a proclamation declaring her reign:

“By the sudden death of my dear father, I am called to assume the duties and responsibilities of sovereignty. My heart is too full for me to say more to you today than I shall always work as my father did throughout his reign, to advance the happiness and prosperity of my peoples, spread as they are all the world over.”

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Mixed feelings among some in Africa for Queen Elizabeth

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Tim Cocks has reported from all over Africa for Reuters for the past two decades (aside from a stint covering the Iraq war in 2008/9). In his current role, he covers politics, climate change, diplomacy and human interest. Previously he was bureau chief for West & Central Africa. A story on the environmental disaster of Ghana’s artisanal gold mining won him a SABEW award for best feature in 2019. He is also the author of ‘Lagos:Supernatural City’, an intimate portrait of the life in Africa’s biggest metropolis.

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Watch Video: Queen Elizabeth's Visit to Kenya 72 Years Ago, Shortly Before Coming Queen Enchants Many

• A video of Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Kenya in 1952 emerged and showed some of the rare and happy moments he had during her visit to Kenya in 1952
• Princess Elizabeth became queen while touring Kenya with her husband Prince Phillip who was a duke then
• In Kenya, the beautiful princess inspected a guard of honour and toured Pumwani Hospital as well as Sagana lodge in Kenya

As Kenyans host United Kingdom's King Charles III and his wife, Queen Camilla, a video of his late mother, Queen Elizabeth's visit to the country 72 years ago has emerged.

Princess Elizabeth lands in Kenya

In the black-and-white video, the then princess descended the steps of the plane in a flowery dress, cap and gloves; she was also swinging a handbag from her forearms.

"The princess and the duke were greeted by Kenya's governor, Sir Phillip Mitchell, then went to inspect the guard of honour that had been out in place in her honour," said the narrator on the British Pathe YouTube channel.

Along with governors to welcome the princess were various chiefs brilliantly dressed in traditional regalia and leopard skins.

"The contrast we see today is a tribute to the men and women of all races who have made it Nairobi a great centre of commerce and finance, the capital of the colony and the seat of the East African High Commission," she said in her speech.

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During her visit, the princess also toured Pumwani Maternity Hospital, where she inspected the conditions of modern nursing in the hospital.

They also went to the Sagana Hunting Lodge at the foot of Mt Kenya where they were presented the lodge as a wedding present.

The following day, the princess met over 100 children drawn from all races. Elizabeth's father died while she was on the visit to Kenya, and she assumed his seat and the title queen.

Kisii elders ask King Charles III to apologise during visit

In another story, the Mwenyegitinge elders from the Abagusii community demanded an apology from the UK king for alleged colonial crimes during his visit.

According to George Nyakundi, the community's houses were demolished, their artefacts stolen, and their leaders's heads were preserved in the UK.

Apart from the apology, the community asked visiting King Charles to build them museums, return their artefacts as well as heads of Gusii heroes.

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King Charles and Queen Camilla View a Piece of Queen Elizabeth's Royal History Before State Visit to Kenya

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were visiting Kenya when her father, King George VI, died — making her the new monarch

Janine Henni is a Royals Staff Writer for PEOPLE Digital, covering modern monarchies and the world's most famous families. Like Queen Elizabeth, she loves horses and a great tiara moment.

Aaron Chown - WPA Pool/Getty

King Charles and Queen Camilla are looking back at Queen Elizabeth ’s special connection to Kenya before their state visit next week.

On Tuesday, the royal couple welcomed the Kenyan diaspora to Buckingham Palace for a reception celebrating the relationship between the countries and the future ahead. King Charles, 74, and Queen Camilla, 76, chatted with professionals from business, media, charity, art, sports, government and the military, plus representatives from their patronages in Kenya.

The African country is uniquely part of Queen Elizabeth’s accession story and modern royal history. Charles’ mother was on a Commonwealth tour there in 1952 when she learned that her father, King George VI, died in his sleep, making her monarch of the United Kingdom and its related realms at age 25.

During the festive reception, King Charles and Queen Camilla checked out a display table of items from the Royal Collection Trust relating to the British royal family’s connection to Kenya, including photos of then-Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip ’s visit before her accession and a copy of the speech Prince Philip made when Kenya became independent in 1963. According to Rebecca English of the Daily Mail , King Charles was especially struck by one piece in particular. 

“Sweet moment as The King reminisces over a photograph of Treetops, the iconic Kenyan hideaway where his late mother became Queen,” the royal reporter wrote on X , posting footage of the sovereign’s stop with Queen Camilla.

In January 1952, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh (as Philip and Elizabeth were then known!) embarked on a Commonwealth tour of Africa, Australia and New Zealand on behalf of King George VI, who had lung cancer and was recovering from surgery. After greeting enthusiastic crowds in Nairobi, Kenya, the young couple set off on a five-day wildlife safari and arrived at Treetops safari lodge on February 5, where they observed animals at the nearby watering hole and stayed in the treehouse perched in an enormous fig tree in Aberdare National Park.

Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty

The following day, the party received a telegram that the King died in his sleep at age 56. It was Prince Philip who broke the news to his wife in the gardens.

The new sovereign’s armed escort Jim Corbett famously wrote in the Treetops logbook: "For the first time in the history of the world, a young girl climbed into the tree as a princess and climbed down as a queen."

The Duke of Edinburgh’s cousin Lady Pamela Hicks, a bridesmaid at his wedding to Princess Elizabeth, was a witness to history during the fateful trip.

"My mother remembered very clearly that when she heard the news, she paced up and down, up and down with Philip and the ladies-in-waiting and the private secretary," Lady Pamela's daughter India Hicks previously told PEOPLE .

"Finally when the Queen had gathered herself, she said, 'I'm so sorry, but we are going to have to go back to England,' " said Hicks. "That was so indicative of the Queen that she would have apologized for something like that. They all said, 'Don't be ridiculous.' "

"My mother gave her a hug and suddenly remembered, 'This is my Queen,' and dropped into a deep curtsy,” she added. Queen Elizabeth, who went on to have a historic 70-year reign, was formally crowned a little more than a year later on June 2, 1953.

Years later, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip revisited Treetops in November 1983 during a 16-day official state tour of Kenya, Bangladesh and India.

The historic safari lodge closed in 2021 after tourist revenue dropped 90% in Kenya due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Kenya Wildlife Service said at the time. The lodge had not hosted a visitor for more than a year, Kenya's tourism ministry confirmed to The Times .

Two weeks ago, Buckingham Palace announced that King Charles and Queen Camilla would travel to Kenya from October 31 to November 3. The visit marks the couple’s first state visit to a Commonwealth country since Charles became King following the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth at age 96 last September.

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While the state visit was coordinated by the invitation of President William Ruto and comes as Kenya prepares to celebrate 60 years of independence, the royals will also “acknowledge the more painful aspects of the U.K. and Kenya’s shared history,” Buckingham Palace said in a statement.

Between then and 1960, an uprising known as The Emergency took place. Led mostly by the Kikuyu people, the Mau Mau rebellion against British colonial rule and internal Kenyan opposition to independence led to tens of thousands of deaths. An estimated 11,000 Mau Mau rebels and others were killed, according to the BBC , but unofficial figures put the losses at much greater numbers. Some estimates say there were as many as 90,000 Kenyans executed, while more than 150,000 were detained.

“His Majesty will take time during the visit to deepen his understanding of the wrongs suffered in this period by the people of Kenya. Together, Their Majesties will tour a new museum dedicated to Kenya’s history and will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior at Uhuru Gardens, as well as visiting the site of the declaration of Kenya’s independence in 1963,” the palace said as they confirmed the trip.

King Charles and Queen Camilla’s state visit to Kenya will come roughly two months after their mini-tour to France , which had been postponed since March amid unrest over changes in pensions for French workers.

Chris Jackson/Getty

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Queen Elizabeth II: She arrived in Kenya a princess but left a Queen

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Kenyans remember the queen's visits to their country.

As the world mourns the death of Queen Elizabeth II, residents of the Soy Club in Kenya, where the then-princess Queen Elizabeth II honeymooned with Prince Philip, have reacted to the monarch's death. Residents signed a book of condolences for the Queen and some held pictures of the late monarch and her father King George VI. Hassan Kosgei, the director of the Soy Club, recalls that the Queen spent two nights in the farmhouse that is now part of the Soy Club. In early February 1952, the Queen was in Kenya to visit British tea growers. She then went to Nanyuki for a stay at the famous Treetops Hotel, where she later received the news of her father's death.

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Here’s every country Queen Elizabeth II visited in her 70-year reign

From Algeria to Zimbabwe, the Queen visited at least 117 different countries

Queen Elizabeth II, who died earlier today , was probably the best-travelled monarch in history. In her 70 years as UK monarch, Her Maj apparently travelled to at least 117 different countries – and covered over a million miles, according to The Telegraph .

The Queen travelled for loads of reasons, from ceremonial openings to official state visits, but she got around so much primarily because she was head of state for the Commonwealth: a political association of countries that were largely conquered by Britain back when it was an imperial power. RECOMMENDED: How the world is paying tribute to Queen Elizabeth II

In fact, Elizabeth II wasn’t just the Queen of the United Kingdom: during her time on the throne, she reigned over a total of 32 sovereign countries. Having started her reign in the final years of the British Empire, she ruled over a number of former British colonies as they became independent sovereign states. Many, but not all, later cut ties with the monarchy and became republics.

Queen Elizabeth II reigned, at various points, over Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Ceylon (later Sri Lanka), Fiji, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Kenya, Malawi, Malta, Mauritius, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Sierra Leone, the Solomon Islands, South Africa, Tanganyika (later Tanzania), Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uganda and, of course, the UK . She was also proclaimed as queen by Rhodesia, the predecessor to Zimbabwe.

By the time of her death, she was still the queen of 15 countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and the UK. She was the Queen of Barbados until November 2021, when the Caribbean nation became a republic.

As you’d expect, the Queen visited all of these places – and plenty more – during her 70-year reign. Here is a full list of all the countries and states the Queen travelled to during her reign, and the dates when she visited.

Algeria (1980)

Antigua and Barbuda (1966, 1977, 1985)

Australia (1953, 1963, 1970, 1973, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1986, 1988, 1992, 2000, 2002, 2011)

Austria (1969)

Bahamas (1966, 1977, 1985, 1994)

Bahrain (1979)

Bangladesh (1983)

Barbados (1966, 1977, 1985, 1989)

Belgium (1966, 1993, 1998, 2007)

Belize (1985, 1994)

Bermuda (1953, 1975, 1983, 1994, 2009)

Botswana (1979)

Brazil  (1968)

British Virgin Islands (1966, 1977)

Brunei (1998)

Canada (1957, 1959, 1963, 1966, 1967, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1982, 1983, 1987, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1997, 2002, 2005, 2010)

Cayman Islands (1983, 1994)

Chile (1968)

China (1986)

Cook Islands (1974)

Cyprus (1961, 1983, 1984, 1993)

Czech Republic (1996)

Denmark (1957, 1979)

Dominica (1966, 1985, 1994)

Estonia (2006)

Ethiopia (1965)

Fiji (1953, 1963, 1970, 1973, 1977, 1982)

Finland (1976, 1994)

France (1957, 1972, 1992, 1994, 2004, 2014)

Gambia (1961)

Germany (1990, 1992, 2004, 2015)

Ghana (1961, 1999)

Grenada (1966, 1985)

Guyana (1966, 1994)

Hungary (1993)

Iceland (1990)

India (1961, 1983, 1997)

Indonesia (1974)

Iran (1961)

Ireland (2011)

Italy (1961, 1980, 2000, 2014)

Jamaica (1953, 1966, 1975, 1983, 1994, 2002)

Japan (1975)

Jordan (1984)

Kenya (1952, 1972, 1983, 1991)

Kiribati (1982)

Kuwait (1979)

Latvia (2006)

Liberia (1961)

Libya (1954)

Lithuania (2006)

Luxembourg (1976)

Malawi (1979)

Malaysia (1972, 1989, 1998)

Maldives (1972)

Malta (1954, 1967, 1992, 2005, 2015)

Mauritius (1972)

Mexico (1975, 1983)

Morocco (1980)

Mozambique (1999)

Namibia (1991)

Nauru (1982)

Nepal (1961, 1986)

Netherlands (1958, 1988, 2007)

New Zealand (1953, 1963, 1970, 1974, 1977, 1981, 1986, 1990, 1995, 2002)

Nigeria (1956, 2003)

Norway (1955, 1981, 2001)

Oman (1979, 2010)

Pakistan (1961, 1997)

Panama (1953)

Papua New Guinea (1974, 1977, 1982)

Poland (1996)

Portugal (1957, 1985)

Qatar (1979)

Russia (1994)

Saint Kitts and Nevis (1985)

Saint Lucia (1966, 1985)

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (1966, 1985)

Samoa (1977)

Saudi Arabia (1979)

Seychelles (1972)

Sierra Leone (1961)

Singapore (1972, 1989)

Solomon Islands (1982)

South Africa (1995, 1999)

South Korea (1999)

Slovakia (2008)

Slovenia (2008)

Spain (1988)

Sri Lanka (1954, 1981)

Sudan (1965)

Sweden (1956, 1983)

Switzerland (1980)

Tanzania (1979)

Thailand (1972, 1996)

Tonga (1953, 1970, 1977)

Trinidad & Tobago (1966, 1985, 2009)

Tunisia (1980)

Turkey (1971, 2008)

Turks and Caicos Islands (1966)

Tuvalu (1982)

Uganda (1954, 2007)

UAE (1979, 2010)

USA (1957, 1976, 1983, 1991, 2007)

Vatican City (1961, 1980, 2000, 2014)

West Germany (1965, 1978, 1987)

Yugoslavia (1972)

Zambia (1979)

Zimbabwe (1991)

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Kenya’s lengthy dalliance with Queen Elizabeth II

In March 1972, Queen Elizabeth made a short debut visit to Kenya and had lunch with President Jomo Kenyatta at State House, Nairobi, where she was bestowed the Chief of the Order of the Golden Heart.

By  Nation. Africa

What you need to know:

The Queen ascended to the throne in 1952 on the steps of State House Nairobi, then known as Government House.

Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, as it relates to Kenya, is a mixed bag and cuts through colonial and post-colonial Kenya.

That Nairobi played a huge part in the transition, with the governor flying back to the city to read the proclamation before the queen left, made Kenya a special place in the history of Princess Elizabeth.

Queen Elizabeth II still had a soft spot for Kenya. She ascended to the throne in 1952 on the steps of State House Nairobi, then known as Government House after the colonial Governor Sir Philip Mitchell read the proclamation that saw the young princess become Queen Elizabeth II.

A day earlier, the princess was almost trumped by elephants, according to Sherbrooke Walker, the owner of Treetops Hotel in Nyeri where the princess and her husband, Duke of Edinburg, were visiting. 

That was before the new monarch dashed home and appeared before the Accession Council, where she swore to uphold the constitution.

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She was the first in 200 years to accede to the throne while abroad.

An elephant suddenly appeared when the young princess was heading to a picture-taking spot at Treetops.

“With the greatest coolness and courage,” Walter later reported to Governor Mitchell, “the princess continued going forward and quietly climbed the ladder without any suspicion of a hurry.”

The next morning, Walker told the princess: “If you have the same courage, Ma’am, in facing whatever the future sends you, as you have in facing an elephant at 11 yards, we are going to be very fortunate.”

The princess smiled, according to reports, as the royal entourage headed to Sagana – where they would learn that her father, King George VI had died.

Queen Elizabeth II who died on Thursday at Balmoral Castle, Scotland, was for the last 70 years the bedrock of the Commonwealth, a constellation of former British colonies.

In this file photo taken on April 10, 2021, a wooden board shows the name of Treetops Lodge where Britain's Queen Elizabeth II of England stayed the night her father, the King, died and became Queen in 1952, in Aberdare National Park in Nyeri County.

Royal State Lodge

But it was in Kenya where the story starts. She had personal property in the country – the Royal State Lodge, a wedding gift from “the people of Kenya”.

In 1952, Nairobi also named its first dual carriage street Princess Elizabeth Highway in her honour.

Today, her birthday gift – now Sagana State Lodge – is government property after she passed it over to Jomo Kenyatta, the founding president, in 1963.

Her grandfather, King George V’s statue, has since been replaced with that of Mzee Kenyatta.

In addition, the Kenyatta government renamed the Princess Elizabeth Way the Uhuru Highway, and the former Queen’s Way is now Mama Ngina Street.

By erasing the memories of Queen Elizabeth II from its landscape, Kenya was putting behind an era that had brought painful legacies.

During her rule, Kenya went through its darkest moment in the 1950s as a crackdown on freedom fighters turned the colony into what historians call ‘The British Gulag.’

During her reign, the State of Emergency was declared in Kenya in October 1952, leading to a crackdown, mainly in Nairobi and the Mt Kenya region, which left hundreds of thousands of people in detention camps, 11,000 killed, and 1,000 freedom fighters hanged.

No wonder some of the targets by the Mau Mau freedom fighters were Sagana Royal Lodge and the Treetops Hotel.

Mau Mau raids

In July 1953, the Mau Mau managed to enter the Royal Lodge and took away blankets, two pairs of binoculars, a gun case, and food.Another group raided Treetops – where the Queen had visited – and burnt it down. The burning of Treetop, an annex of Outspan Hotel, gave Mau Mau what they wanted: international publicity.

 The Mau Mau had initially tried to upstage the Queen's coronation by having their own in Thompson Falls, where they installed a Miss Wagiri Njoroge as Mau Mau Queen. She was later arrested and jailed for 10 years.

By November 1949, when Kenya conceptualised the gift idea, it was unclear when Princess Elizabeth would visit Sagana to accept it.

However, it was a lovely site and the lodge was described in colonial papers as a place with some “good fishing in the Sagana River just beyond the front yard, and big game not far away.”

 So in 1952, when Princess Elizabeth and her husband set to tour some of the British colonies – aboard HMS Gothic, a passenger-cargo liner designated a royal yacht from 1952 to 1954 – the new couple had put Sagana Royal Lodge as the starting point of their itinerary.

But as the two flew to Kenya, they never anticipated that the ailing King George VI, whose cancerous lung had been removed, would die from a blood clot.

King George VI had become King by fate after Edward VIII abdicated the throne, rather than give up the love of Ms WallisIn Nyeri, Princess Elizabeth and Phillip were hosted by Eric Sherbrooke Walker, a former wines smuggler who had built Outspan Hotel and its extension,The Treetops.

Before they left for Nyeri, the couple had attended a massive garden party at Nairobi’s Government House.The governor had then left for Mombasa to prepare for the departure of the royal couple, who were to start their tour of Australia, Ceylon, and New Zealand aboard HMS Gothic.

Hyde Park Corner

But on the morning of February 6, a valet who had gone to draw a curtain in the King’s bedroom found his lifeless body.He had died that night.

A crisis had started since the would-be queen was in the heartland of Africa, and there was fear that she might get the news from some unofficial channels, such as a radio broadcast.

The Queen made two visits to Kenya during the reign of President Moi. The first was in 1983 when she toured Sagana Lodge – the place her tour was cut shot in 1952. The last visit was in 1991 as a guest of President Moi.

The British prime minister Winston Churchill was at No. 10 Downing Street when the coded message: “Hyde Park Corner” was delivered by Edward Ford, the King’s assistant private secretary.“Hyde Park Corner” was the palace code for “The King has died”.

So he had to contact the Governor in Kenya, Sir Mitchell, to read the proclamation. While a coded message about the King’s death had been sent to Government House, the governor had apparently carried the cypher book as he headed to Mombasa.When the message arrived, there was no one to decipher it.

Then, by chance, Martin Charteris, the private secretary to the princess, was having a lunch drink at the Outspan Hotel when Granville Roberts, a reporter with the East African Standard covering the royal visit, happened to learn about the newsflash from Reuters.

It was now 2 pm. He saw Charteris and rushed to him. “The King has died!” said Roberts, breaking the news.That Nairobi played a huge part in the transition, with the governor flying back to the city to read the proclamation before the queen left, made Kenya a special place in the history of Princess Elizabeth.

Then in 1963, after a lengthy negotiation on the constitution, her signature granted back Kenya’s independence, ending decades of colonial rule that started when her grandfather, King George V, signed the proclamation that turned the former British East Africa Protectorate into the colony of Kenya.

Power handoverIronically, power was handed over to Jomo Kenyatta, the man the British governor, Sir Patrick Rennison, had dismissed as “leader unto death and darkness”.

Queen Elizabeth approved the appointment of Jomo Kenyatta as prime minister after the governor forwarded his name.Of course, she also had to approve the pre-1963 cabinet lists.

But, the most important deed is that it was through her accession of the Kenya Independence Act that the country became independent after 65 years of colonial rule.She later sent her Consort, Duke of Edinburgh Prince Philip, to officiate the ceremony.

For that, and over the years, the queen had a soft spot for Kenya, while Kenya reciprocated the bond.Vice-President Daniel arap Moi is said to have baptised his children Doris Elizabeth and Philip as an honour to the Royal family, according to his biographer Andrew Morton.

In March 1972, Queen Elizabeth made a short debut visit to Kenya and had lunch with Jomo Kenyatta at State House, Nairobi, where she was bestowed the Chief of the Order of the Golden Heart.

In 1979 President Moi, in one of his first trips abroad, visited Buckingham Palace, where the Queen presented him to members of the royal family and other dignitaries.These included the new British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, who was to become Moi’s ally.

The Queen would later make two visits to Kenya during the reign of President Moi.The first was in 1983 when she toured Sagana Lodge – the place her tour was cut shot in 1952.

During her five-day second official visit to Kenya, the Queen lay the wreath on the grave of President Kenyatta – the man who had replaced her as Head of State in 1964.The last visit was in 1991 as a guest of President Moi.

But she received criticism at that time since Moi was under pressure to abandon his dictatorial, single-party regime.The fledging opposition had interpreted the visit as an endorsement of Moi’s rule.President Mwai Kibaki never visited the Queen at Buckingham Palace during his presidency, even though Kenya is a member of the Commonwealth.

He had fallen out with London during his reign. On the other hand, President Uhuru Kenyatta visited the palace in 2018. Initially, his appearance at the International Criminal Court presented an awkward international relations dilemma during his first term

[email protected] @johnkamau1

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The queen was not a gentle figurehead for many in Britain's former colonies

NEW DELHI — Just hours after the world learned that Queen Elizabeth II was dead, Twitter feeds across India exploded with angry demands for the repatriation of a precious diamond called the Kohinoor , which has become a symbol of Britain’s often bloody history of colonial conquest and rule.

The British government has denied stealing the Kohinoor diamond and has repeatedly refused to return it to India. And to millions across the Indian subcontinent, the diamond — one of the most famous in the world — has become a symbol of a colonial past.

The demands reflected anger over the history of colonization amid the outpouring of sympathy that followed Elizabeth’s death last Thursday at age 96. Among many residents of former British colonies, such as India and Kenya, the reaction to her death ranged from benign interest to anger and disdain.

At its height, the United Kingdom controlled the largest empire in history, ruling over an estimated 20% of the world’s population and occupying around a quarter of the Earth's landmass. The era was marked by famines, massacres and grinding poverty in the resource-rich countries that were colonized by the British Empire.

In the shadow of New Delhi’s historic Red Fort, where the flag of newly independent India flew for the first time 75 years ago, Devishankar Shukla reflected on the British monarch's death.

“Her majesty’s demise only reminds us of the independence struggle of all its colonies,” Shukla, who works in a clothing store, said.

“We’d rather mourn the loss of our freedom fighters,” he added.

Perhaps paradoxically, Elizabeth herself was viewed by most Indians as a “benign grandmother.” India held a national day of mourning Sunday, flying flags at half-staff on government buildings and canceling public entertainment. Earlier this year, the government had similarly declared a day of mourning for the assassinated Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the United Arab Emirates ruler and president, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

When informed that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had declared a day of mourning, many dismissed it as an empty gesture.

“Lowering a flag isn’t mourning,” said Sameer Chaudhary, 50, a fourth-generation owner of a family-run bangle store in the capital. 

It wasn't all unmitigated criticism, though.

Swapan Dasgupta, a former member of Parliament who met Elizabeth when she visited India in 1997 and again in 2017 when he visited London, summed up the queen's 70-year reign as “spectacular.”

In a telephone interview from his home in Kolkata, he said that the queen took her role as the head of the Commonwealth — a voluntary association of more than 50 independent countries that were former British colonies — “very seriously.”

Even though the queen had a "terrific" reign, Chaudhary said, she symbolized the cruel colonial institution that devastated India and other colonies for centuries. A series of famines in colonial India, the last of which, the 1943 Bengal famine , killed an estimated 3 million people , are seared on the collective memory of the country of 1.4 billion.

So, long after the British left, bitterness remains — not just because of the diamond, said Saumya Gupta, an associate professor of history at the University of Delhi. That Britain has been slow to acknowledge the deaths of thousands of colonial soldiers who fought for the crown as members of the British Army during World Wars I and II is also not forgotten, she says.

According to the British Library, of the 8.6 million men mobilized to fight in World War II, 1.4 million came from India and 134,000 from other colonies.

In the former African colony of Kenya, prominent journalist and political cartoonist Patrick Gathara outright dismissed the image of Elizabeth as a benign figure.

“It’s part of the whole global branding of the royal family,” he said on the phone from the capital, Nairobi.

“I think a lot of people did see the queen as this genial nice figure and a marker of high society, which I guess a lot of people aspire to," Gathara added. "In Kenya, people also wanted to be part of this global movement of admiration.”

In Kenya, the ruling elites who were handed the keys to the country by the departing British decades ago declared three days of official mourning, while the rest of the African nation paid scant attention to the headlines coming out of London.

What many Kenyans don’t realize, Gathara said, is that Elizabeth was already queen when the British brutally put down the Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s that helped pave the way for the country’s independence in 1963.

“They put people in concentration camps, they murdered people, they tortured people,” he said. “I know she wasn’t involved in the day-to-day decision-making or what the colonial government was doing here, [but] the fact that she was silent about it — never once did she acknowledge it and never once apologized for it.”

The Mau Mau uprising was the most prolonged and violent rebellion against British rule since the region was colonized in the late 1800s. During the 12-year struggle that was eventually put down by the British, 12,000 people died and an estimated 150,000 Kenyans, many of them unconnected to the Mau Mau, wound up in those camps.

One of them was former President Barack Obama’s grandfather Onyango.

The British government didn’t admit to torturing Kenyans until 2012 when a London court ruled that three victims, including a man who had been castrated by the colonial authorities, could claim compensation for what they endured.

The British Foreign Office said it was disappointed by the ruling but chose not to contest it. As for Elizabeth, a survey of news articles found no indication that the queen ever apologized for the brutal manner in which the Mau Mau uprising was crushed.

Even in Britain, where Elizabeth is revered by many, there were mixed feelings about the queen among some whose families originally hailed from former British colonies — and are now part of what is known as the British Commonwealth.

“She’s all I knew for the past 57 years and I admired her,” said Micky Provost, 57, who lives in London, works in the fashion industry and whose family is from Jamaica. “But the issue of colonialism should be on the table for discussion. Because until it’s discussed more openly, people — especially the younger generation — will be more and more disagreeable to the royal family.”

When the British seized Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655, it turned the island into a leading sugar exporter and built a plantation economy off the backs of Black slaves brought there against their will from Africa. The slaves weren't freed until 1838.

Zitha Moya, 48, who was born in Zimbabwe and immigrated to London in 1998, said she hopes King Charles III will drive a discussion about the dark past that his mother, Elizabeth, largely avoided during her 70-year reign. Moya's homeland had once been a crown colony called Southern Rhodesia where, for more than half a century, the white colonial ruling class enriched itself at the expense of the Black majority.

“I think talking about it will make it easier for people to move on and move forward,” Moya, who works as a nurse, said. “If we pretend it didn’t happen and try to dampen it down, that makes it quite difficult to move on for a lot of people. But it is our history. It is what it is.”

Roshan Yapa, 38, who was born in Sri Lanka (also a former British colony) and now lives in London, agreed but said neither Elizabeth nor Charles should be called to account for abuses that were carried out largely in the name of their predecessors.

“I would first say that we are in the 21st century, so we can’t compare today’s monarchy with the old days,” the information technology engineer said. “The world has changed.”

But Charles now has a chance to push for real changes in the countries that were taken advantage of by British colonial rulers and that Elizabeth helped keep in the Commonwealth largely through symbolic gestures and the force of her personality.

“I think the Commonwealth countries and other colonial territories should be helped out and empowered, so those countries can become more successful,” Yapa said. “Britain could do more to improve working conditions in former colonies, that’s for sure.”

And yet, despite their misgivings about Elizabeth, Provost, Moya and Yapa were among the tens of thousands of people who descended Sunday on Buckingham Palace to pay their respects to a monarch who loomed so large in their lives.

Mithil Aggarwal reported from New Delhi. Hyder Abbasi, Daniel Arkin and Corky Siemaszko reported from London.

Mithil Aggarwal is a Hong Kong-based reporter/producer for NBC News.

Daniel Arkin is a national reporter at NBC News.

Corky Siemaszko is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital.