To commemorate the 70-year and-214-day-long reign of Queen Elizabeth II, this week’s issue of The Spectator is the first ever to feature a front-and-back design. Illustrated by Morten Morland, its design is inspired by Victorian-style mourning cards and includes a mixture of details from the royal coat of arms, as well as a few personal touches.

Since 1828, The Spectator has covered the deaths of seven previous British monarchs. Here they are.

 

King George IV

Two years into the weekly publishing of the magazine, King George IV died on 26 June 1830. ‘Of his education we know very little; but that it was careful, there is no reason to doubt. His knowledge of French was perfect, and his English was singularly pure and elegant. No man ever turned a compliment better…’

King William IV

Seven years on, the country witnessed the death of King William IV on 20 June 1837. Reportedly, his passing was largely expected: ‘the public has been for some time prepared; as the bulletins published by his late Majesty’s physicians, though framed with a view to deception, deceived nobody; and it was universally believed that he was irrecoverably ill.’

 

Queen Victoria

To mark the end of – at the time – the longest reigning monarch in British history, The Spectator’s 26 January 1901 issue detailed how Queen Victoria achieved such reverence. ‘We believe that it was because the nation really understood her. After watching her for nearly seventy years, it had come to know her character in a way in which the character of a great personage is seldom known.’

 

King Edward VII

Queen Victoria’s successor King Edward VII reigned for nine years until his death on 6 May 1910. Unlike King William IV, this passing was of great shock to the nation. ‘He notoriously spent himself in the service of his country, and his services to the peace of the world promise to become proverbial.’

This week’s issue honours both King Edward VII’s and Queen Victoria’s front covers by incorporating the bold black lines running down and across the page.

 

King George V

On 24 January 1936, King George V died. The Spectator marked his death by comparing George to his predecessor: ‘Like his father he died in the last minutes of a dying day. Like him he spent some of his last hours sitting in an armchair in his room, and like him he was able to sign a State document on his last day of life.’

 

King Edward VIII

Edward VIII, who was never crowned, reigned for 327 days until his abdication on 11 December 1936. His brother George VI became King, and announced Edward as the Duke of Windsor. Edward VIII lived till 1972. The Spectator marked his death on 3 June, with a notebook on the former King.

King George VI

‘A stricken people’ was the title on the cover of The Spectator on 8 February 1952, two days after the death of King George VI. ‘Not the people of these islands only. Everywhere through the wide spaces of the Commonwealth,’ the magazine said.

As the world looked to a Princess who had suddenly become Queen, The Spectator spoke of its trust in the new monarch: ‘She has won everywhere affection, and what is not less material, respect. Different utterly from her great namesake, as indeed the changing times demand, she is no less competent to assume the duties that await her than the Great Queen was when sovereignty came to her close on four centuries ago.’

‘She will be nobly sustained – by the affection and sympathy which a young Queen must command in peculiar measure; by a husband universally recognised as an ideal partner; and by access to those fountains of unseen strength from which those nearest to her know well that she draws deep and humbly.’

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