Analysing the impact of Britain's longest rulers

However, the differences between the two are rooted as much in the differences between the eras in which they reign as in their own characters.

Victoria had – and Elizabeth II has – a human touch. It was as radical for Queen Victoria to publish extracts from her diary as it was for the present Queen to have allowed television cameras in to document it. However, while Victoria’s age was still one of deference, the present queen has seen deference to social and political elites (created by respect for their lineage and wealth) virtually disappear. In practical terms, Elizabeth has had to work a great deal harder to win and keep the respect of her subjects than Victoria did. The evidence of recent years is that she has, indeed, done just that.

Victoria presided over a growing Empire, where she could persuade her politicians that it was appropriate that she acquire the title of Empress (of India) to reflect that. Elizabeth II meanwhile has presided over the decline of the Empire and the evolution of the British Commonwealth, to which she remains devoted. Her Britain has not felt confident enough of itself, and the nature of the British identity, to label itself the New Elizabethan Age. But that has much more to do with the political achievements (or lack of them) over the last half century, accompanied by the challenges to what constitutes ‘Britishness’ in the modern, multi-cultural society over which Elizabeth II presides.

Victorians were also more tolerant than modern Britain would be of a queen showing her opinions too plainly on the hot political topics of the day. It was no secret that Victoria had political favourites and, as far as she could, she displayed a tendency to meddle. We may think we know which of her prime ministers, for instance, Elizabeth II has favoured but that is more what they themselves, or their advisers and other supposedly informed commentators, have said.

Elizabeth II has, like her father and grandfather before her, a very profound constitutional understanding of her position and the importance of her role as symbolic head of state. She comprehends that people need symbols, and the cultural contexts of them, to identify with and she has been very careful not to be self-indulgent and overstep the boundaries of constitutionalism.

All of this means that, like her great-great-grandmother, she will not abdicate. The thought would never have entered Queen Victoria’s head. It has often been suggested to the present Queen but her constitutional duty as head of state, confirmed by the oath she took at her coronation, means she has taken on the job of being symbol of the British state for life. Increasingly, her son – the Prince of Wales – has started taking on more official duties in her name; and it is likely the heir apparent, Prince William, will do the same when his family is a little older.

Queen Elizabeth II may not, as David Starkey has charged, have uttered memorable words. But history is unlikely – in the longer term – to judge her as being lesser than Victoria. She has, as he also admitted, sustained and modernised the monarchy to make it fit for the late 20th and early 21st century. If there is a throne for Prince Charles to inherit, he owes it very substantially to his mother, who has rarely put a foot wrong in acting as the symbolic head of state in Britain in the 63 years, and (on 9 September) 217 days, of her reign.