‘Much more than a figurehead’: how the Queen was the beating heart of the Commonwealth

The Queen with Commonwealth heads of government and representatives in London in 2012. Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/PA

Born out of the empire, the Commonwealth, in the words of the Conservative former prime minister John Major and others, has somehow been held together by an invisible glue that was Queen Elizabeth.

Major once said: “The Queen’s relationship with the Commonwealth is intensely personal. You only have to see the Commonwealth heads of government – and particularly the African Commonwealth heads of government – with the Queen to see what they think of her, and of the institution of monarchy itself.”