Annus horribilis
Annus horribilis ( Latin for terrible year ), known as Queen Elizabeth II's personal assessment of the year 1992 , is an ironic allusion to the expression annus mirabilis .
Queen Elizabeth II.
The phrase annus horribilis (terrible year) was used by Queen Elizabeth II in the Guildhall on November 24, 1992 in a speech on her 40th anniversary to the throne. The closest reference was the fire at Windsor Castle four days earlier, in which the castle was badly damaged and several works of art were irretrievably lost.
However, there were other reasons for saying it:
- In March of that year Mauritius , the very last Commonwealth Realm in Africa, was converted into a republic within the Commonwealth.
- Later in March, Elizabeth's second son, Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, separated .
- Later that year, topless photos of Sarah with her then boyfriend, John Bryan, were released.
- In April the divorce of Elisabeth's daughter Anne from Mark Phillips became final.
- In August, intimate conversations between the Princess of Wales and James Gilbey, from taped telephone conversations, were published by the newspaper The Sun ( Squidgygate ).
- Princess Diana and Prince Charles' marital crisis made negative headlines.
See also
Web links
- The Queen's Year of Terror ( Memento of January 10, 2008 in the Internet Archive ). In: Handelsblatt , April 18, 2006