This news service stands back from the immediate events of wealth management to reflect on a person who headed a family that she dubbed "The Firm". For 70 years, Queen Elizabeth was a calm force in public life.

We write a great deal about family succession issues at this news service, and it is fitting to reflect on a person, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who headed the most famous family of all. She died yesterday at her home in Balmoral, Scotland. She was 96. 

The Queen, who acceded to the throne in 1952 after the death of her father, George VI, reigned for the longest period of any monarch in British history. Old enough to have lived through WW2 and the upheavals of that time, she was a part of this country’s life under Conservative and Labour administrations, and she witnessed changes as radical as nuclear power, the internet, supersonic flight, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the British Empire. She was the key force behind the Commonwealth – arguably her most important achievement. 

It is hard to grasp that when she was crowned in 1953 in Westminster Abbey, Sir Winston Churchill was Prime Minister and Hilary and Tenzing were about to reach the summit of Mount Everest. And one of her last official duties was to greet another Elizabeth – Liz Truss – the newly-installed occupant of 10 Downing Street.

Throughout her 70-year reign, Queen Elizabeth set the benchmark for service, a certain quiet dignity, tremendous capacity for hard work, and the ability to get on with a wide variety of people. She was also, by the way, a great mimic with a sense of humour that she shared with Prince Philip, her late husband, and recently enjoyed a bit of public fun with Paddington Bear. Her time as monarch has witnessed large changes to Western society, such as significant immigration, same-sex marriage, the ending of capital punishment, the advancement of women in the military and commerce, and radical changes to how we work. In all this, she has been a reassuring force. In fact, the more rapidly societies change, the more it seems there is a need for an element of “ballast” and continuity to keep people composed.

The word “composed” seems very apt for her. 

As with all families, the Queen’s has had its share of disappointments, breaks, controversies and unhappiness, but these should not overshadow the benefits of the bonds and webs of mutual support that families, at their best, embody. That is surely worth reflecting on, regardless of whether one is a supporter of constitutional monarchy or not. 

For many of our readers, they have only known one UK monarch during their lives. The prospect of change, even though it is inevitable, will prove a shock, and in some ways more so in these unsettling times. But change will come as Charles ascends the throne, and a new chapter begins.