>in the final years of the Queen's life, her accent reverted to be more similar to the way she spoke in her youth. Not surprising at all. The trick here is to

>in the final years of the Queen's life, her accent reverted to be more similar to the way she spoke in her youth. Not surprising at all. The trick here is to realise three things: 1) People change quite a bit the way that they speak, when they're paying attention to their own speech; that's called "monitored speech". 2) For most individuals, non-monitored speech is rather consistent over the years. The way that you spoke in your early childhood will likely be the same as you speak in your old age; disregarding changes caused by physiology (as vocal folds , everything else will be rather subtle. 3) As you get older, you learn the amazing art of not giving enough of a fuck about irrelevant shit; such as monitoring your own speech. And your public image is pretty much set on stone, too, so there's less of a reason to monitor it. Elizabeth II's non-monitored "default" was that distinctive upper class accent, as expected from someone who was literally raised as a princess. However that accent might be slightly undesirable when you're a queen, as it creates a distance between you and the population, so she slowly "mainstreamised" it under monitored speech. However, as she got older, she stopped monitoring her own speech so much, so she reverted back to her default.