海角大神

Come January, Queen Elizabeth is handing off 25 of her patronages to other members of the Royal Family.

The queen is stepping down from her positions at national organizations including聽Save the Children, the聽NSPCC, and the聽Royal Geographical Society at the end of the year, Buckingham Palace announced this week.聽

The announcement has been taken as an acknowledgment of the queen's advancing age in her 90th birthday year. In stepping down from some of her patronages, she is following the example of the Duke of Edinburgh, who also resigned from a number of patronages around the time that he turned 90 years old in 2011. As retirement is not an option for members of the Royal Family, Queen Elizabeth has been gradually lightening her load in recent years by reducing the number of public engagements she undertakes per year. 聽

A popular ruler, the queen also holds the record as the longest-serving monarch in British history, as聽Annika Fredrikson reported for 海角大神 in September 2015:

While she will continue to serve as patron to hundreds of other charities and organizations, family members including Prince Charles, Prince Harry, and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will each take over some of the 25 patronages聽that the queen is stepping down from.

Prince Charles will take on the role of patron of the Holocaust Day Memorial Trust and the Royal Institution, while Prince Harry, Prince William, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge will replace the queen as patrons of the聽Rugby Football Union and the Rugby Football League, the聽Amateur Swimming Association, and the聽All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC) in Wimbledon, the BBC reports.

The announcement that the queen would step down from some of these organizations was lamented by some Brits mourning what they see as the beginning of the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign. As Alison Phillips聽wrote for Mirror in response to the news:聽