Queen Elizabeth II reportedly refused a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Queen Elizabeth II in carriage

The Nobel Peace Prize is among the most prestigious honors in the world, but not everyone considered for the prize has wanted it. Buckingham Palace was approached on more than one occasion about nominating Queen Elizabeth II for the prize — including as recently as 2018 — but the idea was always politely rebuffed. Though the queen never provided an on-the-record explanation as to why, a line from a speech she gave on her 21st birthday has been pointed to as a possible motivation: “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service.” In other words, she didn’t think it necessary to receive an award for fulfilling her stated duty.

Queen Elizabeth wasn’t the only person to turn down a Nobel Peace Prize nomination. Vietnamese politician Lê Đức Thọ did so in 1973 because it was to be a joint honor shared with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Thọ and Kissinger had negotiated a ceasefire during the Vietnam War, and Thọ believed the U.S. had violated the term’s agreements. The decision to award Kissinger was so controversial that two members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee resigned in protest, while The New York Times referred to the award as the “Nobel War Prize.”

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Nobel Prizes are not given posthumously.

Any chance of Queen Elizabeth II finally receiving the Nobel Peace Prize ended with her death in 2022, as the Nobel Committee does not give out posthumous awards. There have been a few exceptions, however, some of which weren’t intentional. Ralph M. Steinman was announced as having won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine on October 3, 2011, but died on September 30 without the committee realizing it. He received the prize anyway. Prior to 1974, the official rule was that an honoree could win posthumously as long as they had been nominated before February 1 of the same year, as was the case for 1931 literature winner Erik Axel Karlfeldt and 1961 Peace Prize honoree Dag Hammarskjöld.