lpetrich
Contributor
QE2 may want to keep on going, but some other monarchs have abdicated as a way of retiring.
From Abdication,
From Abdication,
Wikipedia has a big List of monarchs who abdicated though some were forced to abdicate.In recent decades, the monarchs or leaders of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Qatar, Cambodia, Bhutan and Japan have abdicated as a result of old age. In the Netherlands, the last three monarchs Wilhelmina, Juliana, and Beatrix have all abdicated. In all three instances, this was done to pass the throne to the heir sooner.