Exclusive: Royal Biographer Robert Hardman Reveals the “Sharp” and “Authentic” Side of Queen Elizabeth the Public Rarely Saw

For 70 years, the world saw Queen Elizabeth II as a model of restraint. Her calm, composed and famously unreadable personality kept an air of mystery around the Royal Family. But behind palace doors, she could be far more direct, dryly funny and even a little “sharp,” as royal biographer Robert Hardman shares.

In his latest book, Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. Her Story, Hardman paints a picture of a monarch who sized people up quickly, spoke her mind when it mattered, and became more decisive with age.

Speaking to Marie Claire via Zoom ahead of the late Queen’s 100th birthday on April 21, the royal biographer shares one moment when Queen Elizabeth wasn’t afraid to share her true thoughts. “She's standing there with a government minister looking out of the windows at Windsor Castle and you can see this town in the distance called Slough, which is not a very nice town,” Hardman says. The minister remarked, “‘Oh, there's Slough, Your Majesty. You know, I grew up there.’ And The Queen just went, ‘Oh, you poor thing.’”

Adding that she made “no attempt” at royal diplomacy in the moment, Hardman notes, "She was authentic. She was herself.” He adds that as opposed to the “public Queen,” the “private Queen was much more practical, pragmatic, could be very direct, could be quite sharp.”

Reflecting on that sharpness, the author says, “She did start to smile more in later life, but you know in public, she was still a mysterious, slightly scary figure.”

Even experienced leaders often became tongue-tied in the late Queen’s presence. Hardman says that although the late Queen was a “maternal figure” that “everyone felt warm and cozy” about, he adds that “very, very senior and important people felt rather scared when they were around her.”

During the earlier decades of her reign, the late Queen was seen as measured and cautious. But according to Hardman, that instinct shifted noticeably in her later years, and instead of becoming more passive with age, she grew more decisive.

“You see the family dramas unfolding in the ‘90s and she's sort of slightly thinking, ‘Well, let's sort of park this and hope for the best and see what happens,’” the biographer says. “By the time, you know, Harry and Meghan are putting accusations out there on the airwaves, I mean, she's straight back within hours.”

He adds, “I think she realized increasingly in life that a problem deferred is a sort of a problem magnified.”

Instead of the stereotype of an older woman who gets “pushed aside,” Hardman says Queen Elizabeth only became stronger. “The older she got, the sort of stronger she got, in a sense,” he shares. “And she was very direct in her decision-making really in her later years.”

However swift she might've been with deciding Harry and Meghan's fate, the late Queen has been criticized for not having a firmer hand with her middle son, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Hardman says Queen Elizabeth “had this great dilemma of being both a mother and a grandmother and great-grandmother, and being the custodian of this institution.”

“I think when those things clashed, she found it very painful, which is why Andrew and Harry were were were big issues for her,” the biographer shares.

Despite the family trials of her later years, the late Queen's sense of confidence stayed with her up until her final days. She might have been happy with her dogs and horses in the countryside, but duty was everything to Queen Elizabeth.

“She really enjoyed being Queen,” Hardman says. “She didn't want to stop being Queen. And right up to her last week, you know, within 48 hours before her death, she was appointing a prime minister and was in a very good mood because that's sort of—that’s really sort of her primary duty, is to ensure the governance of her nation.”

“I mean she enjoyed peace and quiet, but she never wanted a quiet life,” he added.