Queen Elizabeth "Found It Easier" to Get Emotional About Animals Versus People, Says Royal Biographer

Corgis and Queen Elizabeth have always gone hand in hand, and the late monarch owned more than 30 corgis and dorgis (corgi-dachshund mixes) during her lifetime. But she also was a lifelong aficionado of horses and other animals, including her lesser-known love of pigeons. In his new biography of the late Queen, author Robert Hardman shared that the monarch chose to keep her emotions in check in most situations—except when it came to animals.

In Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. Her Story, Hardman revealed that Queen Elizabeth “was especially reserved when it came to mourning” people. “For the most part, she avoided overt commiseration and non-family funerals, sending a representative instead,” Hardman wrote. The reason was entirely practical, however, with the author noting, “Were she to start attending, so the thinking went, she would soon find herself doing little else.”

However, when it came to animals, it was a different story. Hardman wrote that the late Queen “found it easier to discuss emotions through animals.”

Per Hardman, her former private secretary, Martin Charteris, “told author Graham Turner that he had written many personal letters” to Queen Elizabeth that didn’t get responses. But the late Queen sent “an anguished missive after the death of a much-loved Labrador killed by rat poison.”

And a former lady-in-waiting pointed out that she didn’t get a reply from the late Queen after sending a letter “about a seriously ill child,” but did receive “a six-page outpouring on the subject of a dead corgi.”

Hardman wrote that no one seemed to take offense to the late Queen’s approach to emotion. “Those who knew her well were neither offended nor surprised,” he penned. “They had no doubt that she cared deeply but preferred to keep her emotions in check.”

After all, “She thought a sobbing Queen was no use to anyone.”