When Buckingham Palace released its Sovereign Grant Report on June 25, the monarch’s tax bill was revealed for the first time in history, revealing that King Charles has paid $39 million in taxes since taking the throne in 2022. But along with the Royal Family’s finances, the report also revealed that The King and Queen never plan on moving into Buckingham Palace. The decision comes as no surprise based on The King and Prince William moving toward a more modern monarchy, but Queen Elizabeth was never entirely fond of living in London, either.

Former royal chef Darren McGrady once told Coffee Friend that Queen Elizabeth “never really liked the palace,” explaining that Buckingham Palace had “always been the office to the (late) Queen.”

“The Queen would always be whizzing off back to Windsor Castle,” he added, explaining she usually couldn’t “wait to get back there.”

In 2020, the late Queen relocated to Windsor Castle permanently and remained there until shortly before her 2022 death, when she traveled to Balmoral Castle for her annual summer stay.

“Nearly no member of the royal family has ever enjoyed living at Buckingham Palace,” royal commentator Giselle Bastin of Flinders University told ABC News Australia, adding the building isn't “conducive to cozy family living” and it “feels a little like ‘living above the shop.’”

Although Queen Elizabeth chose to follow tradition by living at Buckingham Palace, King Charles and Prince William are more willing to make their own rules as the monarchy moves toward the future.

Clarence House remains the London home of The King and Queen, and they also spend a fair amount of time in the countryside, with both of Their Majesties owning retreats outside of the city. The King loves spending time at Highgrove House in Gloucestershire, while Queen Camilla relaxes at Ray Mill House in Wiltshire.

As for Prince William and his family, they moved into Forest Lodge, a Georgian mansion in Windsor Great Park, in autumn 2025, and reports indicate that the future King intends it to be his "forever home."

Instead of continuing as a home for the Royal Family, Buckingham Palace will remain the central headquarters for the monarchy. “It will remain a working home but we are seeking to widen public access precisely to maximise the national benefit of a publicly-funded building,” the palace reported.

Paul Burrell might be best known as the controversial former butler to Princess Diana, but before he worked for the late royal, Burrell served Queen Elizabeth as a footman at Buckingham Palace. In a recent conversation, Burrell, speaking on behalf of Champions Speakers Agency, recalls a particularly memorable moment with the late Queen—and the joke that she didn’t quite get.

Burrell, 68, shares that one of his duties was to bring the Imperial State Crown to Queen Elizabeth before the State Opening of Parliament each year. After it was brought over from the Tower of London, the former footman would bring the historic crown on a red cushion and “take it into the Queen’s bedroom and put it on a small table.”

Queen Elizabeth was known to practice wearing the Crown Jewels around the house due to their weight, even wearing St Edward’s Crown, used for her coronation, to give Prince Charles and Princess Anne a bath. While Burrell certainly didn’t intrude on the late monarch’s bath time, he describes one night when he witnessed Queen Elizabeth taking part in some crown-wearing practice.

“On one evening, I went into her room, and the room was in pitch black. And I stood there in the doorway. She’d rung her bell to say goodnight,” he recalls. “And I stood there, transfixed.”

Burrell shares that Queen Elizabeth was sitting at her desk wearing the Imperial State Crown, and her lamp meant the “facets of all the diamonds and emeralds and sapphires were shooting in my direction.”

When the late Queen asked him why he was smiling, Burrell says he replied, “Your Majesty, if only your people could see you now."

“She said, ‘What do you mean?’” the former palace staffer continues. “I said, ‘Well, wearing your crown around your house’. And as I looked down, she was wearing her pink, fluffy slippers.”

Burrell told the late monarch that her ensemble was “a sign of a monarch and a mother all rolled into one,“ adding “It would make a very good pub name. The Crown and Slippers.”

The footman, who was called “Small Paul” to set him apart from footman Paul Whybrew, a.k.a. “Tall Paul,” shares that Queen Elizabeth didn't quite get the joke. “I don’t think she found that very amusing,” he says. “She didn’t understand pub names.”

He also admits to “nearly” trying on the Imperial State Crown for himself...until the late Queen walked in on him.

“The Queen had a long dressing mirror in her bedroom,” he shares. “So, on one occasion, I went in there, I looked at the crown, I looked at the dressing mirror, and I thought, 'Dare I?' And just at that moment, The Queen came through the bedroom door.”

Like her late mother-in-law Queen Elizabeth, Queen Camilla has always been a horse girl. Royal Ascot is a highlight on Camilla's calendar every June, and she joins The King and other members of the Royal Family on each day of the races. This year, The Queen looked elegant in shades of cream and blue—along with a parade of designer bags—but on June 20, she was snapped in one moment that any racegoer can relate to.

Dressed in a bold royal blue dress by Fiona Clare and a matching Philip Treacy hat, Queen Camilla fumbles with her Lady Dior bag, a pair of gloves and a £20 bill in a photo captured on the balcony of the Royal Box. It felt refreshingly down-to-earth to know that even The Queen carries some betting money to the racecourse, and the folded bank note displayed a photo of Queen Elizabeth instead of the updated King Charles bills.

Former royal butler Grant Harrold previously told Marie Claire (via Spin Genie) that members of the Royal Family are indeed "allowed to bet on horses," and Queen Elizabeth "was famously known for betting" at the races.

Harrold shared "there's a clip of her winning a whole entire £20, which she was really excited about," adding that the royals "don't bet silly; they just bet what anyone else would put on...They like putting something on; it would be wrong not to."

But even if the late Queen did bet at Ascot, she wasn't known to carry cash in her purse—with one exception. Per the Telegraph, Queen Elizabeth always brought one "precisely folded" five-pound bill to put in the donation plate at church on Sundays.

As for Queen Camilla, Harrold says she's the one to go to for betting advice. "If you're going to be taking advice on which horses, I would look at Camilla for a good tip," he shared.

Despite suffering from mobility issues, Queen Elizabeth carried out her duties to the very end, meeting with the incoming Prime Minister, Liz Truss, just two days before her 2022 death at the age of 96. The late Queen turned to members of her family for support at times, but as Queen Camilla told author Gyles Brandreth, it wasn’t always “necessary.”

In the months following Prince Philip’s 2021 death, those around the late Queen worried about her mental state. Brandreth, a longtime friend of the Royal Family, noted in his book Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait that Queen Elizabeth had a “different” approach to mourning than her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria.

“There is no magic formula that will transform sorrow into happiness,” she said, “but being busy helps.” Part of keeping busy meant attending to royal duties, when possible, since Philip's death happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. This meant attending the October 2021 openings of Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senedd, and King Charles and Queen Camilla came along for both trips.

But Camilla, then known as the Duchess of Cornwall, told Brandreth that their presence really wasn’t “required” due to the formidable Queen.

“‘We weren’t required,’” the Duchess said to me soon afterwards, laughing,” Brandreth wrote. “‘We were there to help out if necessary. It wasn’t necessary. The Queen did it all. She wanted to.” Camilla added, “She’s unstoppable.”

Queen Elizabeth put so much energy into staying busy after her husband's death that Brandreth said she pushed it a bit too far. “In that period of six months, the late Queen “did so much, so purposefully and with such a determination to not give way to any form of self-pity (which, she said, ‘My husband would certainly have not approved of’), that she probably did too much.”

However, no could have accused of her of wallowing. “Life goes on,” she said. “It has to.”

Queen Elizabeth II was known for many things—her historical reign, her boldly-hued wardrobe, the corgis—but one of her deepest passions was horses. The late Queen attended horse races and horse shows throughout the year, rain or shine, sometimes even in sickness and health. She was a passionate horsewoman, and it felt that equestrian events like Royal Ascot couldn’t possibly exist without her.

Royal Ascot does carry on, with all the pomp and ceremony that Queen Elizabeth loved, alongside some horse-betting. A highlight of the five day racing events is actually not to do with horses at all, but rather the fashions. Queen Elizabeth II knew better than anyone that fashion plays center-stage at the annual horse races: bold dresses, big hats, and tails and top hats for men. I recently heard someone describe Ascot as stepping back in time, and Queen Elizabeth would fit in in any decade.

Queen Elizabeth’s go-to designer, Stewart Parvin, knew how to lean into the late Queen’s tastes. While no one ever knew what The Queen might wear to the races—bookies would often hold a bet on what color hat she might wear to the day’s events—Parvin always hoped it would be one of his designs. Speaking to The Telegraph, although he never knew what color the hat might be, he said, “there might have been two or three that she could have worn. You always had your fingers crossed that she might wear something, but it was a surprise.”

Alongside a horse racing event and a fashion show, Royal Ascot has always been a very social event, with friends and acquaintances meeting together at the Royal Enclosure. “When it was Royal Ascot, the Queen knew I always went on a Thursday with my family,” Parvin said. “If the weather was nice, she would wear something new of mine,” the designer said, sharing the late Queen’s thoughtful gesture. “If the weather wasn’t good, she wouldn’t ruin a new dress.” Beneath the hats and diamonds, she was a practical girl after all.

With June in full swing, the Royal Family is getting ready to plan a summer full of activities, and that includes an annual trip to Balmoral. Picnics have been a big part of life on the Scottish estate, and former royal butler Grant Harrold shared that these relaxed moments allowed Queen Elizabeth, King Charles and the rest of the family the chance to step away from the formality of palace life.

“Picnics were a massive thing for the late Queen,” Harrold, speaking on behalf of Smooth Spins Casino, said. “She loved her picnics, and you can imagine the picnics come in different variations.”

The late Queen enjoyed everything from a casual meal “with the hamper and travel rug” to “the posher picnics where they all go out somewhere and there's tables and there's chairs,” Harrold shared. But what was more important than the location was the private time with family and friends.

Harrold, who served King Charles at Highgrove House between 2004 and 2011, said that while he’d occasionally help set things up for the royals, they “would normally do it themselves.”

“The chefs prepared all the food, the butlers would load everything into the vehicles, and off they would go,” he recalled. However, if there was a larger lunch planned, Harrold said the butlers “would go and help lay out the tables, but we wouldn’t serve the food. It would all just get put out and they would help themselves.”

“There was no staff, so it was a great chance for them to have private time as a family,” he added.

That do-it-yourself attitude also extended to cleaning up. Multiple guests of the late Queen have noted that she washed the dishes herself after casual meals at Balmoral, including one former courtier.

“I was once at a shooting lunch,” the royal insider told Harry Mount (via the Daily Mail). “At the end of lunch, I heard someone say, 'I’ll do the washing-up.' I turned around and there was the Queen in her yellow washing-up gloves.”

As sovereign and Head of State, Queen Elizabeth II could never really clock out and put up her Out Of Office. Those iconic red boxes would arrive, day in and day out, and she always had various royal duties or engagements in her diary. To celebrate her 100th birthday, the Palace of Holyrood House is giving visitors “the chance to step inside her Private Apartments for the very first time,” to get a feel for Queen Elizabeth’s everyday life—and her relentless royal duties—during her special annual visit to Edinburgh, Scotland.

An expert at Holyrood House revealed on Instagram that Queen Elizabeth II’s workday would start surprisingly late, after a surely luxurious breakfast in the Royal Breakfast Room, “where the Queen and Prince Philip would dine privately while in residence”, and perhaps a walk with her beloved dogs. “During her stay here at the palace, The Queen would often be found working here at the desk, where, at 11 a.m., she would begin her day completing her duties as Head of State,” an expert guide shared on Instagram.

The iconic red boxes—those lead-lined, leather wrapped red briefcases that often appear in movies, belonging to the sovereign, the Prime Minister, or key British government figures—are on display in the late Queen’s private sitting room. The red dispatch boxes “would arrive for the Queen almost every day, given to her by her private secretary,” and Queen Elizabeth reportedly flipped the pile from bottom to top in case her ministers were trying to hide bad news from her.

“When she wasn’t travelling further afield, she would often be found here,” the expert shared, referring to the feminine, opulent sitting room with silk-covered furnishings. “The Queen would be in residence annually during Royal Week,” which was her annual pseudo-vacation in Edinburgh, where she would carry out royal engagements, travel throughout Scotland, and host garden parties.

Fans are looking forward to Prince William, Princess Kate and their children making their annual appearance at Trooping the Colour on Saturday, June 13, but when the Prince of Wales becomes King, this annual tradition could potentially get an update.

Trooping the Colour is the monarch’s official birthday parade, and has taken place annually since 1760, although it was first held during the reign of Charles II. The celebrations are now held in June, but neither King Charles nor Queen Elizabeth had a June birthday—a curiosity explained by former royal butler to The King, Grant Harrold.

“The tradition of a British monarch having two birthdays dates back to the 18th century,” he told Heart Bingo, adding King George II was born in November, “when Britain's weather was often cold, wet and unpredictable.”

Since holding an outdoor carriage procession and military parade in the autumn could be difficult and unpleasant for people to attend, King George II introduced the concept of an official birthday in the summer. “As a result, the monarch has both a real birthday and an official birthday, which are celebrated separately,” Harrold says.

However, Prince William’s birthday happens to be on June 21, unlike The King, who was born in November, and Queen Elizabeth, who had an April birthday. This makes the concept of having an official birthday somewhat unnecessary, as Harrold notes.

“There is no guarantee that Prince William will scrap the two-birthday tradition when he eventually becomes King, but some royal watchers have speculated that he could choose to review it,” he says.

Harrold adds that “there would be less practical need for a separate official birthday” because of William being born in the summer. While it would certainly make sense to hold Trooping the Colour on June 21, the event is traditionally held on a Saturday to allow members of the public to enjoy the festivities.

Only time will tell if the Prince of Wales decides to update Trooping the Colour once he takes the throne, but until then, birthdays are twice as nice for King Charles.

The Royal Yacht Britannia was part of Queen Elizabeth’s life for 44 years, taking the Royal Family on hundreds of trips around the globe. The vessel played host to royal vacations, honeymoons and official foreign visits until it was decommissioned in 1997, and photos from the ceremony show the late Queen wiping a tear from her eye. But Prince Philip told royal author Gyles Brandreth that Queen Elizabeth never actually cried at the event—or in general.

Brandreth, who once worked alongside the late Prince Philip, has been close with the Royal Family for decades. In the biographer’s recent book, Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, he shared the conversation he had with Philip about the late Queen’s alleged tearful moment.

“She doesn’t cry,” the late Duke of Edinburgh told Brandreth in 2006. The topic came up when Helen Mirren, who played Elizabeth in The Queen, burst into tears in a scene following Princess Diana’s death. Prince Philip hadn't seen the film, but said, “They just make it up,” adding, “All I'm saying is that it isn't accurate. The Queen doesn't cry.”

Philip told Brandreth that “you can have feelings without blubbing,” pointing to the decommissioning ceremony of Britannia as an example.

“They’re obsessed with people showing their emotions in public,” the late duke said of the media. “They’re determined to get a picture of The Queen with tears in her eyes—and if it’s a cold day they might succeed.”

When Britannia was taken out of service on December 11, the late Queen was bundled up in a red coat and matching hat for the chilly Scottish day. Referencing a photo of his wife wiping a tear away, Philip told Brandreth that she wasn’t actually crying.

“‘It was the middle of December,’ snorted Philip. ‘It was bloody cold. We all had tears in our eyes.’”

Princess Anne was also seen wiping her eyes during the event, but even if they didn't actually shed tears, the family was certainly emotional over the loss of their beloved yacht. Even former Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted that the decision to get rid of the vessel was probably not his best.

“I didn't want to get rid of it,” Blair told author Valentine Low in his book Power and the Palace. “After we'd agreed to get rid of it, I actually went on it, and I remember, as I stepped on, thinking, 'That was such a mistake to have done that.'”

As public figures, members of the Royal Family have regularly found themselves the subject of tabloid stories and rumors. However, there appears to be just one Royal Family member who escaped tabloid evisceration, and has managed to remain relatively unscathed.

Writing in his book, The Last Queen: Elizabeth II's 70 Year Battle to Save the House of Windsor, Clive Irving noted, "After all the family dramas the House of Windsor (and we) have endured, it is surely a point of wonder that The Queen was the one person in the family who had never really been burned by the tabloids."

Irving continued, "She remained the calm stoic at the center of many storms. And the greatest storm of her life since [World War II] came, as it did to all of us, stealthily, invisibly, and lethally. With her government and her country struggling to contain and defeat a ravaging modern plague, [COVID-19], The Queen was called upon to bring her own uniquely calming qualities to her people."

According to Irving, Elizabeth's 2020 speech regarding COVID-19 was a poignant moment, which combined all of her many strengths.

"[S]he embodied the full span of her years as the connecting tissue between one time of mortal terror and another, in a speech to the nation," the biographer shared.

While most modern royals have faced scandals and difficulties, many of which have been covered extensively by the press, Queen Elizabeth appears to have avoided any such pitfall. Instead, the late monarch is largely remembered very positively.

Princess Kate debuted a gorgeous Roland Mouret dress at Peter Phillips and Harriet Sperling’s June 6 wedding, and royally-approved fashion designer Amanda Wakely has weighed in on the Princess of Wales’s “timeless look.”

Kate, who wore a dark cream design featuring a collar and twirly skirt, matched her Jane Taylor boater hat and high-heeled pumps to her neutral dress, and Wakely pointed out that it was an approach similar to Queen Elizabeth.

Speaking about the Princess of Wales’s monochromatic outfits on the Daily Mail's "Palace Confidential" show, Wakely noted, “so her hat matches the dress, matches her shoes. Often her bag too, which I think is a tip she took from the late Queen's book.”

Queen Elizabeth wore a rainbow of colorful coats during the later decades of her reign, pairing them with a matching hat in the same color. But while the late Queen typically chose to wear black shoes and a black handbag instead of going completely monochromatic, the Princess of Wales tends to prefer a full matching moment.

Wakely, who designed for Princess Diana, said that Princess Kate's monochrome moments give off "such a timeless look.” She added that since the Princess of Wales ”generally wears British fashion” she has become ”a global brand ambassador” for the British fashion industry.

A number of the late Queen's most iconic styles are now on display at The King's Gallery in Buckingham Palace, with everything from her rainbow-hued dresses to her christening gown and coronation gown included in the blockbuster exhibition.

As for the Princess of Wales, Wakely praised the "longer length clothes she's embracing now,” adding that her outfits always have "such a beautiful silhouette.”

When it was announced that King Charles and Queen Camilla were confirmed to attend the Epsom Derby on the same day as his nephew Peter Phillips’s wedding, some royal watchers wondered if he’d be skipping the nuptials. But true to form, the smiling King and Queen arrived at the church in Kemble, England on Saturday before dashing off to the derby. It’s an approach The King’s former butler, Grant Harrold, says is markedly different from the late Queen.

Speaking on behalf of CasinoHawks, Harrold says King Charles has always “adored his nephew,” describing them as “very close.” He adds that even though it was a tight timeline, The King made sure that being at Peter's wedding was a top priority, despite his scheduled royal duties.

“It would have been a logistical nightmare to make it work, but the King and his team would have gone to extreme lengths to ensure he could be there for the ceremony,” Harrold shares.

Queen Elizabeth was known for her incredible dedication to Crown and country, but at times, that came at the expense of her family, as Harrold points out. He calls The King attending Peter and Harriet’s wedding “interesting because it shows how different the King is to his mother.”

“The late Queen was always about duty first, family after,” he shares. “She missed many family occasions as she didn’t want to let people down at official engagements. However, The King is a bit more relaxed on this, and wants to make sure he’s there for the big moments in his family’s life.” Harrold describes his former boss as trying to keep “all the plates spinning.”

“Where The Queen was Crown first, family second, the King works really hard to keep them equal,” he adds.

Although the King and Queen weren’t able to be there for Peter and Harriet’s wedding reception at Princess Anne’s home, Gatcombe Park, the bride and groom certainly would have understood.

“Many people took this as rude or a snub, but that couldn’t be further from the truth,” Harrold says of Their Majesties leaving early. “The King was due to present a trophy at the races, which is a huge engagement in the royal diary. And while for us, we wouldn’t feel bad about cancelling a work event for a close family member’s wedding, it’s of course very, very different from the royals.”

When Queen Elizabeth II died on September 8, 2022, she left behind an incomparable legacy, having spent 70 years on the British throne. But at a number of points during her life, the late Queen was reportedly compared to other Royal Family members, often unfairly, per one royal expert.

In the book Queen Elizabeth II: Pocket Giants, royal expert Victoria Arbiter examined one instance in which the late monarch was pitted against a younger family member.

"In 1983, Charles and Diana were lauded for taking their 9-month-old son Prince William on their 6-week tour to Australia and New Zealand," Arbiter shared. "Pundits took to their columns, comparing the cold unfeeling Queen who left her children behind, to Diana, who defied convention and broke with tradition."

But as Arbiter noted, the comparison isn't necessarily equitable due to a number of factors.

"In order to do a fair comparison, however, one must consider the generational divide," the royal expert explained. "30 years had passed between The Queen's tour and that of the Waleses's, during which time advances in modern aviation made travel significantly speedier."

Discussing some of the reasons why Queen Elizabeth II shouldn't have been compared to her daughter-in-law, Arbiter wrote, "People's attitudes towards royalty had shifted and, adored as she was, Diana was merely a princess, not The Queen."

Importantly, when the monarch arrived in Bermuda in November 1953 following a 17-hour flight, she faced a huge welcome party and incredible pressures.

"News reports declared that nearly every one of the island nation's 38,000 residents had turned out for a glimpse of their new sovereign," the expert explained. "Conversely, when Charles and Diana landed in Alice Springs...a handful of local officials waited to greet them."

Arbiter continued, "After a brief photo call, William and his nanny left for Woomargama, a working sheep and cattle ranch in South West Australia. He remained there for the duration of the tour, and his parents visited him several times."

Charles and Diana spent a total of 6 weeks in Australia and New Zealand. Meanwhile, Queen Elizabeth was away for 6 months—from November 1953 until May 1954—visiting everywhere from Jamaica, Fiji and Tonga, Australia and New Zealand, with a return sailing stopping in Ceylon, Aden, Uganda, Malta, and Gibraltar, per Cambridge University.

With very different remits and expectations placed upon them, Diana and Elizabeth arguably had very separate aims during their respective trips, leading to unfair comparisons.

One of Queen Elizabeth’s trusted companions has passed away at the age of 97. Lady Pamela Hicks, who was a first cousin of Prince Philip and served as a lady-in-waiting and bridesmaid to the late Queen, died on Friday, June 5.

Her daughter, India Hicks, announced the sad news in an Instagram post. “My mother died peacefully today,” she wrote. “Whilst there is no tragedy in the death of a 97-year-old who has lived a full life I know grief will be unavoidable, lurking around waiting for me, but today I am simply grateful that she was my Mother.”

Lady Pamela—otherwise known as Lady P—joined India to share memories of her fascinating life on her podcast, and was the author of Daughter of Empire: My Life as a Mountbatten. In turn, India released the book Lady Pamela: My Mother's Extraordinary Years as Daughter to the Viceroy of India, Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen, and Wife of David Hicks, in 2024.

In her post, India said her mother “made incomparable company, carrying her memories lightly, and always with humour.”

“My mother maintained right up to the end, the impeccable style, sharp mind, and effortless charm that made her not only a cherished institution, but truly the last of her kind,” she added.

In 2024, India sat down with Marie Claire to talk about her book, sharing that Lady Pamela “has had an exceptional life in the fact that she’s obviously had a front-seat to historic events.”

“No one today was with The Queen [Elizabeth] the moment she became Queen,” India said, referring to the fact that Lady Pamela was with Elizabeth in Kenya on the day she found out her father had died.

When it comes to the idea of a slimmed-down monarchy, India said that her mother believed that King Charles, Queen Camilla, Prince William and Princess Kate were the true heart of the family. “She thinks that it is modernizing in a way that it should, and she absolutely believes in the thinning down of the Royal Family and making it this core hardworking foursome,” she told Marie Claire.

Lady Pamela was married to David Hicks, who died in 1998, and in addition to India, is survived by her children Ashley Hicks and Edwina Brudenell.

As Queen Elizabeth II's husband, Prince Philip lived his life in the spotlight. The former Duke of Edinburgh died on April 9, 2021, at the age of 99, just two months shy of his 100th birthday. And according to one royal biographer, the very active Prince Philip reportedly needed one thing to help him deal with his "pent-up frustrations."

In the book The Last Queen: Elizabeth II's Seventy Year Battle to Save the House of Windsor, royal biographer Clive Irving discussed how Prince Philip handled living in his wife's shadow.

"Behind Philip's life of 'many activities and interests,' there were persisting frustrations," Irving shared.

As for how the prince mitigated those frustrations, the biographer explained, "[Artist and osteopath Stephen] Ward had mentioned seeing [Philip] play polo. People who watched him were struck by the merciless way he treated his ponies."

One polo player described Philip's behavior, saying, "He drives it, and he wants a machine out in front of him so when he steps on the throttle it goes, when he brakes, it stops, and it goes fast left or right."

Irving continued, "Another noted that he 'needed to play polo to get rid of all of his pent-up frustrations...but after a few games he would be a different man—the frustration gone.'"

According to Irving, Philip had a plethora of different frustrations, including the direction of his son, King Charles.

"The Queen had ceded to Philip all decisions on the education that her children should receive, believing this to be the natural order of family responsibilities," the biographer explained.

Irving continued, "In one respect Philip did not follow the customary choice of the upper-class and the most socially ambitious parents by sending his son to Eton. Philip believed that his own education, Cheam followed by Gordonstoun, would produce the best outcome—which was, apparently, a replica of himself, or what could be called the Mountbatten model of manliness."

Unfortunately, King Charles "did not fit happily into" his father's model of what his schooling and future should look like, allegedly causing Philip additional frustration.

It might be hard to picture Queen Elizabeth watching television, but just like any of us, the late Queen had her favorites when it came to game shows and even police dramas. Longtime friend of the Royal Family Gyles Brandreth revealed one of the monarch’s favorite programs in his book Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, and he said that watching TV helped her relate to the public.

After Prince Philip died in 2021, the late Queen took up watching a surprising show, according to Vice-Admiral Sir Tony Johnstone-Burt, who was part of the royal’s bubble at Windsor Castle during the COVID-19 pandemic. “My principal duty with HM has been to keep her spirits up—so I’ve been watching Line of Duty with her,” he told Brandreth.

The crime drama follows a police anti-corruption unit, and Johnstone-Burt said his role was “the explainer,” adding it was “very funny” to sit down with the late Queen for an episode.

Brandreth wrote that Queen Elizabeth “laughed as she struggled to understand the convoluted plotting and sometimes incomprehensible dialogue” in the show, adding that the late Queen herself told him that there was one problem with watching TV.

“It keeps me in touch—when I can understand what’s being said,” she admitted to the author. “There’s an awful lot of mumbling on television now.” The late Queen added, “It’s not my hearing. They just don’t seem to speak as clearly as they used to.”

Along with watching Line of Duty, Queen Elizabeth reportedly hate-watched another police procedural series called The Bill. “I don’t like The Bill but I just can’t help watching it,” she once said, per the Guardian.

Her other favorites are said to have included Strictly Come Dancing, Dr. Who, quiz show Pointless and Downton Abbey—but she wasn't above a critique of the period drama. Brian Hoey, author of At Home With The Queen, said the late Queen loved to “point out things they have got wrong, partly because she is familiar with Highclere Castle, where it is filmed.”

Queen Margrethe was hospitalized for the second time in a month after suffering from a blood clot this week, but the former queen of Denmark has weathered many storms during her 86 years. The Danish royal opened up about her royal life and her late husband, Prince Henrik, to royal author Gyles Brandreth, who included his conversation with Margrethe in his recent biography of Queen Elizabeth II.

In Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, Brandreth wrote that Queen Margrethe told him “how much she admired Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh,” while also noting that she “was related to both.” The former Danish queen—who abdicated her throne to her son, King Frederik, in 2024—was one of Queen Elizabeth’s third cousins, as they both were descendants of Queen Victoria as well as King Christian IX of Denmark.

“I love coming to their parties in London, especially when they are just family gatherings, for wedding anniversaries and that sort of thing,” Queen Margrethe told the author of Elizabeth and Philip. The best thing about the parties, she said, was that sense of being able to “be yourself” among other people who understand what it’s like to be a royal.

“If it’s just royalty in the room, once the door is closed you know you’re all there because you are related, however distantly. You feel safe,” she said. “You can say what you like, you can be yourself. Royals understand other royals.”

During their conversation, which took place a few years before Queen Elizabeth's 2022 death, the former Danish queen admitted that it was tough for outsiders like her late husband, Prince Henrik, to adjust to royal life.

“In the old days when royals married other royals, there were disadvantages, of course, but there were advantages, too,” she said. “Everyone had been brought up in the same sort of way. It can be difficult if you're an outsider. My husband has found it difficult, I know.”

Queen Margrethe told Brandreth that her marriage to the French-born diplomat had “many ups and downs” over their 50-plus-year relationship until he died in 2018. “Your Queen and Prince Philip are cousins,” she added “while lighting another cigarette,” Brandreth wrote. “I think that helps.”

Queen Elizabeth had a simple approach to food, and in her nineties, still enjoyed the same “jam penny” sandwiches she ate as a school girl. While she had a love for British classics, former royal chef Darren McGrady revealed that King Charles enjoys one particular cuisine more than his late mother.

In a video on his YouTube channel, the former Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace chef shared a recipe for a mushroom risotto that he served to The King—and revealed His Majesty’s fondness for Italian food.

“Now King Charles has a different palate to his mother,” McGrady said. “The Queen was very much into traditional French cuisine and British comfort food. But King Charles really, really likes Italian cuisine and especially this dish, risotto.”

The King and Queen Camilla are both avid mushroom hunters and are famously competitive over the hobby, and McGrady recalled a time when Charles invited him into the woods with a famous chef.

While preparing his risotto in the video, McGrady said that “King Charles preferred this classic dish with wild mushrooms” and would go out foraging for them himself, especially at Balmoral Castle.

“He would love to go foraging up there for the wild mushrooms on the estate,” the chef shared. “I remember one time he invited Antonio Carluccio, one of the most amazing Italian chefs who really knew his mushrooms, and I got to go out with them.”

As for the late Queen, she wasn't known to be a connoisseur of Italian food, and in a 2020 interview with Us Weekly, McGrady said that Queen Elizabeth “never had pizza.” “I didn't start cooking pizza until I moved across to Kensington Palace,” he added.

Former Great British Baking Show judge Prue Leith is dishing on her storied career in her new book Being Old…and Learning to Love It!, and in the memoir, she also opened up on some of her embarrassing encounters with the Royal Family.

“I actually think there's something about the Royal Family, they jinx things,” Leith told People. The TV personality and chef noted that emotions run high when it comes to royal events—and that tends to lead to catering catastrophes.

“Because I think what happens is people get quite overexcited at the thought of them and then everything seems to go wrong,” Leith added. “You talk to any caterer and they'll tell you drama stories about the royals.”

One of her most awkward encounters involved Queen Elizabeth and a botched cup of tea.

Leith previously shared the story in a 2024 Instagram Reel, detailing the time when she was tasked with serving tea to the late Queen at the 1986 opening of London’s Queen Elizabeth Centre.

Instead of delivering the strong black tea Queen Elizabeth preferred, the Great British Baking Show alumna gave her “weak lemony tea” after the palace refused to confirm how the monarch liked hers made.

“Personally, the thing that upset me most was not giving The Queen a decent cup of tea, because I much admired The Queen and I thought, 'Poor bloody woman. She's been walking around this extremely boring building for two hours…By the time she got to me, she must have been absolutely panting for a cup of tea, and I failed completely.’”

However, Leith called the time Princess Margaret visited her London restaurant, Leith's, in the 1960s “the worst.”

In the book, Leith reveals that she stood on Princess Margaret’s toe and her “snobbish head waiter” wouldn’t serve Margaret the venison casserole she asked for at the time.

Recalling the disaster, Leith told People she “had a quarrel with a head waiter, who didn't want to give the princess what she wanted. He said, 'I will not serve stew to a princess.' I said, 'Why did I ever hire this guy? He's terrible.’”

On top of the awkward incident, the waiter caught on fire while refilling a flame lamp in the kitchen, and Leith said “the restaurant was empty, I had to marshal waiters to try and look like customers, try and look like what looked like sophisticated, smart customers. The waiters were all clicking their fingers at their colleagues, who weren't actually being waiters.”

Princess Diana was just 19 years old when she got engaged to King Charles. When the pair married on July 29, 1981, Diana had just turned 20; at the time, Charles was 32. As a result, the couple learned to navigate their age gap, and according to Diana, she sometimes felt like a child within the Royal Family.

In a letter written to former classmate Katherine Hanbury in September 1981, Princess Diana discussed a myriad of topics, including her recent honeymoon with Charles.

"We had a blissful honeymoon with endless sun and luckily calm seas," Diana shared (via the Telegraph). "[W]e are now up in Scotland until the end of October, which is a big treat for us—I adore being outside all day and hate London!"

Diana also praised her husband in the letter, writing, "[It's] wonderful being married—I think [it's] safe to say that after two months!"

As for how she felt about joining the Royal Family, Diana told Hanbury, "[It's] a case of playing with grown-ups!"

The letter, along with a collection of other memorabilia, is set to be auctioned by Gorringe's Fine Art and Interiors in July 2026.

Of the sale, Gorringe's books and manuscripts specialist, Albert Radford, told the Telegraph, "This intimate archive offers a rare glimpse of Diana, Princess of Wales, before duty and fame had the final say."

Radford continued, "She appears here as a young woman suspended between love and history—hopeful, unguarded, and not yet entirely claimed by the institution that would come to define her. In these small, fragile traces, innocence lingers—along with a quiet stubborn belief in something as simple and elusive as love."

Queen Elizabeth remains loved by people around the globe. When she died on September 8, 2022, tributes poured in from royal fans worldwide. Even though the late monarch is remembered positively for a smorgasbord of reasons, she wasn't without her flaws, per one royal expert.

Writing for the Express, deputy royal editor Rebecca Russell referenced a memo from 2000 released earlier this week, which revealed that Queen Elizabeth lobbied for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's role as trade envoy. The former Duke of York would go on to become the U.K.'s special representative for international trade and investment between 2001 and 2011.

"[E]very legendary leader has to have a tragic flaw," Russell wrote for the Express. "Achilles had his heel. Othello was plagued by jealousy. Caesar had Brutus. And Queen Elizabeth II? She had Andrew."

Importantly, Russell celebrated the late monarch's many successes and the fact she "weathered countless storms," "economic crises," and multiple Royal Family dramas.

"She truly was impeccable; there will never be another like her, and she'd be a daunting act to follow for anyone," the royal expert noted. "But in the same breath, it's not treacherous to admit that she had a blind spot."

Of course, no-one is perfect. But Queen Elizabeth's so-called "flaw" allegedly allowed her disgraced son to benefit from his royal status.

As Russell explained, "It's just unfortunate that her [flaw] came in the shape of a second son with an insufferable sense of self-entitlement and a stalwart refusal to show even the faintest whiff of sympathy for the suffering of others, namely [Jeffrey] Epstein's victims, despite being given every opportunity to do so."

Russell called the release of additional details about Queen Elizabeth's undying support for Andrew as "the ghost of that unconditional love." When it came to the former duke, Queen Elizabeth was reportedly committed to providing him with many opportunities, along with her unending assistance, to her own detriment.

Scotland was a place that remained close to Queen Elizabeth’s heart her entire life, and now her private rooms at the Palace of Holyroodhouse are open to the public for the first time. The Royal Collection Trust announced on May 21 that the late Queen’s personal apartments at the Edinburgh palace will be open for 100 days to celebrate what would’ve been her 100th birthday—and one detail gives a small insight into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s personality.

The former Duke of York has a fondness for stuffed animals, especially teddy bears, and former staff members have shared his very specific requests for how they’re arranged on his bed. It turns out the late Queen had her own teddy rules, as the Palace of Holyroodhouse’s curator, Emma Stead, told Hello!

Visitors to the palace will see a small bear wearing a tartan scarf and hat on the sofa in Queen Elizabeth’s private apartments, and the outlet shared that the late monarch named him Haddington after the town of the same name in Scotland.

“The Queen was given him as a gift and after that she asked that whenever she arrived here, he be placed in that particular position on the sofa awaiting her arrival,” Stead said. “She had a few personal objects that she liked to be placed quite precisely.”

Another curator, Richard Williams, said that staff members would reference photos of the rooms so they knew everything was put back where the late Queen wanted it.

“All we can say is the Queen was very particular and that [the bear] always would have gone there,” Williams said, adding, “I know from staff colleagues in Windsor that if they were going to redecorate her private rooms, they would take photos of everything so that they could put things back in the exact spot.”

The photo trick was something Andrew used for his own teddies, as former royal police officer Paul Page revealed in the ITV documentary Ghislaine, Prince Andrew And The Paedophile (via The Sun).

Page said that Andrew’s bed “had about 50 or 60 stuffed toys positioned and there was a card in a drawer. It was a picture of these bears all in situ. The reason for the laminated picture was that if those bears weren't put back in the right order by the maids, he would shout and scream.”

Former Buckingham Palace maid Charlotte Briggs also discussed Andrew’s teddy specifications during an interview with the Sun in 2022. “As soon as I got the job, I was told about the teddies and it was drilled into me how he wanted them,” she said. “I even had a day's training. Everything had to be just right. It was so peculiar.”

“The teddies had to be in a particular order on his four-poster bed, from the biggest at the back, down to the smallest at the front,” Briggs revealed. “All 72 of them.”

Fortunately, Queen Elizabeth only had one bear, and shouting and screaming wasn't quite her style.

Documents that reveal Queen Elizabeth’s stance on former Prince Andrew’s U.K. trade envoy role have been released, and the papers include some unusual demands made by Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Copies of the documents were published in the Daily Mail on May 21, and a letter addressed to the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary and Secretary of State shows that it was “The Queen’s wish” for Andrew to replace the Duke of Kent as a U.K. trade envoy.

The 2000 letter, written by Sir David Wright, Chief Executive of British Trade International, details a conversation Wright had with Queen Elizabeth’s private secretary. “The Queen is very keen that the Duke of York should take on a prominent role in the promotion of national interests,” the letter reads, adding that “no other member of the Royal Family would be available” to take the position on.

Another letter, written by Kathryn Colvin, Head of Protocol Division, revealed the former Duke of York’s preferences when related to traveling on behalf of the U.K. She noted that his private secretary told her that Andrew “tended to prefer the more sophisticated countries, particularly those in the lead on technology”—but the rest of the sentence is redacted from the document.

As for the types of engagements he wanted to attend, Colvin said that Andrew “was particularly good on high-tech matters” along with events related to young people, but preferred “ballet rather than theatre.”

Although Andrew has been a passionate golfer for years, his private secretary made one very specific request related to his trade envoy work. “Captain Blair particularly asked that The Duke of York should not be offered golfing functions abroad,” the letter said. It continued that even if “he took his clubs with him,” Andrew “would not play in any public sense.”

Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office after e-mails allegedly showed that he shared confidential documents with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

A spokesman for the government said that more documents will be released in due course, and although Andrew did not have business experience, there was “no evidence that a formal due diligence or vetting process was undertaken, and there's no evidence that this was considered.”

The Queen Mother was known for her love of a good drink—especially a gin and Dubonnet—and although her daughter, Queen Elizabeth, wasn’t quite as enthusiastic of a drinker, she did enjoy when dinner parties became a bit spirited. Former royal butler Julius Smith says that the late Queen enjoyed “gossip” and she had a sure-fire way of getting people to open up.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Smith said that Queen Elizabeth had a “mischevious way” to loosen lips. “She used to love to gossip,” he revealed, adding that the monarch would make sure that all of her guests’ wine glasses were full at all times. The outlet reported that the late Queen wouldn’t accept an un-topped glass, “even if they attempted to stop the pouring with their hands.”

“She would say to pour it in through their fingers!” Smith said.

However, the former butler added that Queen Elizabeth’s lifestyle wasn’t as “boozy” as the Queen Mum, who reportedly drank up to 70 alcoholic drinks per week. “She certainly wouldn’t be drinking and things like that as part of the routine,” Smith said of the late Queen, stating that was “more the Queen Mother.”

As for King Charles, Smith said that the monarch prefers “Earl Grey or chamomile tea with honey already stirred in before it even reaches him.” He added, “You don’t need to waste his time offering things and asking questions because you already know what he likes.”

Like his late mother, The King is “not a big eater at all” and goes for modest meals, Smith shared. “She was very keen on white bread with jam and butter,” he said of the late Queen, referring to her favorite “jam penny” sandwiches.

As former royal chef Darren McGrady previously revealed, the sandwiches are “cut into circles the size of an old English penny,” and the late Queen enjoyed eating them her entire life—reportedly with a side of gossip.

Lady Louise Windsor is currently working at The Royal Windsor Horse Show, where she is following in the footsteps of her grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. Louise has also stolen one particular item from mom Duchess Sophie's closet for the occasion.

After borrowing Princess Kate's Holland Cooper sweater earlier in the week, Lady Louise appeared to raid her mom's wardrobe to take part in the Pol Roger Meet of the British Driving Society on Sunday, May 17.

As well as wearing her own Laurence Coste Leonidas Two Coin Gold Earrings, Lady Louise donned a pink wide-brimmed hat for the occasion. The young royal accented the hat with a brat green ribbon-like scarf, swapping out her mom's previous choice.

Duchess Sophie has worn the smart hat on numerous occasions, including to attend the Coral Gold Cup Meeting at Newbury Racecourse in November 2025 with husband Prince Edward. However, instead of a green scarf, Duchess Sophie adorned the hat with a fuchsia pink ribbon.

As well as borrowing a hat from her mom, Lady Louise is following in grandmother Queen Elizabeth's footsteps with her foray into working with horses.

Queen Elizabeth was known for her love of horses and was seen carriage driving on many occasions.

As a result, Lady Louise's decision to take part in The Royal Windsor Horse Show once more, and embrace its many events, shows that she's taking after her grandmother in an important way. And when it comes to Lady Louise's style choices, Duchess Sophie better keep an eye on her closet.

As monarch, Queen Elizabeth knew what was expected of her, and very rarely stepped out of line. In his book Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, author Gyles Brandreth, a longtime friend of the Royal Family, explored the many facets of the late Queen’s personality. Even though the monarch was actually very reserved, the biographer revealed she did have a more cheeky side.

After showing a draft of his book to TV personality and historical advisor Alastair Bruce, who shared a warm relationship with the late Queen, Brandreth wrote that Bruce thought he’d missed out on one key trait of Queen Elizabeth’s. “Her shyness,” he said. “She really was very shy—and used talking about her dogs and her horses to deflect from her shyness.”

Fellow royal biographer Robert Hardman also noted that the late Queen also “found it easier to discuss emotions through animals” in his upcoming book, Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. Her Story. But dogs aside, Bruce shared one hilarious story that showed Queen Elizabeth’s ability to toe the rules just a bit.

“I asked him if she was every naughty—if she ever broke the rules,” Brandreth said of his conversation with Bruce.

“‘Well,’ he said, ‘when she was ill, on doctors’ orders she was told to cut back on milk, so when tea was served, looking mischievous, she would take her teaspoon and dip it into the milk jug and then use the teaspoon to give her tea a quick swirl.”

It's certainly not the most defiant move a royal has made—not even close—but Brandreth noted that the late Queen "accepted her lot in life" and "did not kick against the pricks." However, every once in a while, even The Queen needed to push back against the expected...even if it was just a splash of milk.

Queen Elizabeth famously called Prince Philip “her strength and stay,” and despite being vastly different people, the couple’s 73-year marriage served as a strong example to her children and grandchildren. However, that doesn’t mean the late Queen shared the same interests as her husband—or that he was a huge fan of hers.

In his biography Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, author and friend of the Royal Family Gyles Brandreth wrote that “Philip regularly boosted the Queen’s morale by telling her how lovely she looked and how well she was doing.” But Brandreth added that the two “had separate hobbies and enthusiasms” over the course of their marriage.

Noting that Queen Camilla and King Charles “have more in common” than the late Queen and Prince Philip, he wrote that the late Duke of Edinburgh “found his wife’s corgis infuriating.”

Princess Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell, also worked for the late Queen in the early days of his career. In his second memoir, The Royal Insider, he weighed in on Prince Philip's opinion on the corgis.

“Like many animal lovers, The Queen liked having her dogs in the bedroom—even in bed with her. Prince Philip, who did share a bed with his wife, was not so keen and would mumble about 'those bloody dogs',” Burrell wrote.

As for the late Queen’s equestrian pursuits, Prince Philip might have been a competitive carriage driver, but “did not share her passion for horse racing,” Brandreth wrote. One of the biggest events on Queen Elizabeth’s calendar was Royal Ascot, and she would attend multiple days of the British horse racing spectacle. The late Duke of Edinburgh, however, wasn’t as enthusiastic.

“At Royal Ascot he would do his duty, accompanying the Queen along the course in her open carriage, but once they were there, he would either race back to Windsor Castle by car or disappear into a room at the back of the Royal Box to watch the cricket,” the author revealed.

However, as Prince Philip himself once told Brandreth, the late Queen took it all in stride. “She is infinitely tolerant,” the Duke of Edinburgh said, “and forgiving.”

The Royal Family is an important institution of historical significance, so it makes sense that future spouses might feel nervous about the prospect of becoming royal. According to a former royal employee, one royal bride found Buckingham Palace particularly difficult to navigate for an understandable reason.

In his book, A Royal Duty, Princess Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell, discussed how the former Princess of Wales adapted prior to, and just after, joining the Royal Family.

"The Queen was always accommodating even if she rarely went out of her way to ensure that her prospective daughter-in-law was settled," Burrell shared. "However, adaptability and strength of character are perceived as part of duty, and The Queen herself had had to learn the harsh protocols and isolation of palace life during her childhood."

According to Burrell, the fact that Princess Diana was raised within the nobility, and wasn't a mere commoner, meant she was expected to know how the Royal Family functioned.

"It was assumed that...she would cope with the transition, but where there was assumption there should have been assistance," Burrell explained.

The former butler continued, "What she didn't possess was The Queen's iron will. Essentially a people person, she did not grasp the wholly different way of palace life, which she found friendless, foreign, and peculiar."

Former butler Burrell also suggested that Princess Diana might have benefited from more support from Queen Elizabeth herself.

"It is ironic that The Queen left her to her own devices out of faith in her: she had adopted the trusting attitude that 'if she needs me, she knows where I am,'" the former royal employee shared. "The monarch had belief in her—even if the future Princess of Wales did not share it."

It's likely that most people would share Princess Diana's trepidation upon joining the Royal Family, with her reaction to Buckingham Palace seeming totally appropriate, in fact.

Throughout Queen Elizabeth's life, rumors suggested that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was her favorite child. In spite of the allegations against him, the late Queen reportedly attempted to protect Andrew. And according to one royal biographer, the ex-Duke of York was criticized for allegedly "hiding behind" his mother.

In his book The Queen: 70 Chapters in the Life of Queen Elizabeth II, royal author and expert Ian Lloyd shared, "In August 2021, when [Epstein and Andrew accuser, Virginia] Giuffre's lawyers tried to serve legal documents to [ex-Prince Andrew], he made it virtually impossible by staying with The Queen on the secluded Balmoral estate, giving rise to criticism that he was hiding behind his mother's skirt, so to speak."

Lloyd also alleged that, concurrently, the Royal Family's lawyers were on high alert regarding any news stories involving Andrew. "Meanwhile, [The Queen] instructed her solicitors to warn British media outlets not to take or publish paparazzi photos of the royals or their guests on the estate, though photos of an irate-looking Andrew did appear," Lloyd wrote.

Despite the serious accusations being made about Andrew, The Queen allegedly decided to help her so-called favorite son.

"The Queen's unconditional affection for her second son and her solidarity for him is understandable," Lloyd wrote in his book. "While it must have been a relief to her when, in February 2022, the prince made an out-of-court settlement with Virginia Giuffre, the fact that he knowingly associated himself with a convicted pedophile [Jeffrey Epstein] has caused irreparable damage to his reputation and that of the monarchy."

"That would undoubtedly have broken The Queen's heart and cast a blight on the final phase of her long reign," Lloyd shared.

While Andrew allegedly hid behind his mother during her life, his association with Epstein reportedly caused major damage to his familial relationships.

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip's marriage was a cornerstone of the monarch's 70-year reign. After tying the knot in November 1947, Elizabeth and Philip remained together until the prince's death in April 2021. And according to one royal biographer, Queen Elizabeth believed she owed a huge "debt" to her husband.

In his book The Queen: 70 Chapters in the Life of Queen Elizabeth II, author Ian Lloyd shared, "Neither of them was ever comfortable wearing their hearts on their sleeves but on the day they celebrated their Golden Wedding in November 1997, The Queen paid a rare public tribute to her husband."

Per Lloyd, Elizabeth said of her husband, "He is someone who doesn't take easily to compliments but he has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years, and I, and his whole family, and this and many other countries, owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim, or we shall ever know."

Lloyd also noted that, when Prince Philip turned 90, Queen Elizabeth honored her husband in a more concrete way—by giving him "the title of Lord High Admiral, a position only ever held by the sovereign."

As the royal biographer explained, "For the man who had given up his own promising career to help support her for the rest of his life, it was a touching gesture and one that apparently moved him close to tears."

It's safe to say that Queen Elizabeth most definitely appreciated Prince Philip's support, particularly as he was by her side throughout her impressive reign.

King Charles waited more than 70 years to become King, and since he’s taken the throne, the monarch seems to have a new energy. Despite his cancer treatments, The King keeps up with a busy program of local royal engagements and overseas trips, and one royal biographer wrote that much has changed since Queen Elizabeth died in 2022.

In his biography of the late Queen, Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, Gyles Brandreth writes that King Charles “is a good man with a good heart” and praised his abilities to be a “fine King.” However, the author noted that when he was the Prince of Wales, Charles might’ve been more of an Eeyore than a Tigger.

“Sometimes in the past, he seemed to walk about with an invisible rain cloud hovering over his head," Brandreth, who has been close with the Royal Family for decades, wrote. “Not so now.”

“He is equal to this moment and you can see it straight away—in his bearing, in his tone of voice, his turn of phrase,” Brandreth continued.

Fellow royal biographer Robert Hardman agreed with the sentiment in a recent interview with Marie Claire. “I think he really enjoys being The King,” Hardman, who has been covering Charles for more than 30 years, said. “He is, I would say, as happy as I’ve ever seen him.”

Hardman added that like Queen Elizabeth, “when the buck stops with you” it can feel “quite lonely at the top,” but King Charles seems to feel “a genuine sort of purpose and an energy” now that he’s King.

The author and royal journalist continued that King Charles has managed to maintain a positive attitude despite his health or the many issues plaguing world politics. “Despite everything that's going on, despite the cancer diagnosis, despite the estrangement from his son [Prince Harry], despite the fact that the country is in a dreadful state and the whole world's falling apart…he's a happy monarch,” he said.

Queen Elizabeth’s style is being explored in a blockbuster exhibition at Buckingham Palace this year, and although the late monarch is no longer with us, touches of her iconic wardrobe are still seen in the Royal Family. Queen Camilla, for one, showed similarities to her late mother-in-law at the first Buckingham Palace garden party of the year on May 6.

The Queen had a Cinderella moment on her coronation anniversary, repeating a beautifully embroidered Fiona Clare coat dress with a matching Philip Treacy hat—but it was the rest of her accessories that brought Queen Elizabeth to mind.

Camilla carried an ivory clutch by British brand Launer, and the designer's distinctive bags were perhaps the most recognizable part of Queen Elizabeth's royal wardrobe. Queen Camilla is also an admirer of the luxury label and has been seen with their bags over the past 20 years, even carrying a Launer clutch to her 2005 civil wedding to King Charles.

Although Queen Elizabeth exclusively carried Launer bags for decades—with the exception of a few rare, custom-made designs—Camilla is often seen with purses from other brands. She's especially fond of the Lady Dior bag, ironically named after Princess Diana, and also favors Demellier, Moynat and Anya Hindmarch, which she recently granted with a royal warrant.

Camilla also channeled the late Queen at the garden party by carrying a clear umbrella by royal-favorite brand Fulton. It's a style the late Queen couldn't get enough of, and she owned the bubble umbrella in a rainbow of colors to match her outfits.

Ever-practical Camilla, however, didn't coordinate her coat to her umbrella like the late Queen, whose enormous Fulton collection ranged from baby pink to bright green and everything in between. Instead, Queen Camilla carried a go-with-everything black-trimmed design rather than a pastel blue umbrella.

Queen Elizabeth's love story with Prince Philip is one for the ages. The pair tied the knot on November 20, 1947, and remained married until Prince Philip's death on April 9, 2021. And according to those who knew the couple, there was heat between them throughout their long marriage.

According to royal author Ian Lloyd, in his book The Queen: 70 Chapters in the Life of Queen Elizabeth II, "The Queen lit up when [Prince Philip] was around, when he walked into a room or when he paid her a compliment." Basically, the couple stayed very much in love through the decades.

Per Lloyd, "Once, her dress designer, the late Ian Thomas, was making some adjustments to the hemline of her dress when Philip happened to walk past the open door and he said, 'Hmm, nice dress.'"

The royal author continued, "Thomas said The Queen 'flushed scarlet’ at the compliment. They never completely softened with old age."

Lloyd also shared that Queen Elizabeth looked to her husband for advice throughout her life.

"Elizabeth was to rely on [Philip] even more as the touchstone for the values she grew up with: duty, self-sacrifice, service to Queen and country," the biographer explained. "They spoke every day on the telephone from wherever they happened to be."

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were thrown together for an extended period of time during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020.

"Philip left Wood Farm and joined The Queen at Windsor and over the summer at Balmoral," Lloyd noted. "It was the longest the two had been together, apart from their early tours and their time in Malta as a young naval couple, and was no doubt a consolation to her following his death just 12 months later."

Although Elizabeth and Philip weren't big on PDA, they seemingly had a very flirty relationship in private, which is endearing.

Queen Elizabeth II's impressive, 70-year career saw her achieve a smorgasbord of achievements as Britain's monarch. But according to one royal biographer, the late Queen struggled in one particular area for an understandable reason.

In the book My Mother and I, royal expert Ingrid Seward discussed Queen Elizabeth's approach to "emotional confrontation," revealing why the monarch found it difficult to deal with.

Referencing Princess Diana's alleged penchant for crying nonstop in Queen Elizabeth's presence, Seward wrote, "She would wait in the page's vestibule next to The Queen's sitting room and as soon as any visitor had departed, she would push her way in and throw herself on The Queen's mercy, frequently sobbing and telling her mother-in-law how much Charles hated her."

Seward continued, "Not surprisingly, The Queen had no idea what to do. Emotional confrontation of this sort was totally alien to someone whose upbringing insisted that manners were more important than feelings. As a result, she did nothing."

Queen Elizabeth's alleged inability to handle the troubling relationship between King Charles and Princess Diana reportedly caused additional issues within the Royal Family.

"It was a low point in her relationship with her son and, as the marriage spiraled out of control, Charles was reduced to shouting down the telephone at his mother to try to make her understand," Seward shared.

In the same book, Seward shared a revelation from former politician Douglas Hurd, who said of the late monarch, "The Queen trained feelings out of herself in order to avoid any confrontation."

Meanwhile, the late monarch's former press secretary, Martin Charteris, told the author, "The Queen is not good at showing affection. She'd always be doing her duty."

It seems that, just like anyone, even Queen Elizabeth II had her flaws.

Waking Queen Elizabeth up unexpectedly at two or three in the morning seems like a terrifying prospect for a royal page, but according to royal biographer Gyles Brandreth, she insisted on it for one special reason.

The late Queen was a devoted horsewoman throughout her life, and her longtime groom at the Royal Mews, Terry Pendry, told Brandreth that she was so involved in breeding horses that she insisted on watching them being born, no matter what hour of the night it was.

In his book Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, Brandreth wrote that Pendry was the person “who brought home to me Elizabeth’s total devotion to her horses.” The groom said, “Even here, when she was at Windsor, Paul Whybrew, the page, or whoever, would wake her up in the middle of the night, and she had a video link to Sandringham where all the racehorses are bred.”

Pendry, who also appeared on an episode of Brandreth’s “Rosebud” podcast in 2024, continued, “And if a mare was in foal, when they were about to give birth the phone would ring and she would love to see the foal born.”

Although the late Queen knew she was dying, she continued riding up until July 18, 2022, less than two months before she passed away. “She was quite frail,” Pendry told the author. The groom suggested he take a photo of her riding her beloved pony, Emma, stating, “Your pony is 26, you’re 96, that has to be a record.”

Pendry then printed the photo and gave it to Queen Elizabeth, and the next day, she said her goodbyes to Pendry and Emma before leaving for Balmoral one last time. Instead of tears, the late Queen left her groom with a joke.

“You were very rude to me yesterday,” she told Pendry, per Brandreth. The puzzled groom apologized, but didn’t understand what he’d done until the late Queen quipped, “You said my age!” Pendry added, “And then she burst into fits of laughter. That was just her—the last time I ever saw her.”

The Royal Collection is full of dazzling jewels that haven’t seen the light of day in decades, and among those include some of the gifts that Queen Elizabeth received during her 1979 Gulf states tour. The 18-day trip included stops in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar, and during the historic tour, she was showered with priceless gemstones. However, the late Queen once told royal biographer Gyles Brandreth that she actually didn’t know what happened to some of the jewels.

In his bestselling book Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, Brandreth—who knew the late Queen for decades—shares plenty of personal stories about the monarch, including one conversation they had about visiting the Middle East.

After telling Queen Elizabeth that he’d visited Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum in Dubai, she told Brandreth, “I envy you,” although they shared a laugh about the birthday gift he’d received from the ruler. Brandreth had been given “a small book of love poetry” written by the Sheikh, which had been “translated into truly awful English by the retired British brigadier who worked as his ADC” (aide de camp, or personal assistant).

In turn, the late Queen told the author about some of the “quite strange” gifts she’d received over the years, including “antelopes to zebra, and what she described as an ‘Aladdin’s cave’ of gems when she visited the Gulf states in 1979.”

Queen Elizabeth continued that she’d received “millions of pounds worth of jewelry and gold and silver,” adding, “I’m not sure what happened to it. It’s probably locked up in a basement at the Foreign Office.”

However, she knew the whereabouts of at least a few of the pieces, including the stunning sapphire and diamond earrings, necklace and bracelet that make the Dubai Sapphire Suite. According to the Royal Watcher blog, the late Queen had a bracelet made from the original earrings and ring. After having the Asprey necklace shortened, she used extra drops to create a new pair of earrings.

While it's been some time since someone has worn the dazzling, looped necklace—Queen Elizabeth was last seen in it in 2005—Princess Kate wore the sapphire earrings from the suite during a 2021 trip to Edinburgh.

Another gift that remained in royal use was a six-strand pearl necklace with diamond accents and a matching pair of pearl cluster earrings. The set was given to the late Queen by the Emir of Qatar during her 1979 tour, and although it wasn't frequently worn, she brought the sumptuous pearls out for the 2010 Qatari state visit.

As for the rest of her gifts, maybe someone should check the Foreign Office.

The final season of The Crown aired in 2023, with the sixth installment of Netflix’s royal drama focusing on the late ‘90s and early 2000s, including the death of Princess Diana. Although there’s been rumors swirling that the show might come back to tackle Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s scandals, the Daily Mail's Richard Eden has reported that The Crown will take a new spin on royal history instead.

The outlet originally reported in 2022 that production company Left Bank Pictures was in talks for a “£500 million run of prequels,” and on April 29, Eden confirmed that the project will be moving forward. Per the columnist, the new show “will span the period from Queen Victoria’s death in 1901 to the wedding of the then Princess Elizabeth in 1947.”

The timeline would tie in neatly with the first season of The Crown, which begins with Princess Elizabeth’s wedding to Prince Philip.

According to Eden, “a well-placed source” revealed the details to him, stating, “Netflix has been locked in negotiations with the company for quite a long time about this spin-off series, but they've recently finally managed to seal the deal and come to an agreement.”

The Crown's creator, Peter Morgan, is reported to be returning to the new project, with the source adding, “Peter had already been putting pen to pad and casting is expected to take place next year.”

Over its six seasons, the critically acclaimed drama won 24 Primetime Emmy Awards and brought in 87 nominations. In 2021, The Crown became the first drama to win all seven major categories at the Emmys.

Netflix did not respond to requests for comment on the matter.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip had several palatial residences at their disposal: Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Balmoral, Sandringham, just to name a few. One of their favorite places to spend their days was a comparatively modest farmhouse on the Sandringham estate, called Wood Farm.

"They adored the simplicity of what Wood Farm represented," a royal courtier revealed to the Daily Mail. "For the Duke, it was the light which he thought was perfect to paint by, and the proximity to the sea only a couple of miles away,” the courtier shared, while the late “Queen likes the unfussiness—the sense of getting away from it all and being able to slip out for a walk with the dogs whenever she likes."

Wood Farm provided the Queen and Prince Philip a sense of normalcy, which allowed them to pretend they weren’t carrying the enormous weight of the monarchy and could just be a married couple. "Often [Prince Philip] and the Queen when Sandringham was open to the general public or whatever, he and the Queen would live at Wood Farm, doing their own washing up, maybe even stacking the dishwasher," Emily Andrews revealed on a recent episode of her podcast Catching Up With The Royals.

Dickie Arbiter, the late Queen’s former press secretary, confirmed the former monarch’s penchant for washing dishes. While visiting Balmoral, Arbiter wrote “I heard footsteps and, thinking it was the Lady-in-Waiting coming to give me a hand, I casually said over my shoulder, ‘Okay, I’ll wash you dry,’ but it was not the Lady-in-Waiting. The Queen washed up and I dried, and no, she did not wear rubber gloves to protect her hands.”

Following his retirement from royal life in 2017, Prince Philip moved to Wood Farm full-time, where he could spend his days doing whatever he pleased—perhaps washing dishes in peace. "He wanted nothing more to do, really, with royal life after that. He went to live and retire at Wood Farm and he actually didn’t see the Queen very much," Andrews reported. "[It] was where he painted, it was his home. And it always has held a special place for him and the Queen."

Queen Elizabeth II had an incredible career, spending seven decades on the British throne. But according to one royal biographer, there were certain things even the late Queen wasn't very good at, including showing emotion.

In the book My Mother and I, royal expert Ingrid Seward discussed Queen Elizabeth's alleged inability to show her emotions in certain situations.

Former politician Douglas Hurd told Seward, "The Queen trained feelings out of herself in order to avoid any confrontation."

According to Seward, "The Queen's former press secretary, the late, enigmatic Martin Charteris, who started working for her when she was Princess Elizabeth, agreed" with Hurd's summation.

Charteris told the royal expert, "The Queen is not good at showing affection. She'd always be doing her duty."

Charteris spent more than two decades working with the Royal Family, and told Seward that "The Queen really had very little to do with [her first child, King] Charles." As the former press secretary explained, "He'd have an hour after tea with Mummy when she was in the country, but somehow even those contacts were lacking in warmth."

According to Charteris, it wasn't just Queen Elizabeth who had a subdued approach to expressing emotions. "[Prince Philip] would be rather grumpy, about almost anything," the former royal employee told Seward. "And neither of them was there very much."

As a result, King Charles reportedly spent much of his childhood alone or, at the very least, apart from his parents.

Describing Charles's childhood, Seward noted, "It was a terribly old-fashioned, upper-class upbringing." The royal expert continued, "The Royal Family never spoke about their difficulties, and if any of them had a problem they never talked it over. They only spoke about the most trivial of things and, as a result, awkward issues were left in abeyance until it was too late."

Basically, Queen Elizabeth seemingly put duty ahead of anything else, which led to her feeling the need to suppress her own emotions.

Queen Elizabeth presided over the British monarchy for 70 years. During that time, the monarch raised a family, become a grandparent, and witnessed her children going through divorces. As a result, the late Queen reportedly became used to royal relatives crying in her presence.

According to royal author Ian Lloyd, in his book The Queen: 70 Chapters in the Life of Queen Elizabeth II, the former monarch had some unexpected encounters with the spouse of one of her kids.

"By the mid-1980s, Charles had resumed his relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles and Diana had embarked on an affair with former cavalry officer James Hewitt," per Lloyd. "Although she professed being 'terrified' of her mother-in-law, Diana took to calling on The Queen unannounced to pour out her heart to her."

Per the biographer, "Sometimes, The Queen's schedule meant the princess had to wait. One footman later reported to The Queen, 'The princess cried three times in a half hour while waiting to see you.'" Not missing a beat, the former monarch reportedly responded by saying, "I had her for half an hour and she cried non-stop."

Lloyd also noted that Queen Elizabeth didn't immediately bond with King Charles's first wife.

"The Queen and [Prince Philip] welcomed [Princess Diana] into the family in their own, no-nonsense way," the royal biographer shared. "Elizabeth, however, struggled to find much in common with the new Princess of Wales and admitted she couldn't understand her personality."

Due to the very public nature of the breakdown of Charles and Diana's marriage, the former Princess of Wales's alleged emotional outbursts were entirely understandable. Still, it's clear that not many people were so vulnerable in front of Queen Elizabeth.

Despite being the literal Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth II reportedly lived a "frugal" life in some respects. According to one royal author, the late monarch expressed concern regarding the so-called "pampered lifestyle" of one of her children, which she didn't completely understand.

In the book My Mother and I, royal expert Ingrid Seward revealed, "The Queen never understood Charles's pampered lifestyle and found it rather mystifying, as by nature Charles is not a selfish man, but a life of being deferred to often stopped him considering others."

Seward continued, "He has no sympathy for trivial ailments and combats his own sinus problems by sleeping in an oxygen tent. Tiredness or oversleeping are not acceptable excuses for missing even an hour's work, and he will never have a lie-in on a Sunday morning, even if he is feeling unwell."

Having grown up surrounded by such privilege, King Charles can reportedly find himself disconnected from reality.

As Seward noted, "He is insistent on things being done correctly, and when his childhood teddy bear—who, according to Prince Harry, goes everywhere with his 'pa'—needs repairing and patching, he sends the teddy to his wife's couturier to be mended, with instructions to do it quickly so he can have him back."

However, according to Seward, Queen Elizabeth also had a unique understanding of her eldest son.

"The Queen was far wiser about her son than he ever gave her credit for, and she was acutely aware of his strengths and weaknesses," the royal expert wrote. "She privately acknowledged long before anyone else that his marriage to Camilla was inevitable and they would have to stop playing what she called 'this cat-and-mouse game' and get on with it."

Even if she sometimes disapproved of his lifestyle, it seems that the late Queen actually knew King Charles extremely well.

Former Royal Correspondent Jennie Bond worked for the BBC for 14 years, throughout some of the most tumultuous events in Queen Elizabeth II’s historic reign. From 1989 to 2003, Bond worked closely with the royal household to deliver news to the British public, and those watching around the world. Despite her close contact with The Queen, Bond describes the historical and cultural icon as “an enigma.”

“I remember the late Queen as a fairly shy woman who probably would have loved to have been something like a farmer‘s wife,” Jennie Bond wrote for The Mirror. Despite her personality being more suited to country life than diplomacy, the late Queen “was thrown into one of the most public and high profile jobs on the planet.” Over the years, Bond attended royal events, covered State Visits, and travelled with the royal entourage on royal tours, but The Queen “remained something of an enigma” to her.

“Her great skill was not allowing any of us truly to know what she was thinking or feeling,” Bond shared. “I treasure the moments when I saw her a little off-guard, off-duty for a moment. For example, when I glimpsed her putting on her lipstick without a mirror just before entering one of the main reception rooms at the Palace.” These little moments reminded those following her closely that underneath the grandeur, The Queen was just a woman doing her job.

The late Queen was regularly humbled and overwhelmed by how many people cared and supported her during her seven-decade reign. “I will never forget the huge crowds,” Bond reflected, saying “up to a million people gathered outside Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Golden, Diamond, and then the Platinum Jubilee.” As Queen Elizabeth II looked out over the balcony, the endless sea of wellwishers was surely overwhelming. “It was an unforgettable sight and one which the Queen never expected and always found humbling.”

“I think she will be remembered as a woman of quiet dignity who devoted herself to her role and her duty, sometimes at the expense of her family life,” Bond wrote. “She was guided by her deep faith and her belief that she had a God given duty to serve her country until her dying day.”

“And she did.”

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.”

Royal fans might be surprised to hear that Queen Elizabeth once held a seance of sorts at Sandringham House, but she reportedly called in a local rector after some ghostly stories worried the staff. In his new biography of Queen Elizabeth, author Robert Hardman wrote that Queen Elizabeth stepped in after reports of an “unhappy spiritual presence” in the royal residence.

Princess Diana died in 1997, and in Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. Her Story, Hardman shared a story about the late Queen’s friend, Prue Penn, staying at Sandringham “not long after” Diana’s tragic death.

“Some of the housemaids had reported sensing a mysterious and unhappy spiritual presence in one of the rooms,” the royal biographer wrote. “There were even mutterings about having an exorcism.”

The always practical Queen “decided the simplest solution was to invite the local rector to investigate,” Hardman wrote.

According to Lady Penn, Queen Elizabeth “got the parson in and he agreed to have a communion service—just Her Majesty, Princess Margaret and me. He sensed a troubled soul unable to leave and he thought it was Diana.”

However, the late Queen wasn't buying it. “‘I shouldn’t think so,’ she told the rector briskly. ‘Diana didn’t like Sandringham much.’”

Her matter-of-fact answer reflected on the years Princess Diana dreaded attending functions at Sandringham, including Christmas, when the family would descend on the Norfolk estate en masse.

"It’s like a pressure cooker, Sandringham at Christmas, of people and emotion," Diana's former butler Paul Burrell once said. "Some can stand it, some can’t. Diana couldn’t stand it."

Diana herself reflected on Christmases at the royal estate in comments she shared with biographer Andrew Morton. “I know I gave, but I can’t remember being a receiver. Isn’t that awful? I do all the presents, and Charles signs the cards. [It was] terrifying and so disappointing,” she told Morton. “No boisterous behavior, lots of tension, silly behavior, silly jokes that outsiders would find odd, but insiders understood. I sure was [an outsider].”

Queen Elizabeth carefully controlled what the world saw during her reign, projecting restraint in public while revealing a “sharp” and “decisive” side behind palace doors, as royal biographer Robert Hardman recently told Marie Claire. Now that King Charles is on the throne, he’s modernized and streamlined the monarchy in his own way while staying true to the traditions at the heart of the Crown. Although Prince William has discussed his own plans for change, Hardman says that the Prince of Wales is actually not nearly as “radical” as his father.

As King Charles settles into the role he spent a lifetime preparing for and Prince William begins outlining his own vision, the late Queen’s influence is emerging in different ways. “He is, I would say, as happy as I've ever seen him,” Hardman says of King Charles, who the biographer has been writing about for more than 30 years.

After taking on the top job in his seventies, The King now approaches his role with “a genuine sort of purpose and an energy,” the author says. That sense of purpose, he suggests, reflects a King who has seen the role as both his solemn duty and a job he thoroughly enjoys.

“He’s never been shy of work,” the biographer says, adding The King is “quite happy staying up all night” at his desk and “being handed extra bundles of work.”

While Charles has been defined by decades of preparation, Prince William is approaching the job from a different angle. The Prince of Wales, who is a father to three children under 13, is “very much a family man,” Hardman says, and that priority shapes how he views his role and the future of the monarchy.

“He talks about change, but I think the sort of change he has in mind will be sort of internal. It might be sort of tonal,” Hardman says of William. The biographer suggests that any shift is more likely to focus on making the monarchy “a little bit less ceremonial” with “a little less dressing up,” versus fundamental reform.

“I don't think he's instinctively radical whereas his father, I think, was,” Hardman says. “I mean, you look at when Charles was William's age now, he was constantly making speeches complaining about the state of architecture, education, heritage, pollution...he was a very outspoken heir to the throne.”

Although Charles and William share a passion for protecting the environment, the Prince of Wales takes a different approach than his father. Instead, Hardman compares William to Queen Elizabeth's father, King George VI.

“William's rather like The [late] Queen's father, you know. He's sort of dutiful, thoughtful, keen to do a good job, but not desperate to change the world.” Hardman notes that the late Queen also had a great deal of influence on Prince William.

“She changed the institution a lot, but incrementally,” the author notes. “You had a philosophy which she talked about once in one of her Christmas broadcasts, which is a phrase I heard her use quite a few times about small steps.”

Like Prince William and his Earthshot Prize initiative, the late Queen believed everyone could do their part in making the world a better place. Unlike politicians, the late monarch didn’t buy into “big messages and big slogans and big change,” Hardman says. Instead, like her grandson, Queen Elizabeth “liked the idea of the cumulative effect of lots of small, good things.”

In that sense, the Prince of Wales is a lot like the late Queen, after all.

Princess Diana’s battles with the “men in gray suits” have been thoroughly chronicled throughout the years, and even King Charles had his own struggles with courtiers. But when it comes to palace officials, Queen Elizabeth found herself in a much different situation. Despite being the most famous woman in the world, even the late Queen was told what to do, but as royal author Robert Hardman wrote in his new biography of Queen Elizabeth, she wasn’t “obsessed” with old-fashioned traditions like some of the palace’s longtime employees.

In Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. Her Story, one former private secretary for the late Queen told Hardman that the royal “would ‘metaphorically roll her eyes’ at some of the pedantic elements within the Lord Chamberlain’s Office, the palace department in charge of ceremonial.”

The former palace employee added that the ever-practical late Queen was all for modernizing when it made sense.

“I discovered that, given the choice between practicalities and protocols, the choice between an argument for doing something, because that’s how we’ve always done it, or an argument for doing something different, because it would actually work better, then that was always the best way of arguing it,” the source said.

“She was happy to picture the balloons of the sort of people who were obsessed about things like collar days or being immaculately dressed at a dress rehearsal,” the former private secretary added.

At times, the late Queen would step in and “overrule her own officials,” Hardman wrote. One such incident took place at a “multinational banquet” where the late Queen had to step in and change a seating plan in order to “stop the presidents of the USA and France being placed at the wrong end of the table because they were, in theory, outranked by Euro-royalty.”

And when Nelson Mandela paid a state visit to the U.K. in 1996, it was Queen Elizabeth who insisted that the traditional schedule for state banquets be altered to accommodate the South African president.

Hardman wrote that the late Queen heard Mandela “liked to be in bed by 10 p.m.—a legacy of his long years in person.” Since formal state dinners adhere “to a strict and well-established format” that would run long past Mandela’s bedtime, Queen Elizabeth stepped in and “asked her staff to ignore it and ensure that proceedings were all over by ten o’clock.”

Queen Elizabeth would have turned 100 on Tuesday, April 21, and as the Royal Family carries out events to mark her life and reign, a new biography of the late Queen is revealing one of the “most important” lessons she left for her heirs.

In Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. Her Story, author and royal journalist Robert Hardman explores the intricacies of the late Queen’s public and private personas, and he wrote that she differed from the Kings and Queens before her in one major way.

“One of the most important of all of the lessons to be learned from Elizabeth II is that she ‘normalized’ being monarch without sacrificing her majesty,” Hardman wrote. “History shows an almost unbroken line of sovereigns quarrelling with their predecessors or their successors (sometimes both). Unlike those who came before her, Elizabeth II loved—and was loved by—her father and her son.”

In turn, King Charles has carried that philosophy down to his own heirs, Prince William and Prince George. In a recent interview with Hello!, royal author and journalist Robert Jobson said that Prince George, 12, will change his relationship with his grandfather, The King, in one key way.

"George will be spending more time with his grandfather over the next few years, as William did with the late Queen,” Jobson noted. "He used to meet his grandmother for tea regularly at Windsor Castle when he was a pupil at Eton down the road. Now, it's Charles who has experience of being King.”

King Charles might differ from his late mother in a number of ways, but he was able to take lessons from her leadership over the course of her historic 70-year-reign. Reflecting on her own preparation, Queen Elizabeth told Eddie Mirzoeff in 1991, “You can do a lot if you’re properly trained. And I hope I have been.”

Princess Kate joined in on a family birthday celebration with some sentimental family jewelry, which is an understatement when the ‘family party’ is the late Queen Elizabeth II’s 100th birthday celebration and the ‘sentimental family jewelry’ are a selection of the late Queen’s most beloved royal jewels. Buckingham Palace was full of Royal Family members, volunteers from the late Queen’s patronages, and other centenarians marking their own birthdays for a celebration of Queen Elizabeth II’s historic reign.

The Princess of Wales channeled her late grandmother-in-law in a lavender dress, reportedly designed by Emilia Wickstead, accessorizing with Queen Elizabeth II’s iconic triple-strand pearl necklace and Bahrain pearl drop earrings. The pastel purple hue looked like it was taken straight from the late monarch’s closet, featuring expert tailoring in a classically-cut style. The bright hue was easily spotted amongst the sea of guests, echoing the late Queen’s sentiment that she must be seen to be believed.

The Bahrain pearl earrings—a wedding gift for Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip’s 1947 wedding—were a romantic and sentimental favorite of the late Queen’s, before she personally passed them on to be used by the Princess of Wales around 2016. The triple-strand pearl necklace was a wardrobe staple for Queen Elizabeth, one that she wore (almost) every day. "She wasn't interested in material things at all,” the Queen's former assistant private secretary, Sam Cohen, told People. “She wore the same pearl necklace every day.”

While mingling with guests, the Princess of Wales looked incredibly regal as she brought a smile to the faces of many in attendance. The King led partygoers in a joyful rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ as they celebrated Queen Elizabeth II’s historic reign and remarkable life. In a statement made by The King earlier in the day, he hoped the party would celebrate “a life well-lived, and a legacy of hope, as we strive together towards a ‘better, happier tomorrow’—one rooted in peace, justice, prosperity and security.”

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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.

Growing up as a member of the Royal Family must be an unusual experience. While much royal drama plays out in the public eye, royal experts often take fans behind-the-scenes of life in the palace. And according to one royal biographer, two royal siblings were known to argue often when they were younger.

In the book, My Mother and I, royal expert Ingrid Seward discussed King Charles and Princess Anne's unexpected experience growing up as siblings in Buckingham Palace.

"Princess Anne was technically a spare until the birth of [ex-]Prince Andrew, in February 1960, but while she was second in line for almost nine and a half years, she made sure she was first in everything else," Seward explained.

Unsurprisingly, Anne became "hugely competitive with Charles when they were young." According to Seward, The King "never stood a chance against his willful sister, even though she was two years younger."

Unfortunately for Charles, Princess Anne was quite the competitor.

"Everything he had, she wanted, and according to Anne they fought 'like cats and dogs,'" Seward shared.

The royal biographer continued, "When she was really worked up, she would throw things at Charles and lie on the floor kicking with sheer temper until she got what her heart desired."

Despite the competition between them, "Charles was surprisingly gentle with his boisterous sister, and for all their squabbles they got along reasonably well," Seward explained.

The royal biographer continued, "But if Anne was more than her brother's equal in the battlefield of the nursery, it was Charles who commanded the greatest attention. He was born to be King and that fact was subtly drummed into him and his sister from earliest memory."

Luckily, Charles and Anne appear to have left their competitive nature in the past since then.