Having led the British Royal Family for 70 years, Queen Elizabeth II’s experience as a monarch was unique. From her worldwide travels to living through a plethora of life-changing events, Elizabeth’s life wasn’t like anyone else’s. And according to one royal historian, the former Queen had an amazing ability to keep secrets.
Royal historian David Cannadine discussed the late Queen’s secret-keeping ability in his new book, Queen Elizabeth II: A Concise Biography of an Exceptional Sovereign. “She was the keeper of many secrets, the repository and respecter of many confidences, and she never leaked,” the author explained.
Modern royals have generally been more open about their emotions in public, but the late Queen apparently wasn’t a fan of this approach. Like, at all.
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“The Queen never gave interviews, she kept her political views to herself.”
(Image credit: Getty Images)
“But unlike the Prince and Princess of Wales, Prince Andrew, and Prince Harry, The Queen never gave interviews, she kept her political views to herself, she rarely spoke of her feelings in public, and she abhorred the emotional incontinence that had become so widespread by the end of her reign,” Cannadine shared.
David Cannadine
‘Queen Elizabeth II: A Concise Biography of an Exceptional Sovereign’
Noting that Elizabeth only occasionally expressed emotion in public, Cannadine explained, “[S]he kept her own counsel, and to have done so successfully across seventy years, when the media was becoming ever more intrusive, and as it became increasingly challenging to maintain any form of confidentiality in the conduct of public business, was in its way an extraordinary achievement.”
“She abhorred the emotional incontinence that had become so widespread by the end of her reign.”
(Image credit: Richard Pohle – WPA Pool/Getty Images)
Basically, Queen Elizabeth’s approach to leading the Royal Family was reserved and stoic. And when it came to the many secrets she must have known, the late Queen seemingly took them all to her grave with her.
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Queen Elizabeth II