Queen Elizabeth's 'great skill' was non-negotiable for a monarch but she still had some rare 'off-guard' moments

As a monarch and Head of State, Queen Elizabeth had the challenging task of treading a delicate diplomatic path throughout her reign. She hosted countless Presidents and Prime Ministers, undertook overseas visits representing the nation and made thousands of public appearances.

All the time the Queen looked serene and at ease, never letting us know what she was really feeling deep inside. This is surely essential for someone with such a high-profile and politically neutral role and former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond has dubbed it a "great skill".

"I travelled extensively with the Queen and also met her many times at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. Even so, she remained something of an enigma to me," she wrote on what would've been Queen Elizabeth’s 100th birthday. "Her great skill was not allowing any of us truly to know what she was thinking or feeling."

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In her piece for The Mirror, Jennie went on to reveal that there were times where she caught a glimpse of the Queen "a little off-guard, off-duty for a moment". She treasures these, including an instance when she saw Queen Elizabeth "putting on her lipstick without a mirror just before entering one of the main reception rooms".

The royal expert also recalled when the Queen invited her and a few other journalists aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia in South Africa. Jennie shared, "The Queen had a glint of real joy in her eyes as she told us that this was her first visit back to South Africa since she had visited with her parents and sister in 1947."

It makes sense that these "off-guard" moments were rare, at least in front of the media or members of the public. That’s not to say that Her Majesty kept her distance or didn’t give people a warm, memorable impression of her when they met - far from it.

Speaking on the 2016 documentary, Our Queen at Ninety, the Princess of Wales praised her grandmother-in-law’s ability to build a "connection".

"Everyone feels like they’ve had some quality time with Her Majesty and, also, a real personal connection and I think that’s a real skill," the Princess said. "I think she’s so, so engaging. She has got the most fantastic smile and I think if the Queen says nothing but she smiles, I think it gives everybody such a huge amount of joy and a huge amount of pleasure."

Queen Elizabeth also famously had a brilliant sense of humour and while we might not have been able to tell her true feelings about more serious things, she didn’t shy away from showing her amusement at appropriate moments.

"She had a dry but quite mischievous sense of humour. She rather liked it when things went a bit wrong on an official engagement - the car stalling or her plane being grounded in a thunderstorm - hardly surprising when you live a life so planned and regulated," wrote Jennie Bond.

The Royal Family also often mention the "twinkle" in her eye when they talk about her and King Charles did just that in his message to mark what would’ve been his mother’s 100th birthday.

"Millions will remember her for moments of national significance; many others for a fleeting personal encounter, a smile, a kind word that lifted spirits…. or for that marvellous twinkle of the eye when sharing a marmalade sandwich with Paddington Bear in the final months of her life," he declared.