Despite being the Queen of England, Elizabeth II was ever the affable grandmother to her grandsons, Prince William and Harry.
In photos from when she would inspect them while carrying out military service, you can see their whimsical bond when the future King tries not to laugh at his Monarch grandmother as she approaches him in the line.
HELLO!’s new special issue, Queen Elizabeth II: A Centenary Tribute, describes how the late monarch and William’s larkish relationship started when the Prince of Wales was a child.
A young William once confused a guest at Buckingham Palace when he fell over and cried out, “Gary! Gary!” When the guest asked, “Who’s Gary?”, the Queen hurried over to pick him up and explained, “Oh, I’m Gary. He hasn’t learned to say ‘Granny’ yet.”
Work and play
Despite his new role being decades away, as monarch, she went out of her way to help the Prince to shoulder the burden awaiting him as the future King. “I have been able to explore, understand, slightly carve my own path,” he revealed in the Sky documentary. “I greatly appreciate and value that protection.”
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As a teenager, he would visit the Queen for tea at Windsor while boarding at nearby Eton College and the pair would have heart-to- heart conversations about the role he would one day take on.
‘Granny’
If the Queen missed out on precious moments as a mother because of her role as monarch, she more than made up for it with her eight grandchildren.
With them, she was better able to balance her dual roles, as Prince Harry touched on in the 2016 documentary Elizabeth at 90: A Family Tribute. “You have this huge amount of respect for your boss, and I always view her as my boss, but also as a grandmother,” he said.
© Getty ImagesKnown for her generosity, the monarch was said to leave small, personally chosen gifts on her grandchildren’s beds when they visited her at Balmoral, her summer retreat. She also loaned Princess Beatrice a much-loved vintage gown by Sir Norman Hartnell to wear as her wedding dress (which Beatrice altered for her scaled- down ceremony in July 2020), along with the same tiara worn by the Queen on her own wedding day.
She was one of the first people that Beatrice’s younger sister, Princess Eugenie, told about her 2018 engagement to Jack Brooksbank. “Granny actually knew right at the beginning,” Eugenie said. Her grandchildren and the eight great- grandchildren who were born while she was still alive brought her immense happiness. As Eugenie fondly recalled: “She just loved having us around.”
The new keepsake issue, Queen Elizabeth II: A Centenary Tribute, is available to buy now, online or on newsstands. The collector’s edition celebrates the late monarch’s remarkable reign with exclusive features and stunning imagery on what would have been her 100th birthday.
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