Philip: The Final Portrait

‘If you believe the attention is for you personally,’ he warned, ‘you’re going to end up in trouble. The attention is for your role, what you do, what you’re supporting. It isn’t for you as an individual. You are not a celebrity. You are representing the Royal Family. That’s all. Don’t look at the camera. The Queen never looks at the camera. Never. Look at who you’re talking to. Look at what you’ve come to see. Diana looked at the camera.’

When the Duke was critical of his wife, berating her for paying attention to the dogs when she should be listening to him, or wondering out loud why she was spending so much time on the telephone, or telling her she was wearing the wrong clothes for a shooting expedition, the Queen was quite capable of answering back, saying to him, ‘Oh, do shut up.’ According to family and friends, over the years she became bolder with him, and he gentler with her.