32 things you probably didn’t know about Queen Elizabeth II (2024)

Lest she be accused of not being modern, Queen Elizabeth has an active presence on social media. She even published her first Instagram postlast year at the Science Museum in London: tying the new medium together with the old, her post included a photo of an 1843 letter from the world’s first computer pioneer, Charles Babbage, to the Queen’s great-great-grandfather, Prince Albert (aka husband to Queen Victoria), who was very interested in scientific progress. “Today, I had the pleasure of learning about children’s computer coding initiatives and it seems fitting to me that I publish this Instagram post, at the Science Museum which has long championed technology, innovation and inspired the next generation of inventors,” she wrote, signing it ‘Elizabeth R.’ In 2014, the Queen also tweeted for the first time from the Science Museum.

Yep, you can write snail mail to the Queen – and she will likely read it! According to her official website,she receives around 60 000 pieces of mail a year and is shown almost all of her daily correspondence. She ‘takes a keen interest’ in the letters she receives and might even write back, as she does for her subjects celebrating milestonessuch as turning 100 or celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary. If you’re writing to the Queen, “you can open with ‘Madam’ and close the letter with the form ‘I have the honour to be, Madam, Your Majesty’s humble and obedient servant,'” says her website. But you don’t need to do this: you can write however you feel comfortable. Her address is: Her Majesty The Queen, Buckingham Palace, London SW1A 1AA, England.

If you should happen to meet the Queen, there are likewise no official rules for how you should greet her. ‘Many people ask how they should greet Her Majesty,’ her official website reads. The simple answer is that there are no obligatory codes of behaviour – just courtesy. However, many people wish to observe the traditional forms of greeting. For men this is a neck bow (from the head only) whilst women do a small curtsy. Other people prefer simply to shake hands in the usual way. You probably wouldn’t want to go in for a hug, though – that might be a bit too much – but we do wonder how she’d react to a fist bump.

Find out which are the times the royal family was brutally honest with the media.

Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her birthday on April 21 – and then does it again in June. It’s actually been a tradition since 1784 that the British monarch’s birthday celebrations are held on a day that is not their actual birthday. That’s because London weather could literally put a damper on the military celebratory parade if not held in more climate-friendly months.

According to a 1957 article in Time,Prince Philip met Elizabeth, his third cousin, when they were children (they shared the same great-great-grandparents, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who were first cousins themselves). From the time she was 13, she was besotted. She never fell for another man, though he had other relationships while she grew into adulthood. Their love stood the test of the time and in 2007, Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to celebrate her diamond wedding anniversary with 60 years of marriage to Prince Philip.

Check out these things Queen Elizabeth II doesn’t want you to know about Prince Philip..

During her reign, the Queen has received some interesting gifts from jaguars and sloths to a grove of maple trees and 7 kilos of prawns. But it was one of her 1947 wedding gifts that had her grandmother concerned: according to the BBC’s royal correspondent at the time, Elizabeth’s grandmother, Queen Mary, disapproved of Mahatma Gandhi’s present of hand-spun lace calling it ‘indelicate.’ Turns out she’d mistaken the tray cover for the Indian leader’s loincloth.

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On February 6, 2017, Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to reign for 65 years, celebrating her Sapphire Jubilee. To mark the momentous occasion there were new coins, a new stamp, gun salutes, and a re-released portrait taken by British photographer David Bailey, where the Queen is wearing a suite of sapphire jewels she received as a wedding day gift from her father, King George VI, in 1947.

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Queen Elizabeth II’s full name is Elizabeth Alexandra Mary. But back when she was still Princess Elizabeth, she was called Lilibet by close family. She had trouble pronouncing her own name when she was a young girl, and that’s how it came out. Her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, is known to call her Cabbage. Then there are her great-grandchildren. “George is only 2 and a half, and he calls her ‘Gan-Gan,'” the prince’s mother, Kate Middleton, the duch*ess of Cambridge, said in an ITV special interviewa few years ago.

Finally, a not-so-affectionate nickname was bestowed upon the Queen by her Uncle David (also known as the abdicated King Edward VIII). In letters made public in 1988, he referred to his niece as Shirley Temple on account of her ‘dumpy’ frame and curly hair, which looked similar to that of the child star.

Elizabeth’s father, King George VI, became king after his older brother, King Edward VIII, abdicated the throne to marry Wallis Simpson, an American socialite divorcée. This was scandalous as Simpson was still legally married to her second husband when they first got together and the abdication was the biggest constitutional crisis in modern royal history. Supposedly bad blood existed between the Duke and duch*ess of Windsor (Edward and Wallis) and the royal family. The King’s Speechis a 2010 biographical movie about King George VI coping with a stammer as he ascends to the throne after his brother.

Read on for more royal family scandals that shocked the world.

The Crowntakes many liberties with real-life royal events. One such liberty is based on rumours of an affair between her and childhood friend Porchie. It’s true that Porchie, aka Lord Porchester, and later Earl of Carnarvon, was extremely close to the Queen, and that in 1969 she took him on as her racing manager, but there’s never been evidence of a romance. However, rumours claiming that he is Prince Andrew’s biological father are still making the rounds today. Still, several key elements of the series are either totally made up or exaggerated for dramatic effect.