{"id":499834,"date":"2026-06-14T22:14:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T22:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/499834\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T22:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T22:14:15","slug":"queen-elizabeth-ii-showed-her-true-colours-after-tragic-moment-royal-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/499834\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen Elizabeth II showed her true colours after tragic moment | Royal | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Queen Elizabeth II showed her true colours in a telling move just moments after learning of her father’s death, according to a lifelong friend. Britain’s longest-reigning monarch<\/a> was with Lady Pamela Hicks, Prince Philip<\/a>‘s cousin, when she realised she would have to unexpectedly accede to the throne in February 1952.<\/p>\n

Lady Pamela, who passed away on June 5<\/a>, aged 97, reflected on the Queen’s response to the news years later, praising her for displaying “inner strength” in the face of tragedy. Lady Pamela was accompanying Elizabeth and Philip on a royal tour of Kenya when they learned that King George VI had died, making them “the last people in the world to hear” about it, she said on her daughter India’s podcast in 2019.<\/p>\n

“Philip just takes the newspaper and covers his face with it, hides behind it and says ‘This will be such a shock’,” Lady Pamela reflected.<\/p>\n

Remembering the moment Elizabeth entered the room, she said: “I think, ‘Oh, poor girl, her father’s died.’ So I go over to her, give her a hug and think, ‘Oh my God, it’s the Queen’, so I go into a deep curtsy.<\/p>\n

“And she says, ‘I’m so sorry. It means we’ve all got to go back’ … She was only thinking of all of us.”<\/p>\n

Lady Pamela, who was lady-in-waiting to the Queen and a bridesmaid at her 1947 wedding, was the daughter of the King’s great-uncle, and last viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, who was murdered by the IRA in 1979.<\/p>\n

In a statement, a spokesperson for King Charles<\/a> said he was “greatly saddened” to hear of her death, describing her as a woman whose “warmth, wit and perspicacity always made such an impression”.<\/p>\n

Lady Pamela’s daughter India confirmed the news in a social media post, writing that her mother had died “peacefully” after living a “full life”.<\/p>\n

“I know grief will be unavoidable, lurking around waiting for me, but today I am simply grateful that she was my mother,” she added.<\/p>\n

“And through the prism of a crowded and remarkable past, she made incomparable company, carrying her memories lightly, and always with humour.<\/p>\n

“My mother maintained right up to the end, the impeccable style, sharp mind and effortless charm that made her not only a cherished institution, but truly the last of her kind.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queen Elizabeth II showed her true colours in a telling move just moments after learning of her father’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,64280,213976,11647,4639,213977],"class_list":["post-499834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-king-george-vi","tag-lady-pamela-hicks","tag-queen-elizabeth-ii","tag-royal-family","tag-royal-succession-1952"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}