Nobody embodied royal protocol more than Queen Elizabeth II herself – and she was known for her obedience to duty throughout her 70-year reign.
But during a 1980 tour of Morocco with her husband, Prince Philip, the late monarch let her usual rules slide – and for a very admirable reason.
That year, the Queen and the late Duke of Edinburgh visited Morocco for a four-day official state visit, touring Rabat, Casablanca, and Marrakech.
On one of the days, they enjoyed a feast in the desert with King Hassan II, father of the current King of Morocco, Mohammed VI. The Queen was seen eating roasted meat using just her hands, with no knife or fork in sight.
Usually, the Queen would have of course used cutlery at all times, but was seen engaging in the local custom as a sign of respect.
Late Queen’s royal ‘rule’ for food confirmed
The picture was unearthed on social media following her death at Balmoral Castle aged 96 in 2022, with one royal fan gushing: “This woman lived life to the fullest!”
Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip’s difficult Moroccan tour
The state visit was widely considered one of the more difficult tours of the Queen’s reign and she never returned to the country.
In his book, Our Queen, royal author Robert Hardman revealed the tour had been fraught with difficulty. At one point, King Hassan even disappeared for an afternoon and left the Queen by herself.
© Getty ImagesQueen Elizabeth and Prince Philip ate with their hands
He also asked for the final-night banquet to be postponed, a decision that didn’t sit right with the monarch. And when King Hassan attempted to criticise one of her team, the Queen said: “I’ll thank you not to speak about my staff like that.”
Nevertheless, the Queen was said to have been “fond” of the leader, and publicly thanked him for his “warm and generous” hospitality.
“It was a unique state visit in that nothing that had previously been arranged actually took place as arranged,” a Foreign Office official on the trip said at the time. “And if it did take place at the time it was arranged, it took place in a different place, probably several hundred miles away.”
© Getty ImagesIt was a symbol of the utmost respect for her hosts
However, they added, “You know, I think she actually rather enjoyed it.”
Breaking royal protocol
Queen Elizabeth usually adhered to a strict code of duty, but was very occasionally known to relax the rules.
© Getty ImagesQueen Elizabeth was known to strictly follow royal duty
As Michelle Obama recalled after an American state visit to the UK in 2016: “So I had all this protocol buzzing in my head, and I was like, ‘Don’t trip down the stairs and don’t touch anybody, whatever you do so the Queen says, ‘Just get in, sit wherever’ and she’s telling you one thing and you’re remembering protocol and she says, ‘Oh it’s all rubbish, just get in’.”
Another unwritten element of royal protocol is that royal women should always arrive looking pristine, with no touch-ups on the go. However, the late Queen would often quickly touch up her lipstick at public events.
There are no set-in-stone rules in the royal family, though there are guidelines that the royals tend to adhere to, such as minimising PDA, bowing and curtsying, and not signing autographs.
According to the family’s official website, “there are no obligatory codes of behaviour – just courtesy.”