During her long reign, Queen Elizabeth II developed many techniques to be able to communicate without having to say a single word. According to one of her former valets, the monarch had gotten into the habit of applying lipstick to send a clear message to her bridesmaids.
- Elizabeth II reigned for more than 70 years over the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth
- During these years, the monarch has developed many techniques to send messages to her staff.
- In particular, she had set a signal when she was recovering from lipstick in public.
A malicious scheme. On Thursday, September 8, 2022, Elizabeth II passed away at the age of 96, after having occupied the British throne for more than 70 years. During this very long reign, the sovereign met many personalities and attended events of all kinds. But it can also happen that some meetings are prolonged. Elizabeth II then developed a subtle technique to announce your departure. This was revealed by Ian Scott Hunter, his former lackey for eight years, during a special episode oftraveling exhibition of antiquesaboard the Royal Yacht Britannia, and dedicated to the “celebration of the reign and long life of Her Majesty the Queen”.
In fact, the former employee has revealed the secret code that Elizabeth II had started to warn her bridesmaids that she was ready to leave. “I think it’s etiquette for ladies not to wear makeup in public. But she had the bag next to her and she’d take out her lipstick and put it on, no mirror or anything, and that was a signal to the ladies that she was ready to go.”said the former royal footman, before adding: “Of course, they [les dames d’honneur] gathered up all their belongings and His Majesty [se levait], so they were all ready and prepared”.
Elizabeth II and the bag technique
But the lipstick technique was not the only means Elizabeth II developed to communicate with her staff. In fact, according to royal commentator Kristen Meinzer, the sovereign had also taken to the custom of swinging her bag from one arm to the other to politely indicate that she wanted to end the conversation. “It’s said that if you stand up at an event, mingle and talk, and swing your bag from one arm to the other, it means to your staff that you’d like someone to interrupt you and end the conversation.”revealed Kristen Meinzer on the podcast the actual report from Newsweek.
Finally, Elizabeth II also had another quite similar technique during official banquets and dinners. According to historian Hugo Vickers to People, if the queen put her bag on the floor, it meant she wanted to leave, and if she put it on the table, the sovereign told her staff that they had five minutes to prepare everything before she left. And in cases where she did not have her purse, the mother of King Charles III used her wedding ring. Thus, if he wanted to end a conversation, he just had to touch his ring, and turn it if he wanted to leave. From then on, her staff had to hurry to bail her out using an excuse to force her to leave the compound. “It was very well done. Someone would come up and say, ‘Sir, the Archbishop of Canterbury would very much like to meet you.'”Hugo Vickers explained.
This Monday, September 19, under the gaze of billions of excited viewers, the funeral of Isabel II took place, who now rests in peace with her husband, her parents and her sister, in the chapel of San Jorge, in Windsor Castle. If the ceremony was the scene of a veritable parade of many heads of state and crowned heads, it was also an opportunity to see the entire English royal family again. Indeed, the queen’s children, grandchildren, and sometimes even great-grandchildren gathered to pay their last respects to her. A beautiful farewell for an exceptional monarch.