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1 " Upstairs, on the balcony, the chairs are laid out for one of the most extraordinary – though invisible – rituals of a Palace banquet. In a tradition harking back to the medieval custom of royal meals as public entertainment, two dozen people will have tickets to sit behind the Band of the Grenadier Guards and simply watch the banquet. The ‘audience’ will be made up of members of staff, each of whom can bring a guest, and it’s always extremely popular as the ‘audience’ have dinner thrown in. However, once seated no one is allowed to budge for the best part of two hours. "
― , Her Majesty: The Court of Queen Elizabeth II
2 " She sleeps well, she’s got very good legs and she can stand for a long time. The Queen is as strong as a yak. "
3 " From the First World War to his death eighteen years later, George V spent just eight weeks abroad. George VI travelled widely as Duke of York but for much of his reign his capacity for travel was curtailed by war and ill health. The Queen, who had never left the country until shortly before her twenty-first birthday, has visited 135 separate nations, some of them several times. And yet she had to wait until she was eighty-five to visit the nearest of the lot – the Republic of Ireland – in May 2011. "
4 " Prince Philip can be equally forthright when it comes to long sermons. As he once remarked: ‘The mind cannot absorb what the backside cannot endure. "
5 " And, short of a revolution, the greatest threat to the throne has always been indifference. By "