We’ve all seen the footage of a young Queen Elizabeth doing the hail Hitler salute.
Years later, we cringed when Prince Harry wore a Swastika to a fancy dress party while Prince Philip’s slips are the stuff of legend.
And now, new claims have emerged surrounding the late Queen Mother and her apparent world views.
Royal diarist Sir Roy Colin Strong, who documented the Royal Family’s affairs for years in a series of tomes, says he had to cover up the Queen Mother’s racist slurs because they were “too awful” to publish.
According to The Times the 81-year-old writer and historian, who went on to be the director of the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum, made the shocking revelations during an address at the Hay Festival in Wales.
“I can remember the Queen Mother came to lunch at Ham House, which was a branch of the V&A, and she said, ‘I will bring the liquid refreshment’, and we all knew what that meant.”
“Suddenly in the middle of lunch, I was on the left of her I think, and the Queen was in Africa at the time, and the Queen Mother leant over to me and said, ‘Beware the blackamoors.’ I thought, ‘I can’t put that down, it’s too awful,'” he reportedly told the audience.
The term “blackamoors” is a derogatory word for a servant or dark-skinned person.
The Queen Mother, pictured with her husband King Edward, apparently made several off-colour comments.
“But one knows she was colour prejudiced. So I always felt there was a certain streak of me that was protective of things, but on the whole not,” he added.
But over the years Sir Roy wasn’t always so generous with “shielding” the royals, once remarking to his publisher’s lawyers he wasn’t fussed if he ever saw Princess Margaret again.
“I am always protective of people who are close to me, who are friends. I revere the monarchy for all its faults,” the high society journalist explained at the Hay Festival.
There’s clearly no hard feelings as Sir Roy still keeps in touch with Prince Charles and was knighted in 1982.
In the past, Queen Elizabeth’s mother has admitted she has “some reservations about Jews.”
Meanwhile one of her ladies-in-waiting alleged the ruler, who was born Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon and passed away in 2002, had a worrying view towards Africans and once remarked: “poor darlings; the Africans just don’t know how to govern themselves – it’s just not their form. What a pity we’re not still looking after them.”
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Sir Roy Strong says he covered up the Queen Mother’s racist slurs.
