In the final years of her life, Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother was often referred to as 'the best loved royal' thanks to her decades of public service.
But behind palace walls, her staff knew her for the clever way she avoided any familial subject she didn't want to speak or know about.
It is said the former Queen mastered this ability to such a degree that those closest to her nicknamed her "the imperial ostrich", owing to her fondness for 'sticking her head in the sand' to avoid difficult conversations.
Speaking to OK! about the Queen Mother's ability to avoid family drama, former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond explained: "She’d had to deal with so many troubles in her own life – the abdication, becoming Queen, the feud with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, not to mention the war.
"So, in later life, she mostly ignored the family crises that were going on. And, very largely, the family tried to protect her from the horror of it all.
"She had, of course, witnessed and lived through the inevitable rift between her own husband and his brother which was caused by the abdication.
"And that abdication had been caused by an American, divorced woman. So I am not sure that the Queen Mother would’ve had a great deal of sympathy with Meghan Markle.
"She was a staunch traditionalist, and would probably have found it difficult to come to terms with the idea of Camilla, who is divorced, being Queen.
"On the other hand, she adored her grandson, Charles, and in her eyes he could do no wrong, and she would have been delighted to see him so happy in later life."
As biographer William Shawcross put it: "[The Queen Mother] wouldn't acknowledge, let alone confront, disagreeableness within the family."
And royal expert Hugo Vickers, who wrote the late royal's biography, says she would have been "so disappointed" with the actions of her great-grandson and his wife.
He told The Sun: "I think the Queen Mother would have been absolutely horrified in regards to Meghan and Harry's interview with Oprah. Fundamentally a lot of things that were said in there that were not true and very easy to disprove. I'm sure she would be very unhappy.
"The Queen Mother was always someone who if she were unhappy or saw something she didn't like she would just blank it out and just wouldn't refer to it. It didn't happen or the person didn't exist.
"This was the attitude towards the Duke and Duchess of Windsor – she just didn't bother with them.
"They just didn't exist to her at all. I think that’s how she would also feel about Meghan and Harry – they would be ignored, they would be blanked. You wouldn’t have been able to get much out of her about what she thought about them."
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