The Royal Yacht Britannia was part of Queen Elizabeth’s life for 44 years, taking the Royal Family on hundreds of trips around the globe. The vessel played host to royal vacations, honeymoons and official foreign visits until it was decommissioned in 1997, and photos from the ceremony show the late Queen wiping a tear from her eye. But Prince Philip told royal author Gyles Brandreth that Queen Elizabeth never actually cried at the event—or in general.
Brandreth, who once worked alongside the late Prince Philip, has been close with the Royal Family for decades. In the biographer’s recent book, Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait, he shared the conversation he had with Philip about the late Queen’s alleged tearful moment.
“She doesn’t cry,” the late Duke of Edinburgh told Brandreth in 2006. The topic came up when Helen Mirren, who played Elizabeth in The Queen, burst into tears in a scene following Princess Diana’s death. Prince Philip hadn't seen the film, but said, “They just make it up,” adding, “All I'm saying is that it isn't accurate. The Queen doesn't cry.”
Philip told Brandreth that “you can have feelings without blubbing,” pointing to the decommissioning ceremony of Britannia as an example.
“They’re obsessed with people showing their emotions in public,” the late duke said of the media. “They’re determined to get a picture of The Queen with tears in her eyes—and if it’s a cold day they might succeed.”
When Britannia was taken out of service on December 11, the late Queen was bundled up in a red coat and matching hat for the chilly Scottish day. Referencing a photo of his wife wiping a tear away, Philip told Brandreth that she wasn’t actually crying.
“‘It was the middle of December,’ snorted Philip. ‘It was bloody cold. We all had tears in our eyes.’”
Princess Anne was also seen wiping her eyes during the event, but even if they didn't actually shed tears, the family was certainly emotional over the loss of their beloved yacht. Even former Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted that the decision to get rid of the vessel was probably not his best.
“I didn't want to get rid of it,” Blair told author Valentine Low in his book Power and the Palace. “After we'd agreed to get rid of it, I actually went on it, and I remember, as I stepped on, thinking, 'That was such a mistake to have done that.'”
