One of the Only Times Queen Elizabeth Cried in Public Captured on Camera as She Weeps and Wipes Away Tears
Throughout her life, Queen Elizabeth II usually refrained from showing too much emotion and was able to maintain a stiff upper lip in public. Netflix’s series The Crown even dedicated a whole episode to whether or not the queen could physically cry since not many people ever saw her shed tears.
But of course, she was only human like the rest of us and there were a few occasions when tears did roll down her cheeks. Now, a video circulating online shows one moment when the late queen was seen wiping tears from her face on a day that was particularly painful for her.
Times Queen Elizabeth failed to maintain a stiff upper lip and cried
The stiff-upper-lip policy among Britain’s royals was first adopted in 1936 by Queen Elizabeth II’s mom, the Queen Mother. She did so after she and her family were thrust into the spotlight following the abdication of her brother-in-law Prince Edward VIII, which resulted in her husband becoming the king. It is a policy that Queen Elizabeth II always tried to live by but on a few rare occasions, she couldn’t maintain it.
One of the times the public captured tears in her eyes was in 1997 when the Royal Yacht Britannia was decommissioned. Another time Queen Elizabeth was visibly upset was in 2002 at the Field of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey. She was also moved to tears in 2016 when she attended a service for fallen soldiers of the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment. Royal watchers caught her dabbing her eyes again during Remembrance Sunday Service at The Cenotaph in 2017 and in 2019.
A video uploaded to TikTok highlights another moment the late monarch couldn’t hold it together and that was at her sister, Princess Margaret‘s funeral. The 20-second clip, which has over 13,000 views and more than 900 likes, shows the queen outside St. George’s Chapel discreetly putting her finger near her eye as a tear falls. She then looked next to her perhaps to see if anyone else saw her.
As one commenter wrote: “She and Margaret were so close. So sad she died about the same time as her mother, leaving the queen without her two most important supporters.”
Photo shows the late queen weeping and being comforted at Princess Margaret’s funeral
While that video showed Queen Elizabeth whipping away a tear, there is a photo that was taken that day in which she appeared to be weeping. The queen was so distraught at the moment that Princess Margaret’s son was seen trying to console his aunt.
Royal family friend Reinaldo Herrera wrote about seeing the queen like that in a piece for Vanity Fair.
“I think it was the only time anyone ever saw the queen show her emotions in public,” Herrera wrote. “Never explaining anything to the world — what she feels, or why she does what she does — is part of her greatness. But for a few minutes that day, as she stood by the steps of St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, watching her sister’s coffin being borne away, her eyes betrayed her.”
