Queen Elizabeth II’s attendance at Margaret Thatcher’s funeral on Wednesday, a rare honour, sheds light on the largely secret relationship between two of the world’s most famous and powerful women.
Her presence at the ceremonial funeral – organised at the monarch’s consent – might lay to rest decades of rumours that the pair could not get along.
It will be the first time that the Queen, now 86, has attended one of her prime ministers’ funerals since that of Winston Churchill in 1965.
Between 1979 and 1990, Britain’s first female prime minister had an audience with Queen Elizabeth every Tuesday, week in, week out.
As with all her premiers, the wide-ranging and frank conversations were never recorded and the content never publicly discussed. A consummate constitutional monarch, Queen Elizabeth’s political views are simply not known.
For her part, Thatcher stuck with convention and gave little away on their 11 years of exchanges in her autobiography, The Downing Street Years (1993).