Queen Elizabeth Allowed Kate Middleton To Do This ‘Shocking’ Thing

Queen Elizabeth is often regarded as a stickler for royal protocols and traditions, but even she has shocked royal fans by allowing the rules to be broken and bent from time to time—including when Kate Middleton was still just dating her grandson, Prince William.

According to Hollywood Cheat Sheet, the Queen shocked everyone back in 2009 when Prince William and Middleton were still just dating, allowing the future Duchess to spend some time at Balmoral in Scotland, where she spends her summer holidays, which was seen as a shock since only family members are usually permitted to visit the Queen while she’s there for a holiday.

In addition, the queen also shocked others by letting Middleton take photos at the property, something she hadn’t knowingly ever given someone outside the family permission to do before,

“Until now, the Queen had met Kate only fleetingly at the wedding of Peter and Autumn Phillips, but she went out of her way to make her feel welcome, giving her permission to take pictures at Balmoral—a true gift to a photographer, with its turreted and Gothic-inspired architecture,” Katie Nicholl wrote in the book “Kate: The Future Queen.”

However, while the Queen appeared to trust in the future Duchess and her relationship with her grandson enough to let her do the things she did then, it’s believed these days that while they do get along, the relationship between the women is also somewhat more formal, especially when compared to the one Her Majesty has with Meghan Markle.

“Meghan seems to have forged a particularly close relationship with the Queen if you compare that to when other people have married into the royal family,” royal expert Duncan Larcombe said previously. “The Queen last year in the first few months of Meghan’s entry into the royal family, made a particular and slightly unusual effort to welcome her in. Unusual in the context of the trip on the royal train to do a royal engagement. I’m 99 percent sure she’s never afforded that offer to Kate.”