London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 15, 2025

The Queen Has an "Unspoken Rule" Against Talking Badly About Family Members to Outsiders

The Queen Has an "Unspoken Rule" Against Talking Badly About Family Members to Outsiders

"Most people can hide their family difficulties...hers are always the focus of public attention."

* No matter what drama might be going on between various members of the royal family, the Queen will never say a bad word about any of her relatives (or in-laws) to anyone outside the family itself.

* In his book Long Live the Queen! 13 Rules for Living from Britain's Longest Reigning Monarch, royal author Bryan Kozlowski explains why the Queen prioritizes keeping her family strong over everything else.

* Louis Mountbatten once said that keeping the royal family together in spite of all their drama was actually the Queen's greatest achievement, since their difficulties are "always the focus of public attention."

The Queen has a strict rule that she always follows: Never talk badly about any member of the royal family to outsiders—no matter what.

It's not an official edict, but this unspoken rule has been important to the monarch, particularly as she works to keep her family strong even as the world watches their every move (and gossips endlessly about every feud or bit of drama they go through).

The rule is one that royal author Bryan Kozlowski outlines in his book Long Live the Queen! 13 Rules for Living from Britain's Longest Reigning Monarch, which guides readers through how to live a happy and successful life by taking tips directly from the Queen herself.

"One of the Queen's unspoken rules is to never talk badly about any member of her family to outsiders, rather only support them, when she can," Kozlowski writes, citing Princess Diana's ongoing drama in the 1990s as example of a time when the Queen refused to deviate from her supportive stance, even when it wasn't the easiest thing to do.

"Diana might have made her life unimaginably difficult in the 1990s, but the Queen quickly jumped to her defense when, during a press conference at the Palace, an editor of the News of the World, inquired that if Diana didn't want the paparazzi following her, couldn't she send a servant to run her errands for her?" he writes. "'That's the most pompous thing I have ever heard,' responded the Queen, famously earning a round of applause from the other editors in the room."

Over the years, some people, including Prince Philip's uncle, Louis Mountbatten, have taken note of the Queen's stalwart support for her family members and praised her ability to handle all of their drama and difficulties with grace.

"The more he witnessed the royal drama unfold, the more Louis Mountbatten believed that keeping her family together and coping with their self-inflicted messes was the Queen's greatest personal achievement," Kozlowski writes. "More so when you consider, as Mountbatten told his confidant John Barratt, that while 'most people can hide their family difficulties...hers are always the focus of public attention.' Yet, for the Queen, it's always been the bigger picture, not the isolated tiffs with her children, grandchildren, husband or sister, that have most concerned her. She still believes, as her mother did before her, that 'a united family is the strongest thing in the world.'"

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
French PM Suspends Macron’s Pension Reform Until After 2027 in Bid to Stabilize Government
Orange, Bouygues and Free Make €17 Billion Bid for Drahi’s Altice France Telecom Assets
Dutch Government Seizes Chipmaker After U.S. Presses for Removal of Chinese CEO
Bessent Accuses China of Dragging Down Global Economy Amid New Trade Curbs
U.S. Revokes Visas of Foreign Nationals Who ‘Celebrated’ Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
AI and Cybersecurity at Forefront as GITEX Global 2025 Kicks Off in Dubai
DJI Loses Appeal to Remove Pentagon’s ‘Chinese Military Company’ Label
EU Deploys New Biometric Entry/Exit System: What Non-EU Travelers Must Know
Australian Prime Minister’s Private Number Exposed Through AI Contact Scraper
Ex-Microsoft Engineer Confirms Famous Windows XP Key Was Leaked Corporate License, Not a Hack
China’s lesson for the US: it takes more than chips to win the AI race
Australia Faces Demographic Risk as Fertility Falls to Record Low
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
×