Britain's Queen Elizabeth is "shy by nature".
Britain's Queen Elizabeth
The 89-year-old royal - who became Queen at the tender age of 25 - reportedly has to "gather herself together" sometimes before she enters a room but has the full support of her husband Prince Philip in whatever she does.
A royal aide said: "Sometimes she has to rather gather herself together before she can quite face going into a room where everyone will be looking at her.
"When Prince Philip sees that happening he takes over, in a subtle way, and makes sure everything is OK. He says he can make people laugh within 15 seconds. He's cantankerous with people, and occasionally around the Queen. What people don't realise is that for the past 20 years he has suffered from acute arthritis, which can be very painful."
Meanwhile, the Queen's cousin Margaret Rhodes also revealed the monarch had told her she would only step down if her health forced her hand.
Margaret added to the Daily Mail newspaper: "I don't know how much she would do a Queen Victoria and sit in the background while she was getting over it. She would never consider stepping down.
"I remember someone once repeating my words, saying that she wasn't going to abdicate. When I next saw the Queen, she said to me, 'You should have said, 'She would want to go on being Queen unless she had Alzheimer's or suffered a stroke.'"
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