Be honest: If you were the queen, would you ever pick up a vacuum, mop or sponge again? We certainly would not! A reprieve from cleaning seems like the greatest perk of the gig. (Well, that and the crown jewels.)
But Queen Elizabeth II was built differently. According to biographies of the late monarch and staff who worked with her, she loved rolling up her sleeves and doing a very ordinary chore that you probably hate.
So what household job is fit for a queen? Read on to find out.
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Which cleaning task did the queen do herself?
The late queen loved nothing more than taking off her jewels, popping on a pair of rubber gloves and washing the dishes after a meal. Think the image of the queen up to her elbows in dishwater sounds absurd? You’re not the only one. The late monarch threw a few prime ministers for a loop with her dishwashing.
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was famously ticked off by the monarch after a barbecue at Balmoral, during which Prince Philip had cooked and the queen began cleaning up.
“She couldn’t bear the queen waiting on her,” writes biographer Matthew Dennison in The Queen. “She kept leaping up. Finally, the queen was heard to say, ‘Could someone tell that woman to sit down?’ After one trip, the prime minister even felt impelled to send the monarch a pair of washing-up gloves.”
A few years later, another prime minister, David Cameron, found himself in the suds with the queen. “I’m not making this up,” he told Gyles Brandreth for his book Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait. “You sat down, and Prince Philip and Her Majesty the Queen served your dinner and cleared it away and washed it up while you sat talking with the other guests.”
After about five years of this, Cameron thought he’d join in. Big mistake. “I thought, ‘Well, I now surely can help,’” he said, explaining that he donned rubber gloves and started washing up. “I remember Her Majesty saying, ‘What on earth is the prime minister doing?’ I’d broken with the protocol and rapidly sat back down and did what I was told.”
Was this a regular thing?
No, the queen mainly liked to clean up when she was at her favorite getaway, Balmoral Castle in Scotland. (So you can stop feeling so bad about your disdain for the chore. You have to do it daily.)
Former press secretary Dickie Arbiter, who worked with the queen for many years, also witnessed her washing the dishes at her Highland home. He’d recently joined the palace and was invited to an intimate lunch at Balmoral to meet the queen and Philip. The 45-minute meal with the royal couple and the queen’s lady-in-waiting featured china plates, silver cutlery and Tupperware containers of food for the foursome.
“At the end of it, the queen said, ‘We’ve got to clear up,’ and I took it as my cue as the junior flunky to do the washing up. So I went into the kitchen and started washing up. I heard this footfall behind me and assumed it was the lady-in-waiting coming to give me a hand,” the royal commentator told True Royalty TV. “I said over my shoulder without even turning, ‘OK, I’ll wash, you dry.’ This very familiar voice behind me said, ‘No, I’ll wash, you dry.’ It was the queen. So she plunged her hands into the Fairy Liquid—no gloves—and I did the drying up. It was quite an experience to actually do a bit of domesticity with a head of state.”
Why did the queen like doing this?
Washing dishes may feel like drudgery, but it’s a very normal activity for most people in the world—and that’s what made it so appealing to the queen.
It gave her a sense of normalcy
By getting her hands wet and sudsy, Elizabeth could feel like a regular person, if only for a moment. And it’s no surprise she most often cleaned up at her Scottish estate. Balmoral was the one place she truly felt like herself, according to her family.
“It’s the most beautiful place on earth,” Princess Eugenie said in the 2016 documentary Our Queen at 90. “I think Granny is the most happy there. I think she really, really loves the Highlands … Walks, picnics, dogs—a lot of dogs! There’s always dogs. And people coming in and out all the time. You just have room to breathe and run.”
But it wasn’t the only place the queen liked to live “normally.” She also did that in Sandringham, a sprawling royal estate in Norfolk, England, where Philip would later spend his retirement. Instead of staying in the main house, the couple regularly stayed in the homier five-bedroom Wood Farm. Philip loved to cook—his specialty was omelets—and the queen enjoyed cleaning up.
“I was once at a shooting lunch,” a courtier told journalist Harry Mount. “At the end of lunch, I heard someone say, ‘I’ll do the washing up.’ I turned round, and there was the queen in her yellow washing-up gloves.”
It hearkened back to her childhood
At Balmoral, she got a glimpse of the life she thought she would live when she was a child. The young Princess Elizabeth once told her riding instructor that she envisioned herself in the future as “a lady living in the country with lots of dogs and horses.” But when her uncle, Edward VIII, abdicated in 1936, it changed the trajectory of her life.
She’d always loved playing house—for her sixth birthday, the people of Wales gifted the little princess a miniature thatched cottage called Y Bwthyn Bach, which was placed on the grounds in Windsor and came complete with running water, electricity and a fully functioning kitchen. She loved “dusting and washing up there,” Dennison wrote.
She was also scrupulously tidy. Her governess, Marion Crawford, reported that she would line up “her shoes quite straight, her clothes arranged just so.”
What other very normal household tasks did the queen do?
We’re not saying the queen could be found vacuuming the red carpets of Buckingham Palace on the regular—she had a vast staff employed to do that. But she showed interest in a few household tasks, including:
- Caring for corgis: The queen adored corgis and would feed and breed them. After receiving Susan the corgi for her 18th birthday, Elizabeth began breeding a doggie dynasty. Susan’s offspring were by the queen’s side until 2009.
- Caring for horses: Elizabeth loved horses and received her first Shetland pony, Peggy, as a fourth birthday present in 1930. Throughout her life, she groomed and bred the animals. She was never happier than when she was with her horses, clad in a waxed jacket and headscarf.
- Gardening: The queen was patron of the Royal Horticultural Society for 70 years and had a wide knowledge of plants and a passion for roses. Although not a hands-on gardener, she took an avid interest in her palace gardens.
- Maintaining a car: She may never have changed the tires on her Land Rover, but she could have, if necessary, thanks to her wartime service. In 1945, she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service and learned how to maintain army vehicles.
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Reader’s Digest has published hundreds of stories on the British royal family, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the fascinating facets of the monarchy. We regularly cover topics including the latest royal news, the history and meaning behind time-honored traditions, and the everyday quirks of everyone’s favorite family members, from Queen Elizabeth’s daily snack to Prince William’s confessions about his home life. We’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
Sources:
- The Queen by Matthew Dennison
- Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait by Gyles Brandreth
- True Royalty TV: “A poignant memory from Dickie Arbiter”
- The Queen at 90
- The Telegraph: “The secrets of Wood Farm – the Queen’s favourite retreat”
- The Times: “Queen Elizabeth II obituary”
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