When the hearse carrying Queen Elizabeth II’s body left the gates of Balmoral Castle on Sunday, it marked the monarch’s final departure from a personal retreat where she could lay a wreath of protocol and ceremony for a few weeks each year. The sprawling estate in the Scottish Highlands west of Aberdeen was a place where Elizabeth rode her beloved horses, had picnics and pushed her children around the grounds in tricycles and carriages, shrugging off the formality of Buckingham Palace. “When … she walks through those (Balmoral) gates, I think the royal part of her is mostly left out,” said the Reverend David Barr, of Glenmuick Church in nearby Ballater. “And as she came in, she was able to be a wife, a loving wife, a loving mom, a loving grandmother and later a loving great grandmother — and aunt — and be normal.” It was a transformation that took place every summer, when the royal family spent much of August and September at the estate, which had been a royal hole since 1852, when Prince Albert bought it for his wife, Queen Victoria. Balmoral is the family’s “private wilderness”, where a fleet of immaculate Land Rovers picked up visitors every morning during the filming and stalking season, Jonathan Dimbleby wrote in his 1994 biography of Prince Charles, who became king Charles III after his mother’s death. But there were other attractions. “In the stables, the Queen’s horses were ready again, the coats trimmed, the saddles and bridles soaped, and the stirrups polished,” wrote Dimbleby. “Household servants, trained in tact, appeared only when required, knowing that to be seen or heard without purpose would be an intrusion.” At Balmoral, a woman best remembered for wearing gowns and crowns or granny dresses and wide-brimmed hats could tie a scarf around her head, slip into a warm jacket and pull on a pair of boots to explore a field covered with heather and pine forests and inhabited by deer, bees and butterflies. This sense of informality could bring out the queen’s mischievous side. A former royal protection officer, Richard Griffin, recalled accompanying the Queen on a picnic when they encountered two American hikers. The tourists did not recognize Elizabeth and asked how long she had been visiting the area. When he replied “over 80 years”, they asked if he had ever met the Queen. “Quick as a flash she says, ‘Well, I haven’t, but Dickie here meets her regularly,’” Griffin told Sky News earlier this year during events to mark the monarch’s 70 years on the throne. One of the hikers then turned to Griffin and asked how the queen was. He replied: “She can be quite crazy at times, but she has a great sense of humour.” After posing for a photo with the queen, the unsuspecting hikers waved goodbye and continued on their journey. “And then Her Majesty said to me: “I would love to be a fly on the wall when she shows these pictures to friends in America. Hopefully someone will tell him who I am,’” Griffin recalled. The Queen’s love of Balmoral underlined the royal family’s close ties to Scotland, which began with her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria, who started the royal tradition of wearing tartan. During the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, the Queen hoped for a ‘no’ vote, although she could not publicly express her view. Former Prime Minister David Cameron later confirmed this, telling how her husband, the late Prince Philip, tried to keep the peace at Balmoral by trying to cover up the morning papers on the day a poll was published suggesting Scots might vote to leave from the United Kingdom “But, of course, when she got the result she said she purred like a cat with satisfaction to hear that her UK would stay united,” royal historian Robert Lacey told the BBC on Friday. But at its heart, Balmoral was a family home for the Queen. Freed temporarily from state affairs, Elizabeth and Philip spent more time with their children at Balmoral. Domestic footage released to the BBC for a documentary on the Queen’s 90th birthday showed the couple playing with Charles and his sister, Anne, on the lawn outside Balmoral Castle, with Philip going down a grassy slope in a little red wagon before it overturned. kilt blowing in the breeze. In later years, Charles played table tennis and football in the yard and was even allowed to cycle to the village shop by himself, albeit with a policeman following, Dimbleby wrote. It is “very significant” that the queen died in Scotland, Lacey told The Associated Press. “Because apart from her love of that particular country, it was the outdoors, the way she got in touch with nature,” he said.
