It’s been revealed the Queen was almost shot by the royal guard while she was taking a late night stroll around the grounds of Buckingham Palace.
As reported by The Times, the incident occurred when the royal took a walk at around 3am, when she was unable to sleep.
The guard on patrol spotted a figure in the darkness, thinking it was an intruder onto the Palace grounds.
“Who’s that?” he yelled, before realising it was the Queen.
“Bloody hell, Your Majesty, I nearly shot you,” he reportedly said.
“That’s quite all right,” Her Majesty replied. “Next time I’ll ring through beforehand so you don’t have to shoot me.”
It’s understood the near-accident happened several years ago.
But it comes as the Queen returns to the public eye after almost two weeks of illness.
The Monarch attended her first royal engagement, presenting Ray Wheaton, the Queen’s Page of the Chambers, with the insignia of a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order (LVO), according to the court circular.
Queen Elizabeth has been suffering from a heavy cold, which prevented her from attending both the traditional royal Christmas and New Year church service, for the first time in years.
The Queen and Prince Philip both fell ill almost two weeks ago, forcing the cancellation of their traditional train ride up to the Queen’s Norfolk estate in rural England for their annual break. Instead, they flew up by helicopter on Christmas Eve.
Prince Philip was well enough to attend the Christmas Day Service, but on New Year’s Eve, Buckingham Palace issued a rare statement on Her Majesty’s health, partly in response to a fake BBC Twitter account which had falsely claimed she had died.
“The Queen is continuing to recover from her heavy cold and is still in the residence of Sandringham,” a spokeswoman said.
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