The Subtle Tricks Queen Elizabeth Used to Signal She'd Made a Decision Simon PerryOctober 29, 2025 at 8:00 PM 0 Central Press/Getty Queen Elizabeth with Sir Winston Churchill in 1953 Queen Elizabeth had a few tricks up her sleeve to signal that she had made decisions — or was simply finished with a ...
- - The Subtle Tricks Queen Elizabeth Used to Signal She'd Made a Decision
Simon PerryOctober 29, 2025 at 8:00 PM
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Central Press/Getty
Queen Elizabeth with Sir Winston Churchill in 1953 -
Queen Elizabeth had a few tricks up her sleeve to signal that she had made decisions — or was simply finished with a conversation
The late Queen is discussed by biographer Andrew Morton
His latest book traces the uniquely close working relationship of Winston Churchill with the Queen and other members of the royal family
The late Queen Elizabeth grew into her role after coming to the throne at the age of just 25.
Surrounded by older men — many of whom had served her father, King George VI — she had to quickly learn on the job while keeping her counsel and also not indicating what she thought about any big question until she was ready.
Her first — and arguably favorite — prime minister, Winston Churchill, took it upon himself to help mentor the Queen and also read her mood and responses to a thorny issue.
Biographer Andrew Morton — whose latest book, Winston and the Windsors, traces the wartime prime minister's relationship with the royals — says, "He noticed a little tick of the queen. When she was making a decision, she would look out of the window for a few seconds. and then come back into the room, as it were, and announce her decision."
He tells PEOPLE, "And Churchill always used to say that she invariably made the right decision."
Stuart C. Wilson/Getty
Queen Elizabeth in Chichester, U.K., in 2017
Churchill, Morton believes, understood that despite Queen Elizabeth being young and inexperienced, she had the aptitude and talent for the role.
"He believed that she had the right temperament" for the role, he says. "She had the temperament of a bureaucrat but the glamour of a queen. So she was very firm in some of her points of view and quite stubborn, and Churchill respected that."
Her silent sign that she had made up her mind wasn't the only little trick she had up her gloved sleeve. The late Queen was also said to motion that she was finished with a conversation or that time was up on an official outing by switching her trusty Launer handbag from one arm to another, telling her handlers to move in and usher her away.
"It would be very worrying if you were talking to the Queen and saw the handbag move from one hand to the other," royal historian Hugo Vickers told PEOPLE in 2011. But she would be sensitive about doing so.
"It would be done very nicely," Vickers said. "Someone would come along and say, 'Sir, the Archbishop of Canterbury would very much like to meet you.'"
Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty
The late Queen with her trusty handbag during a visit to Durban, South Africa in March 1995
But if she was really keen to leave a reception or party, she would be a bit more forthright. She would dramatically spin her ring, which is said to have indicated that she wanted to be moved along quickly.
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If she wanted to end a conversation with a prime minister or any other visiting dignitary, she would discreetly press a buzzer, which would tell footmen and other staff outside that they could enter and end the meeting, escorting the visitor out.
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