QUEEN ELIZABETH was to celebrate her 70th birthday yesterday with a low key family dinner. But once more the meddlesome media got in the way of royal plans.
Instead of the traditional state banquet to celebrate her birthday, last night Queen Elizabeth was to have attended a private family dinner at the Waterside Inn, an exclusive restaurant not far from Windsor castle. Prince Edward, who organised the party, reportedly asked each family member to contribute £100 sterling for the dinner.
The puzzle of exactly who told a national newspaper about the secret birthday celebration at the Roux brothers' exclusive restaurant is now exercising the minds of courtiers and members of the royal family alike.
Royal officials expressed disappointment that the planned dinner party at one of Britain's finest restaurants had to be switched to Frogmore House in Windsor Home Park. A Buckingham Palace spokesman declined to confirm the new venue for the celebration dinner but it is understood that because the queen could not go to the Roux brothers, they went to her.
Meanwhile the debate over the future of the British monarchy continues, with the tabling this week of a parliamentary bill calling for a referendum on the issue.
Mr Paul Flynn, the Labour MP for Newport West, said his Royal Referendum Bill will propose that before Queen Elizabeth dies or abdicates in favour of Prince Charles, the British people should be able to choose whether the country becomes a republic.
After attending the matins service at the local church at Sandringham, with her daughter the Princess Royal, Queen Elizabeth thanked the crowd of about a 1,000 for their birthday wishes.
Although Prince Edward's girlfriend, Ms Sophie Rhys Jones, was to be among the dinner guests, neither the Princess of Wales nor the Duchess of York were invited.
PA adds Mrs Camilla Parker Bowles visited the Prince and Princess of Wales during their honeymoon in 1981, a newspaper claimed yesterday.
The Mail on Sunday said "The prince's mistress and her husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, visited the newlyweds as they honeymooned in Balmoral."
The newspaper is serialising a new biography of the monarch, entitled The Queen. In the book, historian Ben Pimlott claims the queen encouraged her eldest son's marriage to the then Lady Diana Spencer in the hope that it would end his relationship with Mrs Parker Bowls. Pimlott says Diana and Charles were drawn into a "marriage of convenience that was disguised to everybody, including themselves, as a love match".