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Why the Queen's never been happier: Repeats of The Two Ronnies. Gin and Dubonnet with Andrew's girls. Secret trips to West End shows. And a quiet conviction she's saved the monarchy

By Richard Kay and Geoffrey Levy for the Daily Mail

Published: 17:48 EST, 4 September 2015 | Updated: 19:05 EST, 4 September 2015

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The Queen beams during a state visit to Germany earlier this year

The party at the Ritz was to celebrate a friend’s 90th birthday, and everyone was dutifully praising the ‘birthday girl’s’ everlasting youthfulness.

‘What about me?’ piped up the smiling Queen, all a-twinkle. ‘I’ve come down from Sandringham, carried out an engagement in the Midlands, come here, and I shall be returning to Sandringham tonight.’

The unspoken ‘not bad for my age’ caused a ripple of laughter. For the Queen has always been happy to look her age and never seeks compliments. Unlike her late sister Princess Margaret, who was four years her junior, the Queen stopped dyeing her hair 25 years ago when she was 64, allowing it first to go grey and now white.

Unlike her mother, the late Queen Mother who, right up to her death at the age of 101 never wore spectacles in public, the Queen has been doing so for many years.

‘She has wanted to set a reassuring example, especially with people living so much longer nowadays, that there’s nothing wrong with getting old and showing it,’ says one of her circle. ‘She is not at all vain. She never has been.’

This makes it so much easier to understand the Queen’s low-key approach to her latest — and most significant — anniversary on Wednesday, on which day she will have reigned for 63 years and 217 days, overtaking the record set by her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria.

Actually, the Queen is quite ambivalent about anniversaries. A friend who asked how much she enjoyed her Diamond Jubilee in 2012, recalls her replying: ‘Enjoy is not quite the right word.’

She might have been referring to the river pageant on the Thames which she and Prince Philip presided over for four uncomfortable hours, standing on a barge in bitterly cold rain and wind, after which Philip, now 94, was admitted to hospital, missing the final days of the Jubilee extravaganza.

Or, tongue-in-cheek, it might have been an oblique reference to her advancing age — and fast-approaching 90th birthday in April.

In fact, friends say the Queen has never been more content. After the turbulence of the Nineties and the uncertainties that marked the beginning of the new millennium, all is calm in the royal household. Even her second son Prince Andrew appears to have severed his unseemly friendship with American paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Everything that she has ever wanted for the monarchy, and certainly worked for, has finally come about. Never much of a long-term planner, let alone a monarchical strategist, the Queen reaches next week’s milestone finding herself at the most peaceful she has been in her entire reign.

Palace aides say the 89-year-old monarch (seen above waving from the balcony of Buckingham Palace in July) has never been happier

Around the palace a new phrase reverberates among the courtiers — ‘the four-tier monarchy’. This is their official shorthand for the Queen, Prince Charles, William and now two-year-old George, all living at the same time, an extraordinary sovereign ladder of four generations from monarch to three future heirs.

All of them, in their individual ways, popular with the public — yes, even Charles and by extension his wife Camilla. And to think that just over 20 years ago, the institution was rocking over the War of the Waleses, and opportunistic republican voices were baying for change.

And it is no secret that she and her daughter-in-law Princes Diana were never particularly close or had much in common.

In the Queen’s eyes Diana certainly wasn’t helping the monarchy, though she did understand how hard it was for her being the wife of Charles, a difficult man. On occasion she felt sorry for her.

One senior courtier recalls the day, towards the end of her marriage to the Prince, that Diana called on the Queen and complained about Charles’s behaviour as a husband.

'In the Queen’s eyes Diana certainly wasn’t helping the monarchy'. They are pictured together in 1989

‘The Queen rolled her eyes and said sympathetically, “Charles is hopeless”,’ says the courtier. He adds: ‘But who knows whether the Queen really meant it or whether she was simply being diplomatic? One thing the Queen has always been good at is keeping her thoughts to herself.’

But for Diana’s death, the Queen privately believes the Camilla question might still be unresolved. Two women able to call themselves ‘Princess of Wales’ was always going to be one too many and would have continued to destabilise the throne.

What really hurt the Queen — and in retrospect still does, it is said — are the divorces that ended three of her four children’s marriages.

Long ago, when still Princess Elizabeth and giving a talk to a local Women’s Institute, the Queen described divorce as ‘awful’, little knowing that it would strike at all but one of her own children.

‘Divorce often runs in families, and she believed she and Philip set such a good example that they were bound to follow,’ says a senior courtier. ‘This has been a huge disappointment to her. She ruefully acknowledges that trying to be both a good Queen and a good mother at the same time was profoundly difficult.’

Voicing her despair with the heart-wrenching ‘annus horribilis’ speech in 1992, meant the Latin phrase passed into the language. How ironic that she should come up with those words on an occasion marking the 40th anniversary of her accession. But then, this was the period when everything seemed to be going wrong. Even her favourite home Windsor Castle had been severely damaged by fire.

After so much tumult, it is the welcome calm now enveloping the royals that the Queen is said to find so pleasing, so satisfying, so different from those days when the adjective most commonly being used about the royal family was ‘dysfunctional’.

So calm, indeed, that an almost suburban weekend family ritual is now in place. Every Sunday after church at Windsor, she makes her way to Royal Lodge — once her mother’s favourite home, now Prince Andrew’s — to have a pre-lunch gin and Dubonnet with him and her granddaughters, the Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, and with Fergie, too, when they are all there.

'In many ways, the companionship of Andrew and Edward — who are her two favourites — has replaced that of Margaret and the Queen Mother'. The Queen accepts the Gold Cup from Prince Andrew after her horse won at Royal Ascot on Ladies Day

In the afternoon she has tea with her youngest son Edward and his wife Sophie, to whom she has grown particularly close, and their children Lady Louise, 11, and James, Viscount Severn, seven — they take it in turns to visit each other, one week Windsor Castle, the next Bagshot Park, the Wessexes’s home.

These two regular dates have become family fixtures in her diary. ‘She would love to see William and Kate more often but they live so far away in Norfolk,’ laments an aide. Next week, they are due to be at Balmoral, where the Queen has been since the beginning of August. However, it is understood they are staying at Birchall on the estate and not with the Queen in the castle.

In many ways, the companionship of Andrew and Edward — who are her two favourites — has replaced that of Margaret and the Queen Mother, whose closeness was so vital to her, and who died within seven weeks of each other 13 years ago.

‘You have to remember that so many of the Queen’s friends have passed away,’ says a senior figure. ‘And so have older members of her staff whose presence and familiarity has always been an important part of her life. After all, she’s never been able to just go out and meet people.’

One particularly close figure was Nancy Fenwick, whose husband Bill was the Windsor gamekeeper. Nancy helped look after the Queen’s corgis and often walked them.

She was known jokily in the royal household as the ‘Keeper of the Queen’s Corgis’. The Queen trusted no one with her dogs in the way she trusted Nancy who, like her, fed them in order of age, eldest first.

Consequently, Nancy had unique access to her. Whenever one of the corgis was on heat, or if the Queen was travelling, Nancy was always reassuringly there.

They were also of similar age. So it was a huge blow for the Queen when Mrs Fenwick died this year aged 85. In a break with tradition, the Queen went to her funeral in the Chapel Royal, Windsor Great Park, escorted by Andrew.

Mrs Fenwick’s death closed the corgi chapter for the Queen who, in poignant recognition of her own mortality, had already given up breeding them.

Unlike the Queen Mother, who in her final years was breeding racehorses knowing she would never see them on the track, the Queen knew that no one in the family would take an interest in her corgis after she had gone.

When Philip is at home in the evenings they eat together, but no longer do they dress for dinner if they are alone. They are seen arriving at the first day of Royal Ascot

But it is hardly surprising that the pace of her royal life has slowed somewhat, though, unusually for a woman of her years, she has not needed to have had safety handles fitted in her bathroom.

She does, however, take her breakfast half-an-hour later than it used to be — at 9.30am, and usually alone (Philip rises an hour earlier).

On days when she doesn’t have any morning engagements, she doesn’t appear from her private apartment until 11am. Some afternoons she will retire to her quarters for a nap.

When they are at Sandringham, frequently with guests, she will either walk the dogs after lunch or slip away to her rooms while Philip plays host.

Always a careful eater, she now eats more carefully then ever — no puddings, though she does like an occasional serving of cheese. Her appetite is described as ‘frugal’.

The supper routine is usually without Philip, too, as he hasn’t let his great age impinge too much on his enjoyment of meeting friends. She eats at 8.30pm in her own dining room, often in front of the television.

She is watching more TV these days, often repeats of old comedy favourites such as the Two Ronnies and the Antiques Roadshow. Last thing at night she updates her diary by hand, a practice that has been going on all her reign.

Palace aides say the Queen would like to see William and Kate more. They are seen together above at the christening of Princess Charlotte with Prince George, Prince Philip and the Duchess of Cornwall

It is impossible to understate the potential of what might be in the diary of a Queen whose reign has encompassed so much history, a monarch who has met probably every significant world figure of the last eight decades. This, remember, is the Queen whose inner thoughts have carefully never been exposed, beguiling us all.

So should we expect, one day long after she is gone, to read a journal filled with her private views on issues as diverse as Diana and the war in Iraq? As ever with the Queen, we do not know.

What must be said is that those who know her best feel that she would never commit to paper the most intimate of her thoughts — ‘That’s simply not her,’ says a friend. And so, we must wait and see.

When Philip is at home in the evenings they eat together, but no longer do they dress for dinner if they are alone. And these days their valet and dresser are often encouraged to leave early. On such evenings they watch television together, often box sets of programmes recommended by their children and grandchildren.

Philip enjoys wildlife programmes and is a fan of Sir David Attenborough.

The Queen still likes going out, especially to the theatre, where her routine is to go ‘incognito’ by slipping into her seat just after the house lights have gone out. Her excursions to the West End have been to see the Great War drama Warhorse, which she loved, and Billy Elliot.

‘It isn’t just a question of remaining active,’ says a senior aide. ‘She feels that once she starts giving in to age the whole edifice could start to crumble.’

The extended family is important to her. In recent days at Balmoral, her niece Lady Sarah Chatto (the daughter of Princess Margaret) has been staying, together with her artist husband Daniel and their children. ‘She’s very fond of Sarah, who reminds her so much of her sister Margaret,’ says a close friend.

Another regular house guest is Lady Brabourne, the ever-elegant Penny who has been a carriage-driving partner of Prince Philip for many years. The Queen is fond of Lady Brabourne, whose life has not been easy since her husband Norton went off to live with a woman in the Bahamas.

One old friendship is with the industrial tycoon Sebastian de Ferranti, 87. The Queen and Philip have stayed in his Cheshire stately home, the domed Henbury Hall.

While de Ferranti’s horse-loving wife Naomi was alive, the friendship between the two couples was particularly strong. But Naomi, who was master of the Cheshire Hunt and campaigned to help young people with drug problems, died in 2001.

Another regular house guest is Lady Brabourne, the ever-elegant Penny who has been a carriage-driving partner of Prince Philip for many years. They are seen together sharing a joke (above)

Four years ago, de Ferranti married landscape gardener Gilly Brown, 69, and in recent times the two couples are said to have seen less of each other.

But besides Philip, the two most sustaining figures in her life are her personal page Paul Whybrew and her personal assistant, Angela Kelly.

Whybrew has been with her for 35 years, and famously spoke to Michael Fagan, the intruder who broke into the Queen’s bedroom and chatted with her sitting on the end of her bed in 1982. Even more famously, Whybrew is the distinctively tall and slim figure who introduced ‘James Bond’ to the Queen in the brilliant 2012 London Olympics skit.

Angela Kelly, 63, a crane driver’s daughter from Liverpool, married and divorced three times, arrived to work at the palace as the Queen’s dresser 21 years ago. Now she is as close to the Queen as anybody.

Between them, these two make sure the Queen knows what is going on in her palace and, indeed, beyond it. ‘They care very much for her, and she for them,’ says a palace aide.

‘They are also very protective of her, not telling her things they think might trouble her, but she loves to hear the below-stairs gossip.’

One thing they decided not to tell her just the other day was that a large section of ceiling in Buckingham Palace’s Belgian Suite had come down, causing considerable damage. The Belgian Suite is where William and Kate spent their wedding night.

The Queen’s most distinguished guests, such as Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, have stayed there, and the President of China, Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan are due to stay there next month.

The collapse was caused by leaking rainwater. The Queen’s palace may be crumbling, but even after 63 years and 213 days, her reign is not.