The Royal Family are known for being stoic and poised in all situations, and are rarely seen visibly flabbergasted, scared or angry.
But the royals are only human after all and of course experience moments of uncontrollable emotion, however atypical this may be for them.
Body language expert Judi James spoke exclusively to Express.co.uk about the most un-royal moment caught on camera.
She commented: “There are any number of the kind of un-royal moments that prove the family can be as human as the rest of us when it comes to pulling faces; having wardrobe malfunctions, or nodding off at the wrong time but there is one moment captured from royal history that shows the famously stoic and ‘stiff upper lip’ royals have on one occasion at least, let the mask of public bravado slip and show fear in front of the camera.
“It’s the unbroken record of the royals to avoid any signals of fear or weakness that makes this moment so memorable. Charles is a man who has been shot at on stage without any fear response whatsoever and who acts coolly disinterested when being pelted with eggs on a walkabout.
“Camilla is the woman who survived being labelled as the UK’s most hated woman and managed to appear by Charles’s side in public with little other than a regal smile, knowing she was likely to be booed on a regular basis.
“The attempted kidnap of Princess Anne saw her car being attacked by the kidnapper and the only feedback was that she coolly clung onto the inner door handle and refused to allow the man to break in.”
But on the odd occasion it is impossible to remain unflappable, for example when King Charles and Queen Camilla’s car was attacked by protestors in 2010. In this scary instance they displayed pure, unfiltered emotion.
Usually cool, calm and collected, this terrifying experience was enough to prompt a very visceral reaction from the royals.
Judi claimed: “This moment, photographed during the London Riots of 2018, reveal a much more natural, human and understandable body language reaction.
“The fear in both Camilla and Charles’s faces here as the car taking them to the Royal Variety Show came under attack, being paint bombed, kicked and rocked, is a very real response to something that should probably never have been allowed to happen.”
According to Judi, the couple’s initial instinct tells us a lot about their relationship.
She observed: “Both Camilla and Charles have their mouths open in an ‘O’ of utter surprise and shock and we can see Charles firstly clutching Camilla’s white-knuckled hand in what appears to be a gesture of reassurance but also what looks like Camilla holding her hand out partly across Charles, possibly to protect him.”
She concluded: “It’s a very dramatic photo of royals doing, not what they ought not to do but, in showing their fear response openly, showing what they don’t tend to do thanks to their own ‘rules’ about stoic responses.”
At the time, a statement from Clarence House read: “We can confirm that their royal highnesses’ car was attacked by the protesters on the way to their engagement at the London Palladium this evening. Both their royal highnesses were unharmed.”
