Her Majesty has once again been the epitome of Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’

The Queen once famously said of life in the House of Windsor: “Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and of family disagreements.”

While the events of the past 10 days will undoubtedly have taken their toll on our 93-year-old monarch, Her Majesty’s decisive action over the Duke and Duchess of Sussex not only reminds us who is boss – but why.

Harry and Meghan’s split from The Firm is certainly momentous – but as anyone who has watched The Crown will tell you, it is really only the biggest royal crisis since… the last one.

The nearly 68 years the Queen has spent on the throne have borne witness to all manner of domestic dramas – adultery, divorce, death.

So much so, in fact, that there is enough material for a long-running Netflix series.

Yet throughout it all there has been one constant – a woman who at the tender age of 21 so deftly declared: “My whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service.”

As all around her have repeatedly lost their heads, the Queen has remained the epitome of Rudyard Kipling’s If – or the modern day Elizabethan equivalent so beloved of mug and tea towel makers: “Keep calm and carry on.”