It's not often the Queen lets her true feelings show through - and often maintains an air of mystery.
But last year, she appeared to reveal how she really felt about former Health Secretary Matt Hancock during a meeting with Boris Johnson.
Mr Hancock, who has just given an interview on the Diary of a CEO podcast, was at the time leading the UK's response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
That pandemic had forced the Queen and the Prime Minister to hold their weekly meetings over the phone rather than in person for over a year.
And at their first in-person audience in 15 months last June, a camera captured their opening remarks.
After exchanging brief pleasantries with Mr Johnson, the monarch said: “I’ve just been talking to your Secretary of State for Health, poor man…”
“He came for privy council,” she said. “..he’s full of, er…”
Mr Johnson interjected, to suggest Mr Hancock was full of “beans.”
But the Queen appeared to say either “promises" or "confidence.
“He thinks things are getting better,” she said.
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Mr Johnson replied: “Well, er, they are.”
Just days after that exchange Mr Hancock resigned after leaked CCTV showed him in a clinch with adviser Gina Coladangelo in his Whitehall office.
The footage was taken on May 6 2021, when indoor social gatherings of people from different households were banned under law and guidance urged people to stay two metres apart and avoid "face to face contact".
Mr Hancock initially clung on to his job and Mr Johnson was criticised for failing to sack him.
But the following day he resigned after admitting he had broken his own Covid guidance.
In a lengthy interview with the Diary of a CEO podcast, Mr Hancock said he fell in love with Ms Coladangelo - whom he has known since his student days - while they were working together at the Department for Health and Social Care.
He left his wife and children to start a relationship with Ms Coladangelo, who was also married with children.
The West Suffolk MP said: "It all happened quite quickly, It actually happened after the rules were lifted, but the guidance was still in place.
"So I’m not trying to claim that, I hold no bitterness about this because I broke the rules, I fess up, I broke the guidance.”
