{"id":630136,"date":"2026-08-10T12:40:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T12:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/630136\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T12:40:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T12:40:24","slug":"what-is-the-balmoral-test-how-to-pass-the-royal-familys-rite-of-passage-which-saw-margaret-thatcher-crumble-and-princess-diana-triumph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/630136\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the Balmoral Test? How to pass the royal family&#8217;s rite of passage, which saw Margaret Thatcher crumble and Princess Diana triumph"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, however, found that things came less naturally during her weekend with the late Queen. From misunderstanding the rules of Ibble Dibble, to being forced to borrow appropriate shoes on a rain-soaked walk, Gillian Anderson depicted Thatcher as, for once, out of her depth (another tip for Balmoral-goers: ensure you have brought a wardrobe for every possible occasion, from black-tie dinners to hunting and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tatler.com\/topic\/fishing\" isautogenerated=\"true\" class=\"text link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fishing<\/a> in the River Dee).<\/p>\n<p>The real Iron Lady is said to have described her trip to Balmoral as \u2018purgatory\u2019, while The Independent describes how the royals \u2018put [her] through the ringer\u2019. The Telegraph has stated that the second-hand wellies were true to life.<\/p>\n<p>In a tribute to the late queen, former Prime Minsiter Theresa May recalled a memory of her own time at Balmoral, when she dropped some cheese on the floor during a picnic. \u2018I turned around to see that my every move had been watched very carefully by Her Majesty the Queen,\u2019 Mrs May said. \u2018I looked at her, she looked at me, and she just smiled.\u2019<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Image may contain Elizabeth II Anne Princess Royal Clothing Formal Wear Suit Coat Face Head Person and Photography\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"ResponsiveImageContainer-dkeESL cQPiWi responsive-image__image\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/106754818.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Princess Anne, her son Peter Phillips and Queen Elizabeth II, at Balmoral in 1979<\/p>\n<p>Keystone-France\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>And while Diana may have won over the royals during her Balmoral Test, the Princess would later say that her visits to the estate would be surrounded by \u2018negative atmospheres\u2019, filling her with stress and sapping her of energy. \u2018I panic a lot when I got up to Balmoral,&#8217; she told told Andrew Morton. &#8216;It&#8217;s my worst time, and I think: \u201cHow the hell am I going to get out of this?\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, however, found that things came less naturally during her weekend with the late Queen.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[74],"tags":[18,3617,19,17,8505,82],"class_list":["post-630136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-eire","tag-features","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-royals","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117071264184367756","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}