No trick photography has taken place. There has been no digital enhancement by some special effects boffin. This spectacular image of the Sovereign – published in Weekend for the very first time – really is the Queen, standing next to a remote stream called Gelder Burn on her Balmoral Estate.
She is dressed in the green velvet mantle of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, the Scottish counterpart to England’s Order of the Garter. From her shoulders, held by white satin ties, hangs the Collar of the Order made of golden thistles and rue sprigs, from which, in turn, hangs a tiny St Andrew and his saltire cross.
With the heather, the sky, the hills and the babbling brook flowing down towards the mighty River Dee, everything is gloriously Scottish, with one honourable exception. Given the abundance of greenery involved, the Queen has decided to match it all with the emerald-festooned Vladimir Tiara.
This magnificent scene is one of more than 100 portraits in a new book, Keepers, a landmark publication to mark the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s Coronation. It is a spectacular history of Britain which charts our national story not through buildings or battles but through the human institutions that have shaped it.