Royal Expert Shares How The Queen Gets Through The Tough Times In Her Family

Queen Elizabeth II has certainly had a rough time of it over the past year and a half or so. Just before the coronavirus pandemic began, her grandson Harry and his wife Meghan Markle caused headlines when they decided to leave Great Britain and their royal family duties behind for life in Southern California (via People). Soon, the Queen had to self-isolate away from public life as so many others did when COVID-19 changed the world. A little over a year later, the Queen lost her husband of 73 years, Prince Philip, in April of 2021.

Soon after losing Philip at the age of 99, the 95-year-old Queen has had to deal with even more scandal. In September, her eldest son, Prince Charles came under fire for allegedly paying people to set up meetings with wealthy donors like a Saudi billionaire who would give to Charles' preferred charities, according to The Guardian. Later that same month, her second son, Prince Andrew, was sued for sexual assault by an American woman who alleges Andrew had relations with her when she was only 17 (via CNN). That's a lot for one longtime monarch to take in a short period of time, but thankfully, she has a way to get through it all.

While Queen Elizabeth's rough 2020 and 2021 seemed to involve one heartache or scandal after another, after seven decades as England's reigning monarch, the Queen is used to hard times. Still, through it all, royal author Matthew Dennison told Fox News that she has relied on her faith to deal with all she has endured in the past and more recently.

"She has a strong religious faith," Dennison said. "One of the things that the queen has done is pray throughout all of this. She also has a loyal, supportive group of private secretaries, ladies in waiting and devoted friends who have been a strong system around her. She also has the support of her close-knit family."

In fact, while conducting interviews for his latest royal biography simply titled "The Queen," Dennison said that the Queen's faith kept coming up as one of the more important things in her life.

"She has a connection with the divine," he said. "She is a monarch who made a promise before God to fulfill her duty. And it's a promise she has taken very seriously in her life."