BBC

"Robert Lacey, author of A Brief Life of the Queen, says she would have been prepared for the news, even if her father's death from a coronary thrombosis was a shock.

"Her private secretary carried sealed envelopes containing a draft Accession Declaration. She was ready but it was a secret that was shared with few people."

It is said that she reacted stoically, and showed little immediate distress. "She was sitting erect, fully accepting her destiny," Martin Charteris is quoted as saying in Lacey's book. No-one saw any tears."

Here is the text in full of the Queen's 2011 Christmas message, which was recorded by the BBC on 9 December - before her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, was treated in hospital for a blocked coronary artery.

"In this past year my family and I have been inspired by the courage and hope we have seen in so many ways in Britain, in the Commonwealth and around the world.

Demonstrations of any type, political or otherwise are rare in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – bear in mind this is a country with no legal political parties or popular mass movements. "There is no history of public protests, even in support of the government," said Jaafar al-Shayeb, a city councilor and businessman in al-Qatif – quoted this week in the Guardian Newspaper.

Broadcast on the BBC World Service’s Newshour on Friday March 11th 2011, I was in discussion with the BBC’s Claire Balderson and Paul Wood in Riyadh, talking about the Saudi "Day of Rage".

Catch these word-wizards on BBC Radio 4's "Quote Unquote" now! In the photo, from left to right Dr Phil Hammond, Britain's funniest doctor; Quotemeister and host Nigel Rees; the wise and wonderful Yasmin Alibhai-Brown; Myself (the only one in a tie), and stand-up comic Miles Jupp and kneeling on the floor - , the reader of all the quotations. -- at our recording of the latest shows in Nigel Rees's long-running series.