Princess Beatrice and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor reportedly deliberately put on a display of "power play" a few years before the tensions between the disgraced royal and the family heightened. Although her fellow royals curtsied to the late Queen Elizabeth II on her 93rd birthday, Beatrice, 37, was reportedly seen offering a smile to her late grandmother instead of the traditional royal greeting.

According to body language expert Judi James, Beatrice and Andrew's choice not to carry out the traditional etiquette shows signs they were already "deviating" from royal protocol six years prior. Speaking of Andrew and his eldest daughter, Ms James told the Daily Mail: "Beatrice clearly shuns the act of respectfully greeting the other royal women so studiously and emphatically and stands upright and stares as her grandmother passes and walks into the church.

"It gives the impression that Andrew is performing some status-leap frogging to define his own 'special role' in the family with a spot of non-verbal power play."

Calling the move as "deliberately casual", she added: "He makes a bee-line for the spot nearest the door so he and Beatrice can dart in right behind the Queen, leaving Princess Anne lingering to one side and his brother Edward right at the back of the royal line."

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