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With an exaggerated sweep of his top hat and a wicked grin, Mike Tindall achieved the impossible this week — diverting the camera lenses from a bevy of glamorous princesses to a retired rugby player whose most famous feature is a nose broken eight times in the line of duty.
His performance, greeting one royal then another with a smile, a wink, a squeeze and a hug in the parade ring at Royal Ascot was not just a theatrical tour de force. It was also entirely natural.
How very different that Ascot gathering might have been if Anne had not rejected the Queen’s offer to make Zara a princess. Even someone as ebullient as Tindall, a lad from the West Yorkshire market town of Otley, might have felt confined by the protocol and decorum of it all.
Mike Tindall showed off his best magic trick to the Queen at Royal Ascot on Tuesday, removing his top hat to reveal a miniature replica tucked inside. He has since revealed it was made of chocolate and was a gift he was taking home for his daughter Mia, five
The former rugby player told how he was given the replica version at lunch but had nowhere to store it, so kept it safe underneath his hat. The monarch looked baffled and amused by the trick, which also seemed to tickle Sophie (centre), Countess of Wessex and Princess Beatrice (left)
Instead his lack of ceremony — and Zara’s good-humoured warmth — has brought a much-needed touch of lightness to the Windsor clan while stopping short (just) of foolishness.
Comic relief: Red nose at Cheltenham Festival, 2015
He is, say friends from his rugby-playing days, a force of nature, possessing the kind of sense of humour that is infectious. Anyone who can make the imperious Princess Royal, so frosty on public occasions, dissolve into giggles must have deep reserves of character.
One of Tindall’s ex-Gloucester rugby clubmates says: ‘He likes to be the heart and soul of a party, but he does know the boundaries, he doesn’t seek out the limelight.
‘It was the same approach he had to playing. He liked to make things happen, but he knew it was a team game — it wasn’t all about him.’
Yet for all his sure-footedness as an outstanding player for his country — he was part of England’s 2003 World Cup winning side — it has been the way he has smoothly adjusted to marriage to the Queen’s favourite granddaughter which has been striking.
Mike and his wife Zara were in high spirits at the Berkshire racecourse as the Royal Family gathered for day one of Ascot
Zara’s husband Mike put on an affectionate display with Prince William, reaching his hands forward to cradle the royal’s face
Only the most confident — or indulged — of royal in-laws would have played the fool as he did so divertingly as he greeted Zara’s grandmother. Bowing and removing his morning suit top hat, he revealed a miniature version concealed inside.
The Countess of Wessex, standing alongside the Queen, threw back her head and laughed out loud. And as Tindall completed the party trick by popping both hats back on his head the Queen, too, dissolved into laughter.
But then the sovereign enjoys the company of the blunt-speaking Tindall. At Windsor Castle shooting parties, the former rugby star who captained his country in 2011, is always close to the Queen. ‘Sometimes there is an element of going a bit too far,’ says a member of the Queen’s private staff. ‘Invariably, Zara will shoot him a look and he quietens down. But he does like having a laugh.’
Britain’s Prince Harry (left), Mike Tindall (centre) and Britain’s Princess Anne, Princess Royal (right) laugh as they attend the Patron’s Lunch, a special street party outside Buckingham Palace in London on June 12, 2016
Princess Anne and Mike Tindall Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials, Oxfordshire, Britain in 2012
On one occasion, Tindall picked up a false eyelash which had fallen off another guest and stuck it on his upper lip like a moustache. Did the Queen laugh? ‘Oh yes,’ recalls an aide. ‘She always finds that sort of thing amusing.’ According to a former aide, the Queen gets on better with Tindall than with her son-in-law, Vice-Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, who has been married to Princess Anne for 27 years.
Prince George is carried by Mike Tindall at the Burnham Horse Trials
‘Poor old Tim has never been allowed to forget that he was once an equerry,’ says the aide. ‘It’s not malice, but simply a fact and he is very dull. No one has an unkind word to say about Mike, they treat him very much as he is. The Duke of Edinburgh has a particular rapport with him. He likes the fact that Mike never seems overawed.’
Even when he does speak of the royals, he manages to do so without causing offence. Recalling that he’d worn a red Santa suit at Sandringham last Christmas, he quipped of the occasion: ‘By the time I’d normally be getting up, I’ve been to church twice.’ Then, in a reference to the royals’ habit for formal dressing, he added: ‘I’ve never had to take so many outfits anywhere.’
Ever since he blew into Zara’s life — they met in the hours after his epic triumph with England in Sydney nearly 16 years ago — Tindall, 40, has handled his status as royal boyfriend turned royal in-law with considerable panache. It might have gone horribly wrong. In 2011, weeks after he and Zara were married, Tindall was at the centre of an off-field storm at that year’s World Cup. He was seen on CCTV fooling around with a blonde at a New Zealand bar where dwarf-throwing was advertised.
Zara Phillips & Mike Tindall wave to Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the Royal family in the carriage procession on Day one of Royal Ascot at Ascot Racecourse
The episode damaged his rugby career, but Zara was untroubled. And if she had any doubts, Princess Anne, who had a troubled marriage to Zara’s father, Captain Mark Phillips, kept them to herself.
More from Richard Kay for the Daily Mail…
Zara and Tindall are the most demonstrably affectionate of royal couples. And they are just the same with daughters Mia, five, and Lena, one this week. Somehow it’s catching. If Mike and Zara are displaying affection publicly, so will William and Kate. Tindall is a favourite with all Zara’s cousins, especially rugby-loving William and Harry. ‘He plays the fool in the nicest way,’ says a lady-in-waiting. ‘Everybody adores having him around.’
This weekend, however, is a special test. Tindall and Zara are guests of the Queen at Windsor. It certainly is a measure of how fond the Queen is of them. William and Kate have not been houseguests this week.
MIke Tindall and Zara Tindall arrive for the wedding ceremony of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle in Windsor, near London May last year
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