She famously chided Prince Philip for complaining about photographers taking pictures of them when they were newlyweds having fun in Malta in the late 1940s, saying “Philip, they’re only doing their job. Now you’ve married me, you’ll have to lump it.”

In 1969 she even invited the television cameras into film a seminal fly-on-the-wall documentary about the Royal Family in public and in private.

Now, however, she and her family have joined the tiresome bandwagon of celebrities seeking to stop any media coverage of them that is not on their carefully-controlled terms, invoking their so-called right to privacy.

In the past couple of weeks lawyers for the Royal Family have threatened media organisations twice, warning them, first, to stay away from Sandringham while the royals are there this autumn and winter . 

The second warning was to keep photographers away from Prince Harry and a group of his chums, who are currently on holiday in Botswana.

What could Prince Harry be up to with those chums, who include television presenter Natalie Pinkham, that would make him nervous about anyone taking a photograph? 

And why would the Royal Family be equally nervous about photographers taking pictures of them on a 20,000-acre country estate, much of which is open to visitors and tourists?

Could it be perhaps that the Queen and her advisers have been severely embarrassed by stories about Prince Edward allegedly mistreating a dog while on a shoot at Sandringham?  

Photographs of the incident last year led to an RSPCA investigation that could have led to the Prince being prosecuted, though it was eventually dropped.

Equally, you may recall stories about Prince Harry being accused of shooting a hen harrier, a legally protected species, though that investigation was also dropped due to lack of evidence.

As it happens, we haven’t sent anyone to cover Prince Harry on his holiday. 

But there would be a good public interest argument in doing so if, for example, we discovered that the third in line to the throne had fallen in love or, alternatively, was keeping company with some unsavoury characters.

The response from the Royal Family and its advisers is that it is none of our business. A senior adviser to Prince Charles, for example, argues that the famous toe-sucking pictures of Fergie should never have been published. 

He insists the public had no right to know she was lying about her relationship with a man she had described as her “financial adviser”.

It is my personal belief, however, that we have a right to know just about everything that the royals do because of their status as a publicly-funded family that is supposed to embody everything that is good about the nation.

When they don’t live up to those ideals, we have a right to know. Who their friends are, what those friends believe in, and what romantic relationships the royals have are all legitimate areas of public interest in my view.

What Prince Harry does on holiday is a matter for me to be interested in because I, along with millions of other taxpayers, am paying for the police protection officers accompanying him almost wherever he goes.

Where the detective stops – outside the toilet and the bedroom – is where in my view legitimate public interest strays into the prurient and goes beyond the pale.

The Royal Family, however, and its advisers think that the media and the public’s interest should be confined to what the Queen and her relations do while on duty, meeting charity workers, soldiers, promoting national unity and the like.

Unfortunately for them, if that happens then public interest in the Royal Family will wither and die and the institution of monarchy will disappear with it.

In an age of celebrity, the drawing power of the British Royal Family partly reflects the international interest in their glamorous private lives and relationships.

If they are badly advised enough to try to block the public’s interest in that side of their lives, then they will soon find nobody is interested in whatever else they do.

In the last week or so there has been much interest in efforts by lawyers to attack free speech and block the Mother of Parliaments from debating allegations of toxic waste being dumped.

It is sad to see the Royal Family making the mistake of employing the same sort of “reputation management experts” to try to block a free press making legitimate enquiries in a different branch of journalism.

Yes, there are times when the media oversteps the mark. The News of the World’s systematic interception of Prince William and Harry’s mobile phone messages were, for example, unjustifiable.

But down the ages writers seeking to give an honest and rounded portrayal of public figures have chronicled their private as well as public lives.

Samuel Pepys, for example, one of our great literary figures, wrote disparagingly about  Charles II and his mistresses and his misuse of money.

It is true that his diary was only published much later but I hate to think how today’s royal spindoctors and reputation managers would have reacted to some of his revelations and so-called breaches of privacy.