For the first time in history, the private rooms of the late Queen Elizabeth II at the Scottish palace of Holyroodhouse are being opened to the public. King Charles III approved the visit to mark the centenary of his mother's birth - April 21, 2026 - and is letting visitors into rooms that until recently were among the most closely guarded royal secrets.

Holyroodhouse is the official seat of the British monarchs in Scotland, and Elizabeth used to spend a week there every June - a ceremonial visit she considered more of a home holiday than an obligation. These private rooms were her personal space: where she ate breakfast in silence with Prince Philip, where she went through the red boxes of state documents, where she received Scottish scholarship students.

The most unexpected detail of the opening is a teddy bear named Haddington. The queen always asked staff to place him on the sofa before her arrival - not as decoration, but as a symbol of something domestic in a very formal atmosphere. Little rituals that come out after death, that until now were part of the daily life of a woman we thought we knew.

The exhibition also includes her wardrobe from the Scottish visits - tartan shirts, sturdy coats for sheep-farm tours, blue-pink formal dresses for the Sunday receptions. All from the period between 1953 and 2022, in which Holyroodhouse always stood apart from Buckingham Palace and its PR calculations.

Admission to the private rooms costs 71 pounds (around 82 euros if bought online) and includes a guided tour plus access to the rest of the palace. The exhibition runs from May 21 to September 10, 2026. For those who wanted a glimpse of the woman before she became a monarch, this is the closest the British crown has ever let anyone get.